Your team built a Power Automate flow with Microsoft 365: an email arrives, the attachment is saved to SharePoint and a Teams notification goes out. It works well, until someone asks it to query the ERP and finds out it needs a premium connector or a custom one. How much does that cost, and who pays for it?
It depends on which connectors the flow uses, who triggers it and whether a desktop bot is involved. And there's a key date: on November 1, 2026, the AI Builder credit model changes.
In this guide you'll see what Microsoft 365 includes, what Premium, Process and pay-as-you-go cover, what changes with Copilot Credits, three cost scenarios and when another tool makes more sense.
How Power Automate is licensed: per user, per bot and pay-as-you-go
A Power Automate license is the right to create and run automations on the platform. Microsoft assigns it to a person (per user) or to a flow or machine (capacity-based, billed "per bot"), or replaces it with pay-as-you-go in an Azure-linked environment. The connectors and the type of run determine which one you need.
| License | Assigned to | List price (USD) | What it includes | Daily actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | User | No cost | Standard connectors, no flow sharing | 6,000 |
| Microsoft 365 | User | Included | Standard connectors | 6,000 |
| Premium | User | US$15 per month | Premium and custom connectors, one attended bot, process mining | 40,000 |
| Process | Flow or machine | US$150 per bot per month | Premium connectors for the flow, or one unattended bot | 250,000 |
| Hosted Process | Microsoft-hosted machine | US$215 per bot per month | Unattended bot on a Microsoft virtual machine | 250,000 |
| Pay-as-you-go | Azure-linked environment | US$0.60 or US$3.00 per run | Only premium runs are charged | Depends on each user |
These are list prices with annual billing, according to the official Power Automate pricing page (reviewed in October 2026). Microsoft states that they are "for marketing purposes only" and may vary by country; in Chile, taxes and the purchasing channel (direct or through a CSP partner) also come into play. During the current transition period, higher action limits than those shown in the table apply.
Power Automate included with Microsoft 365: standard vs. premium connectors
A connector is the prebuilt component that links a flow to a service through triggers and actions. Each one is either standard or premium, and that determines the license. Power Automate included with Microsoft 365 only covers cloud flows with standard connectors: it doesn't include premium or custom connectors, desktop bots orchestrated from the cloud or process mining.
| Connector type | Examples | Covered by Microsoft 365? |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, Forms, Excel Online | Yes |
| Premium | SQL Server, Salesforce, Microsoft Dataverse, the HTTP action | No |
| Custom | One built for your system's API | No |
A single premium connector is enough for Microsoft 365 to stop covering the flow.
Power Automate Premium: what it includes and its limits
Power Automate Premium is the per-user license that lets you create, run and share flows with standard, premium and custom connectors, and run desktop flows in attended mode with one included bot. It doesn't include unattended RPA.
What confuses people most is who needs it:
- For automated or scheduled flows, it's enough for the flow owner to have Premium. Exception: if the flow responds to whoever triggers it indirectly (for example, an email to the person who uploaded a file), that person also needs Premium.
- For instant flows (a button or an app), every person who runs it needs Premium, or the flow needs a Process license.
- People who only respond to an approval don't need Premium.
- Sharing one account with a single license so many people can use a premium flow is multiplexing, and Microsoft considers it a licensing violation.
Power Automate Process and Hosted Process: unattended bots
Power Automate Process is a capacity license assigned to a flow or a machine, not to a person. On a cloud flow, which must be inside a solution, it provides premium and custom connectors and 250,000 daily actions, no matter who uses it. On a machine, it turns that machine into an unattended bot that runs one desktop flow at a time.
Three details people tend to forget: each parallel unattended run requires its own Process license, the machine must be registered by a user with Premium, and the software the bot uses, such as Windows or Office, may require separate licenses.
Hosted Process adds a virtual machine that Microsoft manages in Azure, where the bot runs, so you don't have to maintain your own server.
Power Automate pay-as-you-go: how much each run costs
Power Automate pay-as-you-go is the model in which you link an environment to an Azure subscription and pay for each premium run instead of buying licenses. According to Microsoft's meters, it costs US$0.60 per cloud or attended run and US$3.00 per unattended or hosted RPA run (reviewed in October 2026).
You aren't charged for flows with standard connectors, test runs from the designer, resubmitted failed runs or anything the user's Premium license already covers. Keep in mind that these meters are still in preview, and you can't use Process licenses in that environment. Microsoft recommends this model for seasonal flows, or flows with few runs and many users.
AI Builder and Copilot Credits: what changes on November 1, 2026
AI Builder is the AI layer of Power Platform that, inside a flow, extracts data from documents or runs prompts. It's paid for with AI Builder credits, which Microsoft is replacing with Copilot Credits, the consumption currency of Copilot Studio (US$0.01 per credit on pay-as-you-go). Here's the timeline, according to Microsoft's official page (reviewed in October 2026):
- November 1, 2025: Microsoft stopped selling AI Builder add-ons to customers who didn't already have an active one.
- November 1, 2026: premium licenses you buy or renew from that date on no longer include AI Builder credits. If you bought or renewed before then, you keep them until the end of your contract; active add-ons can be used until they expire.
- From then on: AI Builder keeps working and consumes any remaining AI Builder credits first, then Copilot Credits; with neither, it's blocked.
If your flows read documents, check your renewal date and budget for Copilot Credits.
Cost scenarios for an SMB
Assumptions: list prices in USD (reviewed in October 2026), excluding taxes and build costs.
| Scenario | Typical license | Approximate list cost |
|---|---|---|
| Internal approvals with Forms, Teams and SharePoint | Microsoft 365 | No additional cost |
| Hourly scheduled flow that reads orders from the ERP with a custom connector | Premium for the owner | US$15 per month (with pay-as-you-go: about 720 runs, roughly US$432) |
| Unattended bot that loads the bank statement into the ERP every night | Process + Premium (for whoever registers the machine) | US$165 per month, plus the machine and the software the bot uses |
If that flow were a button used by 10 salespeople, you'd need 10 Premium licenses or one Process license: US$150 per month either way.
If your ERP is Odoo, having Power Automate read or write data via API counts as external API access, which in Odoo Enterprise is only included in the Custom plan, according to Odoo's pricing plans (reviewed in October 2026).
When another tool or the ERP's native automation makes more sense
The difference is about scope, not just price:
- To monitor Odoo data, Keep Checking offers prebuilt alerts inside Odoo, such as "Out-of-stock products" or "Customers with invoices overdue beyond X time." It's set up in 7 days, with plans of up to 10, 30, 50 or 100 alerts (3 to 10 UF + VAT per month; UF is Chile's inflation-indexed unit of account). For just a few users it isn't cheaper than Premium: what you save is the work of building and maintaining flows. Put together your selection in the quote builder or read about threshold alerts.
- For simple rules inside the ERP, native workflow automation is usually enough.
- For processes that require judgment, a rules-based flow falls short, and Microsoft's AI is paid for with separate credits. That's where KPB's custom AI assistants and agents (Kersify) come in: they interpret the email or conversation and leave the task or proposal in your CRM, whether it's Odoo or another one, for a person to review.
If you're comparing platforms, also see what n8n is and these Power Automate flow examples.
Why work with KPB Solutions
At KPB we help you decide where each automation belongs (Power Automate, Odoo, Keep Checking or an AI agent) with the total cost on the table. We're an Odoo Gold Partner, with a team of more than 40 KPBeers and more than 70 active clients in 6 countries, and we integrate Odoo with the systems you already use as part of our Odoo implementation service.
Want to know which license your process needs, or whether it's better solved another way? Book a meeting and let's review your case with concrete numbers.
