Power Apps Premium is $20 a user a month and extra Dataverse database storage is $48 per GB a month. A small custom app on AWS costs more to build and very little per user. How to compare the two over three years, and the signs an app has outgrown low-code, or never needed custom code.
Power Apps is often the right replacement for an Access database or a spreadsheet process: business users can build it, it lives inside Microsoft 365, and it is quick. Its costs scale with users and data, though, and for some apps that crosses over a custom build within a year or two.
From Microsoft's Power Apps pricing page and Power Platform licensing guide.
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Illustrative list-price comparison. If users already hold Premium licences for other apps, the marginal Power Apps cost is much lower.
Stay on Power Apps: a few dozen users, mostly forms and approvals over Microsoft 365 data, built and changed by the team that uses it, or licences you already own.
Move to custom: hundreds of users who each need a licence, data volumes pushing Dataverse capacity, external users or customers, integrations that strain connectors, or performance complaints.
Either way: give the app an owner, source control for its definition, and a test environment. Low-code apps fail in the same ways as code when nobody owns them.
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As of October 25, 2026. Provided as is, for general information, and accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Not legal, compliance, tax, financial or other professional advice. Prices, limits and vendor services change; check current vendor documentation before relying on anything here. Terms of use.