With Power Pages launch, Microsoft shifts to MAU licensing

Microsoft has officially launched Power Pages, the next generation for the company's portals product built on Dataverse and the Power Platform. It carries forward all the capabilities of its predecessor, Power Apps Portals, and adds features for creators and administrators like a new design studio, site templates, and a learning hub.

The GA of Power Pages also brought a new pricing model that transitions away from counting the number of per-day users and instead embraces a monthly active user, or MAU, approach. At the base level, Power Pages will charge $200 per 100 authenticated users per site per month or $75 per 500 anonymous users per site per month. Three tiers of volume discounts will bring those costs down further. Microsoft also offers a pay-as-you-go option for both authenticated ($4 per user/site/month) and anonymous users ($0.30 per user/site/month). All plans include some Dataverse storage and CDN support.

"For an organization talking about licensing portals, it is more reasonable to estimate MAUs they will have rather than guessing how many will log in on a daily basis," Microsoft MVP Nicholas Hayduk told the audience at a recent Portals Community Call event. "It is a huge step forward. I'm not embarrassed to talk about it anymore."