For people who use an app, Power Apps Premium includes Dataverse at NZ$32.40 per user per month, paid yearly. Someone who only runs flows against it needs Power Automate Premium at NZ$24.30 instead, and pay-as-you-go can cost less again if they use one app. The first licence gives the tenant 10 GB of database space, each licence adds 250 MB, and most firms under 20 staff never fill it. If you do, extra database capacity is NZ$64.70 per GB per month. The number that matters is the per-user one: for 12 people it is NZ$4,666 a year, which is why the SharePoint-or-Dataverse question comes before any of this.
The licence that includes it
| Licence | NZD per user per month, paid yearly | Gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Power Apps Premium | NZ$32.40 | Build and run any number of apps on Dataverse, premium connectors, the gateway; 250 MB database and 2 GB file capacity accrued per licence |
| Power Apps Premium at 2,000+ seats | NZ$19.40 | Same, for a tier no firm reading this will reach |
| Power Automate Premium | NZ$24.30 | Flows against Dataverse and premium connectors for a user who does not open an app; 250 MB database and 2 GB file accrued |
| Power Automate Process | NZ$242.70 per flow or bot per month | A flow (or an unattended bot) licensed on its own, so no named user is needed, per environment; 50 MB database and 200 MB file accrued |
| Dataverse for Teams | $0 inside the Microsoft 365 plans that include Teams (education A1 excluded) | 2 GB per team, about a million rows, apps that live inside Teams only |
| Dataverse database capacity add-on | NZ$64.70 per GB per month | Only when the accrued capacity runs out |
Source: Microsoft's NZ pricing pages for Power Apps and Power Automate, September 2026. A client-facing site on top of Dataverse is a separate per-site subscription, priced in Power Pages pricing in NZ and what Power Pages costs a small NZ business. The pay-as-you-go alternative (USD 10 per active user per app per month, billed through Azure) is cheaper than Premium for anyone who uses one app, at about NZ$17 a month, and Premium wins from two apps; the break-even is worked in Power Apps pay-as-you-go in NZ. The per app plan came off general sale on 2 January 2026 and is back only through some CSP partners, so budget on Premium unless your partner says otherwise, as the per-app plan post sets out.
The capacity you already have
Capacity is pooled at the tenant, not per environment, and it comes in three kinds that do not trade against each other.
| Capacity | Tenant default (first subscription) | Per Premium user licence | What lives there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Database | 10 GB | +250 MB | Rows, columns, relationships, metadata. The one that matters |
| File | 20 GB | +2 GB | Attachments, images, files in file columns |
| Log | 2 GB | +0 | Audit history and plug-in traces |
Worked examples. A 5-person firm on Premium: 11.25 GB database, 30 GB file. A 12-person firm: 13 GB database, 44 GB file. A 20-person firm: 15 GB database, 60 GB file. Creating a second environment (a dev copy, which you should have) needs at least 1 GB free, and each production or sandbox environment counts as 1 GB against your capacity even before you add a row; developer environments count as nothing.
What 1 GB holds
Microsoft does not publish a rows-per-gigabyte figure because it depends on the columns. A working rule: a plain row with a few dozen text, number, date and lookup columns is one to two kilobytes, so 1 GB is roughly half a million to a million rows of a job register, client list or asset table. A 10-year-old Access database migrated in full is usually under 1 GB. Rows rarely fill it. What does: audit history left on for every column (that is log capacity, but it fills), multiline text columns holding pasted emails, and system tables in environments nobody uses. Attachments go to file capacity, which starts bigger (20 GB against 10 GB) and costs far less per GB to extend.
The five limits that actually bite a small firm
- The per-user licence, not the storage. NZ$32.40 a month per person who opens the app. Design around SharePoint lists where the data allows it; the one question that decides it.
- API requests per user per day. A Premium user gets 40,000 Power Platform requests a day; a Microsoft 365-only user gets 6,000. A flow that loops over a big list in the wrong way can hit that by lunchtime. Microsoft's own advice is to filter at the source.
