• Do I need a license?
  • Power Apps / Nested Flows
• What kinds of licenses are available for Power Automate?
• How do I know what kind of license is best for me?
• Learn More about Power Automate Licenses

Do I need a license to use Power Automate?

Whether you need a license or not depends on two main things:

1. Are you a current/active UW staff-member, faculty, or student?
2. What do you want your Power Automate Flow to do, and for whom?

Currently, Power Automate Premium licensing is not yet available at UW. The UWare team is hard at work to make Premium licensing available, but there is no estimated date of availability. This page, as well as the UWare Software Catalog, will be updated as new Premium licenses become available. 

Power Automate for Current UW Users

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 Automate 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 Automate.

Uses for Your Power Automate Flow

Not all Power Automate flows are created equal: depending on what you want your flow to do or what kind of data you want available to the flow, your users may need more than the 'Basic' license.

Additionally, a 'Power Automate Basic' license can be used to create any number of flows that use the basic set of features; however, if you want to create flows that use any advanced features, you'll need an additional license.

A Note on Power Apps / Nested Flows

Sometimes, the only time your flow will be used will be as a part of a Power App. For example, say you have a Power App acting as a dashboard for approval requests; it makes sense to have a few Power Automate flows doing the actual work: one flow could trigger approval requests, while another will update requests' status. If important data related to your approval requests require a Premium connector to access, each flow would need access to Premium features.

In a case like this, it makes more sense to license the Power App itself instead. This is because Power Automate flows can inherit a Premium license from being called by a Premium-licensed Power App. 

The same holds true for so-called 'Nested Flows', or when a Power Automate flow is called by another Power Automate flow. Multiple flows can be called in a chain, with data or work results being passed up the chain in the process. If Flow A triggers Flow B, which triggers Flow C, and Flows A and C have Premium connectors, only Flow A actually needs Premium licensing, because any flow further down the chain (Flow C, in this example) would inherit the initial flow's licensing. 

Giving some thought and planning to what triggers your flows and how your flows (and Apps) relate to each other can greatly simplify your licensing needs, as well as save you significant money!

Click here to learn more about Power Apps and Power Apps Premium licensing options.

Types of Power Automate Licenses

There are three (3) flavors of Power Automate license, and each has slightly different features and use cases. The differences between them boil down to:

1. Capabilities - Different licenses grant access to different features, both for users and flow developers
2. Data Access - What kinds of data, where it's stored, and how much can be accessed all differs between license types
3. License Assignment - License types differ in how they're assigned and to whom/what the assignment applies
4. Price - Of course, each type has its own cost; check out the UWare page on Power Automate to see the most up-to-date pricing

Before we go into detail on each license, here's a summary of what each license type comes with:

Power Automate Basic

It's as the name suggests: the most basic tier of Power Automate, which comes with UW Office 365. 'Basic' users can build and run as many flows as they want, as long as those flows only use 'Standard' data connectors; the 'Basic' license also only covers flows that don't use Dataverse^[1], and it don't allow for custom database tables.

Power Automate Premium (Coming Soon)

The 'Premium' tier of Power Automate comes with all the bells and whistles: a license-holder can both run and develop an unlimited number of flows that use Premium features. They also can use any 'Premium' and 'Custom' data connectors, which means an flow can access data from a wide variety of sources that aren't just limited to SharePoint and OneDrive!

'Premium' users also can run/build flows that have full access to files and data stored in Dataverse; their flows 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 flows they build) and they get 5000 AI Builder service credits per month (renews each month, excess doesn't roll-over).

When they say 'Premium', they mean it!

Power Automate Process (Coming Soon)

The 'Premium' license looks real nice, but what if your Premium flow needs to be used by a lot of users? Licensing each individual user could become an operational pain (and could get expensive quick).

If that sounds like your use case, then the 'Process' license may be for you!

'Process' licenses aren't assigned to specific users; instead, they're purchased for an entire Power Platforms Environment of your choosing. Your environment administrator will then apply it to a specific Power Automate flow^[2]. For that specific flow, all users who call the flow get to take advantage of the same features and benefits of the 'Premium' license^[3]. 

So, why would you want a Process license? Process licenses are intended for flows that a large number of users will be triggering. For instance, if more than 10 users will be using your flow, a Process license may be more cost-effective. 

Additionally, Process licenses are required for auto-triggered Desktop flows. If your flow will be running on a local machine (not in the Cloud) and will be running without a person pressing buttons, you'll need a Process license. 

Pay-As-You-Go

'Premium' and 'Process' licenses are great, but they might be overkill for your needs. Perhaps your flow will run infrequently (say, quarterly or annually), or a small number of users will use it. A full 'Process' license might be too expensive compared to the expected usage for your flow, or paying an annual, upfront cost for a license might not make sense for your needs.

In that case, 'Pay-As-You-Go' may be the way for you!

Instead of paying a fixed annual license cost or needing to assign your license to specific users/flows, the 'Pay-As-You-Go' license is automatically billed as-needed. 'Pay-As-You-Go' is great for cases where you have a strong estimate of how many people will use an flow, but don't expect them to be using it very frequently.

Here's how 'Pay-As-You-Go' works:

Use any Power Automate flow that takes advantage of 'Premium' features; if the user has the Basic license / the flow doesn't have a Process license, your environment's Azure subscription is automatically billed a few cents for that flow run.

Need to run the flow again? Go ahead! Another few cents get added to the bill, same as before. This means that in some cases Pay-As-You-Go can be less expensive than every user or flow having its own license! It all depends on how many times you expect the flow to run per month.

Simple as that! Keep in mind, though: 'Pay-As-You-Go' licenses don't come with any Dataverse file or database storage, so the flow you use can only read from Dataverse - can't save anything if you have nowhere to save it to, after all!

Which license is best for me?

Ultimately, you'll have to weigh the pros and cons of each license against your needs as a user/flow 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:

• Do none of your flows need to take advantage of 'Premium' features? Stick with 'Power Automate Basic'.
• If you do need Premium features:
  • Will your flow be used by fewer than 10 unique users per month? Go with 'Premium' .
  • If not, will you be using flows every month? Or, will you be using unattended Desktop flows?
    • If yes, go with 'Per-Automate Process'.
  • If you're expecting to use flows infrequently, as-needed, or need the most flexibility in licensing, go with 'Pay-As-You-Go'.

Learn More

If you'd like a deeper dive into Power Automate licensing, here are some helpful links:

• Via Microsoft
  • Official 'Power Automate' Licensing Overview
  • MS Power Platform Licensing Guide