Microsoft Power Apps Pricing: What Business Central Customers Really Need to Know (2026)
Key takeaways:
- Every user who needs to run a Business Central connected Power App requires a Power Apps Premium licence, which costs £15.40/user/month (excl. VAT) on an annual commitment.
- That’s the only recurring cost that scales with your user count, app count, workflow complexity, and Dataverse usage don’t change the licence fee.
- A Forrester study commissioned by Microsoft found Power Apps Premium delivers 206% ROI over three years, with organisations recovering their investment within six months.
- Implementation costs vary depending on app complexity, but the licensing model itself is simple to budget for.
Business Central is a capable ERP, but there will always be processes it can’t handle out of the box. A warehouse team that needs a mobile scanning app. A manager who wants to approve purchases from their phone. An engineer submitting job notes from site. These are exactly the gaps Power Apps is built to fill.
The question most Business Central customers ask is what it actually costs. This guide breaks down the licensing model clearly, covers what drives implementation costs, and flags a few things worth knowing before you start planning.
Why Power Apps matters for Business Central customers
Business Central handles your core operations well, but it wasn’t built to be a mobile-first tool for every role in the business. Power Apps lets you build clean, lightweight apps that connect directly to your Business Central data in real time, so staff who rarely touch the ERP can still interact with it in a way that actually works for them.
The adoption figures reflect how well this works in practice. Power Apps is currently used by 86% of Fortune 500 companies, and 25 million users globally benefit from solutions built on the platform every month. For Business Central customers specifically, the ability to extend the ERP without waiting for a full development cycle is a genuine time-saver.
Power Apps licence options
There are three licence paths to know about. Two are relevant for production use, one is for development and testing only.
Power Apps Developer Plan (free)
The Developer Plan is free and gives developers access to three isolated environments to build and test apps before deploying them. It supports up to 750 automation flows per month and includes 2GB of Dataverse storage. It’s useful for exploring what’s possible before committing to anything.
You cannot deploy apps to production users with this plan. Once you’re ready to go live, users need a paid licence.
Power Apps Premium (£15.40/user/month excl. VAT)
Power Apps Premium is the main production licence. Every user who needs to run a Business Central connected app requires one. The current UK price is £15.40/user/month on an annual commitment, excluding VAT.
With this licence, users can build and run unlimited apps, which means you’re not paying more as your needs grow. It also includes Dataverse, premium connectors, agentic features, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat in apps.
For organisations with 2,000 or more users, an enterprise tier is available at a reduced rate with the same feature set. Contact Microsoft or your partner directly for UK enterprise pricing.
What about Power Apps in Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 includes limited Power Apps capabilities, but they only support standard connectors like SharePoint and Excel. They cannot connect to Business Central. If any of your app workflows involve ERP data, everyone who uses those apps will need a Power Apps Premium licence regardless of what M365 plan they’re on.
Licence comparison
| Feature | Developer Plan (Free) | M365 Included | Power Apps Premium (£15.40/user/month excl. VAT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build and test apps | Yes | Limited | Yes |
| Deploy to production users | No | Limited | Yes |
| Connect to Business Central | Test only | No | Yes |
| Premium connectors | Test only | No | Yes |
| Dataverse included | 2GB (dev only) | No | Yes (250MB database + 2GB file) |
| Unlimited apps per user | No | No | Yes |
| Agentic and Copilot features | No | No | Yes |
What actually affects your licensing cost
Because Power Apps Premium includes unlimited apps per user, your licensing cost comes down to one variable: how many users need to run Business Central connected apps.
Workflow complexity doesn’t change the licence fee. The number of apps you build doesn’t change it. Dataverse usage doesn’t change it unless you need extra storage beyond what’s included. This makes budgeting much more straightforward than most people expect going in.
What the experts say
“Power Apps changes the conversation around Business Central from ‘what can the ERP do?’ to ‘what do you actually need?’ Most of the time, the answer is a simple mobile tool that lets a specific team interact with the right data at the right moment. That’s a two-week build, not a six-month development project. The licensing cost is rarely the obstacle. It’s knowing what to build first.”
Bhavesh Gadhvi, Managing Director, Dynamics Connect
What it looks like in practice
The best way to understand the value is to look at real use cases where Power Apps fills a Business Central gap.
Warehouse scanning app: Staff scan items, check stock levels, and post updates directly into Business Central from a mobile device. Reduces paper-based errors and removes the need to walk back to a desktop terminal to log activity.
Purchase approval app: Managers receive approval requests on their phone and approve them with a single tap. Business Central updates instantly. Keeps purchasing moving without creating bottlenecks when a decision-maker is out of the office.