- Delegation in canvas apps. Formulas Dataverse cannot delegate stop at 500 rows, or 2,000 with the setting raised. The data is all there; the app just stops looking. Test with the real row count.
- Text at 4,000 characters for a Text column, about a million for Multiline. The pasted-email column from the old system needs the latter.
- Dataverse for Teams at 2 GB and one million rows per team, premium connectors only for users with a paid Power Apps licence, and fewer column types. Fine to start; plan the upgrade path before the register hits it. The limits that bite has the full list.
Three scenarios, priced
| Firm | Licences | Capacity | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 people, job register and quotes on Dataverse, everyone uses the app | 6 x Power Apps Premium | 11.5 GB database, plenty | NZ$2,333 |
| 12 people, 4 use the app daily, 8 only get emails from flows | 4 x Power Apps Premium, flows linked to the app | 11 GB database | NZ$1,555 |
| 20 people, model-driven app for everyone, five years of history with attachments | 20 x Power Apps Premium | 15 GB database, 60 GB file; attachments in file capacity | NZ$7,776 |
The second row is the one people miss: the licence follows the person who opens the app or owns a flow that supports it, not the headcount. Eight staff who only receive an approval email or a Teams message from a flow need nothing beyond Microsoft 365. The worked flow-side totals are in what Power Automate actually costs, and the build cost on top of the licences is in what a custom Power App costs in NZ. The limits that shape the bill sit apart from the price: Dataverse storage limits NZ, Dataverse API request limits and Power Platform environments: how many you get decide when a firm needs to spend more, and upgrading Dataverse for Teams to Dataverse covers the move once a Teams app outgrows its free tier.
Common questions
Can I buy Dataverse without Power Apps?
Yes, but not on its own. There is no standalone Dataverse subscription. Dataverse comes with Power Apps Premium at NZ$32.40 per user per month, with Power Automate Premium at NZ$24.30 for someone who only runs flows against it, and with Power Pages, Copilot Studio and Dynamics 365 licences, and with qualifying Microsoft 365 plans as Dataverse for Teams. The capacity add-on extends storage for a tenant that already has one of those licences.
Does a Dynamics 365 licence cover custom Dataverse tables?
Within limits. Dynamics 365 licences include Dataverse use rights and let you extend the Dynamics app with custom tables in the same environment. A standalone Power App on its own tables, outside the Dynamics app, needs Power Apps Premium. If you already pay for Dynamics, ask before buying Premium.
What happens when I run out of capacity?
Existing apps keep working, and Microsoft emails your admins every week. What stops is creating, copying, restoring or recovering an environment, converting a trial to paid, or adding a database to an environment, until you free space or buy capacity. Microsoft's terms still expect you to buy more if you stay over. Deleting an unused environment, trimming audit logs and moving attachments to file columns usually recovers more than a firm this size would ever buy.
Is there a cheaper way for occasional users?
Pay-as-you-go through an Azure subscription bills USD 10 per person per app in the months they open it, about NZ$17, so for a single app it is cheaper than the NZ$32.40 licence even for daily users. Premium wins when someone uses two or more apps, or when you want the bill fixed in NZD.
If the question is simply whether any of it is free, is Dataverse free answers it in a table. Every other Power Platform licence at the NZ list price is on Power Platform pricing in NZ. If the Dataverse question is really a replacement for an old Access file, the fixed price bands and weeks are on Access to Power Apps in NZ.
Method, and citing this page
Licence prices are Microsoft's NZ list prices from microsoft.com/en-nz, paid yearly. Capacity figures are from Microsoft Learn's Power Platform licensing FAQ and the Dataverse capacity documentation. Rows-per-gigabyte is a working estimate and labelled as one. Corrections welcome by email; the page carries the check date.
Cite it freely. Quote any figure with a link back:
Dataverse pricing in NZ, Kove, September 2026 check. kove.nz/dataverse-pricing-nz