Licensing Power Apps within the Power Platform

Anna Gajdowicz Anna Gajdowicz February 7, 2024

Microsoft Power Platform: An Introduction to the Low-Code/No-Code Platform

Microsoft Power Platform is a comprehensive low-code/no-code platform that enables organizations to quickly adapt to business changes, increase operational efficiency, and leverage data to make better business decisions. With its lack of coding requirements, easy integration with existing systems, and utilization of the latest artificial intelligence technologies, Power Platform is gaining popularity among businesses worldwide.
Power Platform consists of several key components that revolutionize the way businesses create and manage applications. It’s worth taking a closer look at one of them – Power Apps – and the optimal licensing model available for various business needs. However, before we delve into Power Apps, let’s clarify what exactly Power Platform includes.

Key Components of Microsoft Power Platform

  • Power Apps: A low-code tool for creating business applications that can be customized to the unique needs of organizations. It enables rapid development of user interfaces and integration with various data sources, supporting business processes.
  • Power Automate: A platform for automating business processes through the creation of workflows. It allows for the automation of repetitive tasks and integration of various applications and services.
  • Microsoft Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agent): A system for creating intelligent bots and chatbots that can handle customer interactions and automate communication across different channels. The tool, known as Copilot, assists users in every action by automatically transforming sketches, images, and documents.
  • Power Pages: A tool for building customer portals without the need for coding, enabling rapid creation and publishing of web pages and extranets.
  • Power BI: An advanced data analysis and visualization platform that allows for the generation of interactive reports and monitoring of key business indicators.

As well as

  • Microsoft Dataverse: A cloud-based data storage solution that can be used by all Power Platform applications, providing a consistent and integrated data source.
  • AI Builder: A feature that enhances business performance by automating processes and predicting outcomes using artificial intelligence in conjunction with Power Apps, Power Automate, or Dynamics 365. It supports various scenarios, such as forecasting or business card reading. Some of the aforementioned components already include AI Builder credits (capacity).

Power Apps Licensing Options

Power Apps is a low-code/no-code application platform that enables the creation, modernization, and deployment of various applications for teams, departments, or entire organizations. It can be used to customize existing Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 applications, making it an indispensable tool in the process of digital business transformation.

There are three main Power Apps licensing options:

  1. Power Apps Premium:
    Ideal for companies needing an unlimited number of applications for their users. Under one license, employees have access to all Power Apps features and capabilities, regardless of the number of applications they need to run.
  2. Power Apps per app This option allows individual users to use one custom application or one Power Pages website. It’s a good solution for those who only need access to a specific number of applications within their role. One user can be covered by multiple “per app” licenses, allowing them to use different solutions tailored to different business scenarios.
  3. Power Apps per app pay-as-you-go:

    For companies wanting to pay only for actual application usage. This option allows users to run one custom application, paying for users using the application in a given month. To set up pay-as-you-go billing for an environment based on actual usage, you need to have an active Azure platform subscription first, which can be connected to this environment. This can be done in the Power Platform admin center or within Power Apps. Details: Configuring usage-based billing plan – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

The recommended option, which is also endorsed by the manufacturer, is Power Apps Premium. This plan offers the most features and flexibility, allowing the creation of multiple separate applications or combining them into comprehensive solutions, making it the best option for most companies. Power Apps Premium can be purchased for less than 20 euros per month.