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Microsoft/power-automatePower Platform

Consultant KB for Microsoft Power Automate end to end: cloud flows, desktop flows and RPA, connectors and integration, AI and agent flows, process and task mining, approvals and human-in-the-loop, ALM and solutions, governance and security, licensing and capacity, monitoring and troubleshooting, plus cross-cutting decision guides. Implementation notes, configuration decisions and the gotchas that bite on real projects. Populated by the daily author agent from the Power Automate release plans, docs repo and product blog, plus the author's own consultant notes.

power-automate/03-connectors-and-integration/feature-standard-vs-premium-connectors.md
feature-standard-vs-premium-connectors.mdv1 · history
CurrentApplies to Cloud flowsUpdated last monthSource Microsoft Learn ↗

What it does

Every connector in Power Automate carries a class — standard, premium or custom — and that class decides who is allowed to add it to a flow and trigger it. Microsoft sets the class per connector per product, so the same connector can be standard in Logic Apps and premium in Power Automate.

Key facts

  • The entitlement is per user for user licences, and per automation for capacity licences. Power Automate Premium includes standard, premium and custom connectors; Power Automate Free covers standard connectors only.
  • A Power Automate Process licence allocated to a cloud flow lets that flow use premium and custom connectors regardless of the owning or triggering user's licence. The flow has to be in a solution for the licence to be assigned.
  • Seeded entitlements that come with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Power Apps licences give limited Power Automate rights — the detail sits in the Power Platform Licensing Guide rather than in the connector list.
  • Class is published per connector on the connector reference pages, split into standard and premium lists, and it can change when Microsoft reclassifies a connector.
  • The HTTP connectors, SQL Server, Salesforce and the on-premises-heavy ones are premium in Power Automate. Dataverse is not premium, which surprises people.
  • Users can see what they actually hold in the Power Automate portal under Settings > View my licences.

When to use / skip

This isn't a choice you make, it's a constraint you check. Do the connector-class check during solution design, before you commit to an integration approach, because discovering halfway through build that half the users need Premium licences turns a technical decision into a commercial one. If the client won't buy per-user Premium, design towards a small number of solution-aware flows carrying Process licences rather than dozens of maker-owned flows.

Configuration decisions

  • Whether premium capability is licensed per user, per flow via Process licences, or via pay-as-you-go.
  • Which environments makers are allowed to build premium flows in, and whether DLP policies block premium connectors outside those.
  • Whether flows that need premium connectors are owned by named users or by a service account with the right licence.
  • Whether you standardise on Dataverse and standard connectors specifically to keep the licence footprint down.

Gotchas

  • Trial licences make premium connectors work in a demo and then the flow dies when the trial lapses. Check what licence the demo environment is actually running on.
  • The licence check happens on trigger, not on save. A flow using a premium connector saves cleanly and fails later.
  • Connector class differs between Power Automate and Logic Apps for the same connector, so architecture diagrams copied from Logic Apps guidance mislead people on cost.
  • Assigning a Process licence to a flow does nothing until the flow is in a solution.

Consultant notes

  • Get the connector list agreed in design, priced, and signed off in writing. Connector licensing is the single most common source of late-stage budget surprises on Power Automate work.
  • Warn the client that "premium" is about the connector, not about difficulty — a two-action flow hitting SQL Server costs the same to license as a fifty-action one.
  • When the licence answer is "no", say so early and offer the Dataverse or standard-connector alternative in the same conversation.

Recheck when Microsoft reclassifies connectors or reshuffles the Power Automate licence tiers — both move more often than you'd like

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