Microsoft Power Apps pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing model

Microsoft

Microsoft Power Apps pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing model

(This article was updated on 9 June 2025.)

In November 2021, Microsoft made Power Apps available under the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model, alongside the traditional Per User/Per App options. This new model allows customers to pay based on active monthly app users, meaning if an app is not opened/used, there is nothing to pay.

How it works

To take advantage of the PAYG model, you connect the relevant Power Apps environment to an Azure subscription. You then pay for usage via the following three meters:

1. Power Apps per-app PAYG

The PAYG model ensures you only pay when a user runs an app – rather than the existing model of allocating licenses beforehand and seeing them consumed based on apps being shared rather than run.

An active user is, to Microsoft, someone who opens an app and/or a portal at least once a month. The cost is $10 per active user per app per month.

2. Dataverse PAYG

The Dataverse is where you can store and manage data used by PowerApps (as well as Power Pages, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents). Apps, flows, or websites using Dataverse will consume various quantities of:

• Dataverse Database
• File Capacity
• Log Capacity

For the Power Apps PAYG model, you get 1GB of database storage and 1GB of log storage included with each linked environment. Use beyond the free amount is charged at:

• Database – $48 per GB per month
• File – $2.40 per GB per month
• Log – $12 per GB per month

3. User Request PAYG

Across Microsoft’s Power Platform, request limits exist to help ensure service levels, availability, and quality of the platform. For both Power Apps PAYG model and the Per App model, the request limit is 6,000 requests per user, per app, per day. This measurement reflects all API requests to connectors and Microsoft Dataverse.

Microsoft believe this will be enough for most users. If it isn’t, any additional API calls are charged at $0.00004 per request per day.

Note that the requests example includes both Power Apps and Power Automate.

Managing Your Power Apps Environments

To manage your Power Apps environments, you can view detailed usage breakdowns within the new Power Platform Admin Center. This portal provides detailed information, reporting options, and management capabilities. Alternatively, the Azure Portal will provide aggregated billing information for PAYG environments.

Conclusion

The introduction of the PAYG pricing model for Power Apps offers an enticing alternative to the traditional models, particularly for organisations where their Cloud cost management/FinOps capabilities are stronger than ITAM. This model could provide better insights and more control, especially for organisations with more unpredictable workloads.

 

Further Reading

• Microsoft announcement
• Microsoft Docs

Can’t find what you’re looking for?