Whether you need a license or not depends on two main things:
Current and active UW users are eligible for a UW Office 365 license. These licenses usually come standard with your UW status and give you access to things like MS Word, MS Excel, and MS Outlook. A neat bonus is that UW Office 365 license-holders also get to use 'Power Apps Basic' for free!
If you don't qualify for a UW Office 365 license, you'll either have to pay for one or get a separate license for Power Apps.
Not all Power Apps are created equal: depending on what you want your app to do or what kind of data you want available to the app, your users may need more than the 'Basic' license.
Additionally, a 'Power Apps Basic' license can be used to create any number of Power Apps that use the basic set of features; however, if you want to create Power Apps that use any advanced features, you'll need an additional license.
There are three (3) flavors of Power Apps license, and each has slightly different features and use cases. You should know about them all when deciding whether to use Premium features. The differences between the types boil down to:
Before we go into detail on each license, here's a summary of what each license type comes with:
| Capabilities | Premium | Pay-As-You-Go | Basic |
| Use Custom Power Apps/Sites | Unlimited | 1 App | Unlimited |
| AI Builder | 500 Credits | ||
| Premium/Custom Data Connectors | Yes | Yes | |
| On-Prem Data Gateways | Yes | Yes | |
| Dataverse Access | Yes | Yes | 'Dataverse for Teams' Only |
| Custom Dataverse Tables | Yes | Yes | |
| Dataverse Database Capacity | 250 MB | ||
| Dataverse File Capacity | 2 GB |
It's as the name suggests: the most basic tier of Power Apps, which comes with UW Office 365. 'Basic' users can build and run as many Power Apps as they want, as long as those apps only use 'Standard' data connectors; the 'Basic' license also only covers Power Apps that don't use Dataverse[1], and it don't allow for custom database tables.
The 'Premium' tier of Power Apps comes with all the bells and whistles: a license-holder can both run and develop an unlimited number of Power Apps and Power Apps-based websites. They also can use any 'Premium' and 'Custom' data connectors, which means an app can access data from a wide variety of sources that aren't just limited to SharePoint and OneDrive!
'Premium' users also can run/build apps that have full access to files and data stored in Dataverse; their apps can even take advantage of custom tables that aren't a part of Microsoft's Common Data Model.
Finally, 'Premium' users get two big bonuses over other license types: they get up to 2GB of Dataverse file storage + up to 250MB of Dataverse database storage (to share across all the Power Apps they build) and they get 500 AI Builder service credits per month (renews each month, excess doesn't roll-over).
When they say 'Premium', they mean it!
Let's say you know you're only going to use 1 or 2 Power Apps a month... but you aren't sure which specific ones you'll use. Or, let's say you know you'll use a Power App, but not every month (perhaps, an app that's used for a quarterly or annual task).
Or, let's say you want to publish a Power App for other users; you're not sure how many users may use it, or which exact users will use it, any given month.
In that case, 'Pay-As-You-Go' may be the way for you!
Instead of paying a monthly cost every month, or needing to assign your license to specific apps, the 'Pay-As-You-Go' license is automatically assigned to Power Apps users and apps as-needed. 'Pay-As-You-Go' is great for cases where you have a strong estimate of how many people will use an app, but don't expect them to be using it all at the same time.
'Pay-As-You-Go' is only available for use in a Power Platforms Environment with a compatible Azure Billing Subscription. If you do not already have a compatible environment, please contact help@uw.edu and request an environment be created.
Here's how 'Pay-As-You-Go' works:
Use any Power App that takes advantage of 'Premium' features; if it's the first time you're using the app this month, you're billed the 'Pay-As-You-Go' charge, and you can use that app as much as you want for the rest of the month!
Use a different app in the same month? You'll be automatically billed a second 'Pay-As-You-Go' charge, and now you can use both apps as much as you want through the end of the month.
At the end of the month, any 'Pay-As-You-Go' licenses in your name are automatically cancelled and you aren't charged again until the next time you use a 'Premium' Power App.
Simple as that! Keep in mind, though: 'Pay-As-You-Go' licenses don't come with any Dataverse file or database storage, so the Power Apps you use can only read from Dataverse - can't save anything if you have nowhere to save it to, after all!
Ultimately, you'll have to weigh the pros and cons of each license against your needs as a user/app developer to decide which is best for you. That said, we've boiled the decision tree down as much as we can to help you out:
If you'd like a deeper dive into Power Apps licensing, here are some helpful links: