Licensing for MS Flow and PowerApps changed on October 1st. I was not sure how my clients are going to be affected by the changes and had to do a little digging. These changes were apparently discussed during Inspire 2019, back in July 2019.
The licensing page previously displayed the version packaged with Office 365 E3/E5 license and the Plan 1 and Plan 2. If you go to the plan page now (https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/), you will not see the version packaged with Office 365. There is no longer Plan 1 and Plan 2 either. Instead there is Per User Plan and Per Flow Plan. Per User Plan starts at $15/user/month while the Per Flow Plan starts at $500/month (for 5 flows). It appears pretty steep especially if you were using Plan 1 previously.
The Flow and Power Apps that we used to have as part of Office 365 licensing is, thankfully, still intact. The pricing site does not mention that though. This “Microsoft PowerApps and Microsoft Flow Licensing Guide” (PDF download) mentions the version included under “Seeded flow” through Office 365. The good part with this change is that there are no longer any limits such as maximum number of runs per month, or Maximum Flow frequency etc. There are limits in the form of Daily API Requests which are maxed to 2000. This 2000 limit is across Flow and PowerApps. If you are using PowerApps and Flow extensively, you need to be wary of this limit now. There is also limits on CDS (Common Data Service) capacities. Connectors are limited to Standard Connectors, which includes Office 365, SharePoint Exchange, Box etc, which should be sufficient for most scenarios. However, if you are connecting to on-premises sources (custom connectors), then you need to upgrade to Per User or Per Flow license. See the table below, a copy/paste from the download:
Flow use rights included with Office 365 licenses
Office 365 licenses include Flow use rights for the purpose of customizing and extending Office 365 applications.
Flow use within Office 365 is limited to the context of the embedding Office 365 application. For both triggers and actions, Flows included within the Office 365 application can connect to:
- Any data source within the use rights of the Office 365 application
- Directly with the Office 365 application (via built in trigger/action)
If the embedded Flow is not within the context of the Office 365 application or if the embedded Flow needs to connect to a premium on-premises or custom data source standalone Flow licenses will need to be purchased.
Summary of Flow use rights with Office 365 licenses
| Plans and capabilities | Flow use rights within Office 365 licenses | |
| Execute Flows1 | Workflows | Unlimited1 |
| Business process flows | – | |
| Connect to your data | Standard connectors | ⚫ |
| Premium connectors | – | |
| On-premises data gateway | – | |
| Custom connectors | – | |
| Store and manage data | Common data service use rights | – |
| Per license capacity | Daily API Requests1 | 2,000 |
1 Usage capacity is across both PowerApps and Flow; “PowerApps and Flow capacity add-on” can be purchased to increase daily service limits. More details at http://aka.ms/platformlimits
I am not really sure if this simplifies any more than what was in place before. As I read the licensing guide, I have a lot of questions. Maybe some of them will be answered during Ignite. There sure will be some ruckus there though. I have seen people not liking this new model. Those who were using Plan 1 will be affected. Those who were using Plan 2, will not feel much from the change. There is a FAQ for the licensing, PowerApps and Microsoft Flow licensing FAQs, which might help.
For your benefit, including the pictures below of the new licensing model followed by the old licensing model:
Pic 1: New MS Flow licensing model
Pic 2: Old MS Flow licensing model