Power Pages is a low-code website builder that simplifies creating and managing data-powered sites that enhance engagement and improve processes.
In this article, we’ll explore the various components of Power Pages licensing to help you determine the best options for your organisation.
Power Pages Use Rights
If you are already licensed with Power Apps or Dynamics 365, you may already have entitlement to use Power Pages. That’s because Dynamics 365 Enterprise and Premium licences include use rights to deploy unlimited Power Pages websites. These use rights apply to sites mapping to the same environment as the licensed apps.
For example, a customer licensed with Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise will automatically receive use rights to build one or more Power Pages websites in the same environment.
In comparison, Dynamics Professional or Team Member licences don’t include Power Pages use rights.
Power Apps Premium customers also have use rights to unlimited Power Pages websites as well as unlimited Power Apps.
If you are licensed with the Power Apps per app licence, this includes restricted use rights to a single website in addition to one app.
It’s important to note that these use rights don’t alter Microsoft’s rules on restricted tables. For instance, managing a website that uses cases requires a D365 Customer Service Enterprise licence because “cases” is a restricted table.
Power Pages Capacity Meters
Power Pages licensing requires sufficient user capacity to be allocated to each environment that covers the total number of unique website users per month.
Two licence types define these:
Power Pages Authenticated User Meter
Customers can purchase authenticated user licences for the anticipated number of unique users securely accessing a website each month. This capacity includes internal personnel and external users who log in to an authenticated Power Pages website in a month.
Each capacity pack supports 100 authenticated users every month, starting from £164.40 per month/site/100 users. Additional packs can be purchased at the same rate for increased authenticated user capacity.
Pricing tiers are available for high-usage sites. For instance, 100 packs will provide capacity for up to 10,000 authenticated site users each month. At this capacity pack point, a reduced pack rate applies.
What are authenticated users?
Authenticated users are calculated as unique site users who log in during a calendar month through an authentication provider. If an individual user logs in several times during the month, they will only be counted as one user. Power Pages establishes this uniqueness using the ID of the contact record to which the authenticated user is mapped.
Power Pages Anonymous User Meter
This licence type covers users accessing a Power Pages website but not logging in. Like authenticated users, these licences are purchased in capacity packs, each with a capacity of up to 500 users per site/month.
The minimum single pack for up to 500 anonymous site users each month totals £61.60. Customers receive a reduced price tier with a minimum purchase of 20 capacity packs supporting 10,000 anonymous users per month.
How are anonymous site users defined?
Power Pages uses an anonymous user ID stored in a browser cookie. The system generates a new user ID if the website user uses a different browser or clears their cookies.
Microsoft lists various scenarios that won’t be tracked by this capacity meter. These include:
- Accessing a website running in trial or private mode.
- Accessing specific page types, including sign-in and registration pages and error response pages, including 404 pages.
- Bot or crawler access.
To avoid double-counting, if an anonymous site user logs in to the website later the same day, they will only be counted as an authenticated user.
Is it necessary to purchase anonymous user capacity for my authenticated site?
Because Microsoft doesn’t count the log-in page to calculate anonymous users, compliant Power Pages licensing can be achieved without anonymous user capacity. However, except for error response pages, the rest of the site would need to be made available exclusively to authenticated user roles.
Monitoring Power Pages Capacity Usage
In the Power Platform admin centre, a licensing and capacity dashboard gives administrators an overview of website views and detailed information about capacity usage.
For instance, admins can view the amount of capacity allocated to the environment and how it is being consumed by one or more sites in the environment. Daily data covers the past two months and monthly data is available for the last 12 months.
Pay As You Go Licensing
Power Pages licensing ensures predictable monthly billing. However, because monthly capacity does not roll over, this may not be cost-effective if site usage significantly fluctuates due to seasonality or other factors.
To address this, Microsoft recently introduced pay-as-you-go pricing, allowing customers to pay based on the actual usage of Power Pages websites rather than estimating and purchasing capacity beforehand.
When you choose pay-as-you-go, your organisation’s Azure subscription will receive the billing for Power Pages usage using the following meters:
- Authenticated users @ £3 per active user/website/month
- Anonymous users @ £0.20 per active user/website/month
Power Pages and Dataverse Storage Capacity
- Power Pages authenticated user capacity pack subscriptions will receive 2 GB database capacity and 16 GB file capacity accrued to the tenant.
- For each Power Pages anonymous website user capacity pack, 0.5 GB database capacity and 4 GB file capacity will accrue to the tenant.
- Environments configured to use Power Platform pay-as-you-go receive a one-time entitlement of 1 GB of Dataverse Database capacity and 1 GB of Dataverse File capacity per environment.
Licensing Questions?
For more information about Power Pages licensing, please contact us by emailing hello@serversys.com or phone 0203 884 3804.