Field service data capture: Engineers submit photos, job notes, and completion updates from a Power App on site. The data feeds straight into Business Central, removing the manual admin at the end of the day.
These apps are quick to build, easy to use on mobile, and make Business Central feel like it was designed around the way your team actually works rather than the other way around.
Implementation costs: what to expect
Licensing is the predictable part. Implementation is where the range widens, and it’s worth understanding what drives costs before you get into scoping conversations with a partner.
The main factors that affect build time and cost are the number of screens and the complexity of the logic involved, whether the app needs offline capability or camera and barcode scanning, how much data is flowing between Power Apps and Business Central, whether Dataverse tables need to be configured from scratch, and how much training and testing is needed across different teams.
Simple approval apps or basic data entry tools can be built quickly. Apps that replace a complex manual process or restructure how a team interacts with Business Central take longer. It’s normal for a Business Central implementation that includes Power Apps to cost more than a standard setup, because you’re extending the system into workflows it wasn’t originally designed to cover.
A Forrester Total Economic Impact study commissioned by Microsoft found that organisations using Power Apps Premium achieved a 206% ROI over three years, with users saving an average of 250 hours per person on high-impact use cases and professional developers seeing a 50% reduction in app development time. The payback period was under six months.
Dataverse storage: worth keeping an eye on
Dataverse is included with Power Apps Premium and gives you a structured, secure way to store app data outside Business Central. Most Business Central customers stay well within the included storage, especially if apps are handling transactional data rather than large files.
If your apps collect photos, inspection records, or high volumes of operational data, you may eventually need additional storage. Dataverse Database Capacity add-ons are available at an additional cost per GB/month. It’s not something most teams hit early on, but it’s worth factoring into your projections if data collection is central to what you’re building. Speak to your partner for current UK pricing on storage add-ons.
How to budget for Power Apps alongside Business Central
Think about your costs in two buckets.
Licensing: Count the users who need to run Business Central connected apps and multiply by £15.40/user/month (excl. VAT, annual commitment). That’s your recurring licence cost. If that number is likely to be 2,000 or more, ask your partner about enterprise pricing.
Implementation: This varies based on the number of apps, the complexity of each workflow, and how much configuration your partner needs to do. Most partners can give you a solid estimate once they understand the specific processes you want to support. Start with one high-impact app rather than trying to build everything at once, and you’ll get a clearer picture of what’s involved before committing to a larger scope.
If you want to talk through what Power Apps could look like for your Business Central setup, get in touch and we can walk you through the options.
Frequently asked questions
- Does every Business Central user need a Power Apps Premium licence?
- No. Only users who need to run a Business Central connected Power App require the licence. Users who just work in Business Central directly are not affected.
- Can I use the Power Apps licence included in Microsoft 365 for Business Central apps?
- No. The Power Apps capabilities included in M365 only support standard connectors like SharePoint and Excel. Connecting to Business Central requires a Power Apps Premium licence.
- Is the Power Apps Per App Plan still available?
- The Per App Plan was removed from Microsoft’s licensing guide in January 2026 and is no longer available to most new customers. The standard options for 2026 are Power Apps Premium at £15.40/user/month (excl. VAT), or Pay-As-You-Go billing at £7.60/active user/app/month via Azure for lower-volume use cases.
- What is Pay-As-You-Go and when does it make sense?
- Pay-As-You-Go billing charges £7.60 per unique active user per app per month via an Azure subscription. You only pay when a user actually opens an app in a given month. It makes sense when users need access to a single low-frequency app and are unlikely to need multiple apps. For teams using several apps regularly, Premium is usually more cost-effective.
- Does the number of apps I build affect licensing cost?
- No. Power Apps Premium includes unlimited apps per user. Whether you build one app or twenty, the licence cost per user stays the same.
- Do I need Dataverse to connect Power Apps to Business Central?
- Not necessarily. Power Apps can connect to Business Central directly via the Business Central connector without storing data in Dataverse. Dataverse is included with Premium and is useful if you want to store app-specific data separately from Business Central, but it’s not always required depending on what you’re building.
- How long does it take to build a Power App for Business Central?
- Simple apps like approval workflows or basic data entry tools can be built in a few days to two weeks. More complex apps involving multiple screens, offline capability, camera input, or barcode scanning take longer. Your partner can give you a realistic estimate once the requirements are clear.
Sources
- Microsoft Power Apps UK Pricing and Per App Plan Retirement, January 2026
- Power Apps Licensing and Pricing (official page)
- Forrester Total Economic Impact of Power Apps Premium, 2024
- Power Apps with Business Central, July 2024
- Power Apps Per App Plan Retired, March 2026
- Connecting Power Apps to Business Central