# Power Automate consultant: Microsoft flows and Copilot Studio agents. > If your company runs on Microsoft 365, you already have some Power Automate rights, and the questions are what they cover and what the rest costs. SBD works out the licensing, builds flows and Copilot Studio agents in your tenant and sets up ownership so they keep running when someone leaves, for teams of 5 to 1,000 people. - Canonical: https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/power-automate/ - Publisher: SmallBay Digital ## What SBD would build on the Microsoft stack We work with Power Automate, Copilot Studio, [Power Apps](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/power-apps/) and the wider [Microsoft 365](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/microsoft-365/) services around them. Typical uses are approvals across SharePoint and Teams, documents arriving in Outlook and landing on the right record, and a staff-facing agent that answers from your own policies and hands anything uncertain to a person. SBD has no published case study on Power Automate or Copilot Studio. The comparable published work is on other platforms: [six fixed-scope property automations on n8n](https://smallbaydigital.com/case-studies/rental-portfolio-automations/), and [an enquiry platform that reads emailed RFQs with AI and works with SAP](https://smallbaydigital.com/case-studies/rfq-to-quotation-on-sap/). We can show you how those were scoped, and we will say plainly where a Microsoft requirement is new to us. ## What Microsoft 365 includes and what Power Automate Premium adds Microsoft's licensing documentation, read in November 2026, says a Microsoft 365 licence lets a user create and run cloud flows with standard connectors, up to 6,000 actions a day. Premium and custom connectors are not included. A flow that calls a premium connector therefore needs another licence, which is easy to miss when scoping a project. Microsoft's pricing page, also read in November 2026, lists Premium at $15 per user per month and Process at $150 per bot per month, both paid yearly, and Hosted Process at $215. Microsoft notes these prices are for marketing and may differ from your list price. Premium gives a user 40,000 actions a day and one attended bot. A Process licence attaches to a flow or a machine, with 250,000 actions a day, and the flow has to be in a solution before it can be assigned. We size this in the audit with your real volumes, as actions per run multiplied by runs per day, because the cheapest answer depends on how many people own flows and how many only trigger them. ## What breaks when a flow owner leaves Automated and scheduled flows run in the flow owner's licence context, according to Microsoft's licensing FAQ, read in November 2026. If an owner loses their Premium licence on a premium flow, the flow is downgraded, the owners are notified, and it is turned off after 14 days if nobody acts. The FAQ's route for a departing owner is to change the owner on a solution-aware flow or assign a Process licence. So we would build flows inside solutions, with a shared owner that belongs to the team, and a runbook naming who gets the notification. Data policies need the same attention. Microsoft's documentation on connector classification, read in November 2026, sorts connectors into Business, Non-Business and Blocked groups, and a flow cannot use connectors from two different groups. HTTP connector settings can also affect child flows, so we check your policy before designing around them. ## What a Copilot Studio agent costs to run Microsoft's Copilot Studio pricing, read in November 2026, lists packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 a month, or pay-as-you-go through an Azure subscription. Microsoft 365 Copilot at $30 per user per month, paid yearly, lets licensed users build and use internal agents at no additional cost. Microsoft's billing rates page, dated 30 October 2026, charges 1 credit for a classic answer, 2 for a generative answer, 5 for an agent action, 10 for tenant graph grounding and 13 for every 100 agent flow actions. Reasoning models add 10 credits per 1,000 tokens, and Microsoft's own worked example reaches 141 credits for one message. A tenant on prepaid capacity has its agents blocked at 125% of that capacity, unless overage is billed to pay-as-you-go. We estimate this before building and set limits with your admin. Power Automate cloud flows use their own licensing and do not consume Copilot Credits, so moving a fixed process out of an agent and into a flow can lower the bill. ## When Power Automate is the right choice, and when it is not Choose it when the work lives in SharePoint, Outlook, Teams and Excel, standard connectors cover it, and IT wants flows inside the tenant under its existing policies. Its desktop flows also help where an old application has no API. Other tools are a better fit in these cases: - Most of your systems sit outside Microsoft and would need premium connectors. [Make](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/make/) or [n8n](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/n8n/) may cost less per run. - Your workflows are long, branching and need real code. n8n is easier to test and version. - Your agent answers a fixed list of questions. A flow with a form or a plain lookup needs no credits. - Nobody in the company can act as Power Platform admin. A tenant full of unowned flows is hard to keep running. ## How a Microsoft engagement with SBD works Every engagement starts with an [Automation Audit](https://smallbaydigital.com/services/audit/) at $500, credited in full to your build. We map the work, check your licences and policies, and tell you what Microsoft already covers. Workflows start at $1,500, internal tools at $3,000 and multi-module systems at $5,000, as a fixed price set after the audit. Everything is built in your tenant and stays there. ## Related - [Microsoft 365 integrations](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/microsoft-365/) - [Power Apps consultant](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/power-apps/) - [Automation for Microsoft 365 teams](https://smallbaydigital.com/for/microsoft-365-teams/) - [n8n agency](https://smallbaydigital.com/integrations/tools/n8n/) - [Automation Audit](https://smallbaydigital.com/services/audit/) ## Sources - Microsoft: Power Automate pricing (Premium, Process, Hosted Process), checked 2 November 2026 - Microsoft Learn: Deep dive on specific licenses (Microsoft 365 seeded rights, connectors, 6,000 actions), updated 19 October 2026 - Microsoft Learn: Types of Power Automate licenses (action limits, Process rules), updated 22 September 2026 - Microsoft Learn: Power Automate licensing FAQ (owner context, 14-day turn-off, departing owners), updated 22 September 2026 - Microsoft Learn: Connector classification in data policies, updated 14 August 2026 - Microsoft: Copilot Studio pricing (credit packs, pay-as-you-go, Microsoft 365 Copilot), checked 2 November 2026 - Microsoft Learn: Copilot Studio billing rates and management (credit rates, 125% enforcement), updated 30 October 2026