How Much an App Really Costs Power Apps
The listed price of a business application is almost always the wrong number. Not because it’s incorrect, but because it covers only part of what the company will actually pay—and because the missing part doesn’t become apparent until six months later, once the tool has been adopted.
The pricing, as published by Microsoft
Power Apps Premium: $20 per person per month, with an annual commitment, for an unlimited number of applications and pages for the subscriber. A $12 version is available for organizations with 2,000 or more users.
Two things deserve to be made clear, because they come as a surprise to policymakers who looked into this issue two or three years ago.
There are no longer any “per-app” plans. The model of paying a few dollars for a single app no longer exists in the current pricing structure. You hire a person, not a tool.
The price therefore does not depend on the number of applications, but on the number of users. This is a complete reversal of the usual pricing logic: the second application costs nothing in terms of licensing, and it is the hundredth user who incurs the cost.
Note: This shift changes the cost structure. Building a single tool for twenty people costs the same in licensing fees as building six. The savings, therefore, come from the development process rather than the scope of functionality.
The Three Costs We Tend to Overlook
Data storage. The plan includes a base allocation of 250 MB of database storage and 2 GB of file storage per person, shared at the tenant level. Beyond that, additional capacity is billed at $40 per GB per month. This is the most surprising cost, and it only becomes apparent with use: an application that stores photos from field visits or signed documents consumes storage without warning.
The people we hadn't counted on. The initial estimate was based on the team that would be using the tool. Six months later, management wants a dashboard, the accounting department wants access, and a partner wants to submit a request. Each of these access requests requires a licensing decision, and none of them were in the budget.
Migrating Existing Data. A tool that replaces a file must preserve its history. This is a one-time task that doesn’t require a license, but it’s a real effort: the more corrupted the original data is, the more it costs. The cost is estimated beforehand, by reviewing the file, not afterward.
What Really Causes a Budget to Go Off the Rails
It's almost never the license. It's the scope.
A project that starts out as “tracking service requests” and ends up as “and also billing, and also inventory, and also time off” didn’t cost more because Microsoft raised its prices. It cost more because no one said no, and because there was no reason to say no: adding a screen is easy, and that is precisely the danger of a platform that makes things easy.
The discipline that keeps the budget in check boils down to one rule: one tool, one problem, one deadline. The rest has to wait for the second tool.
How to Estimate Costs Before Making a Decision
- Count the number of people who will use the tool, not those who will hear about it.
- Add the people who will need to review it, and ask yourself whether a report wouldn't be enough.
- Estimate the volume of files the tool will receive over the course of a year, and see if it exceeds the included allowance.
- Estimate the cost of retrofitting the existing structure by looking at the current file, not by imagining it.
- Write up the scope of work on one page, and have the person paying sign it.
The first four points provide a reliable estimate of the order of magnitude. The fifth is the one that ensures the budget remains sustainable over the long term.
The Real Point of Comparison
The question isn’t “Is $20 expensive?” It’s: How much does it cost to operate without the tool today? Twenty minutes of double data entry per day for six people adds up to more over the course of a year than the license for the entire service. That’s the calculation that matters, and it doesn’t require any IT expertise.
Lambert Consulting Estimate the cost of these projects before committing to them, including the written scope. If the proposed tool goes beyond what the platform can do natively, that’s when the question of whether to develop it on Azure arises. And if you’re starting with a file, it’s worth checking the five signs that indicate it needs to be replaced first.
Microsoft Sources
What an article Can't Know
An article describes what applies to everyone. What varies from one organization to another is the inventory: which applications, which accounts, and which pieces of equipment are actually involved in your organization. The inventory determines the scope of the effort, and it cannot be summarized on a single page.
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