The short version: A single Power Automate flow tops out at 500 actions in its definition, as at 22 September 2026, and Concurrency Control, off by default, can raise or cap concurrent runs anywhere from 1 to 100. On top of both sits a daily Power Platform request allocation set by the flow owner's licence, from 6,000 to 250,000 a day. None of the three is where most small-firm flows actually run into trouble.
Three limits, one flow
| Limit | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Actions per flow definition | 500 | Use child flows for more; editor gets sluggish well before the cap |
| Concurrent runs, Concurrency Control off | Unlimited | The default state for a new flow's trigger |
| Concurrent runs, Concurrency Control on | 1 to 100 (default 25) | Once turned on it can't be turned off without recreating the trigger |
| Apply to each, array items | 5,000 (Low profile) / 100,000 (others) | Filter first if the source array is large |
| Run duration | 30 days | Pending steps like approvals time out after this |
| Power Platform requests, per licence, per day | 6,000 to 250,000 | Depends on the flow owner's plan |
A flow's daily request allowance comes from whichever performance profile its owner's licence maps to, Low, Medium, High or Unlimited Extended, and a flow shared between people still runs on the owner's limits, not the person who triggers it. If the original owner leaves the tenant, the flow drops to the lowest, Low, profile automatically.
What it means for a firm under 20 staff
Very few small-firm flows come close to 500 actions or the 100-run concurrency ceiling; a job notification flow with a handful of conditions and a Teams message might use a dozen actions. The limit that actually catches a small firm is the Apply to each array cap of 5,000 items on a free or Microsoft 365-included licence, which shows up the first time someone builds a flow that loops over every row in a growing SharePoint list or Excel table rather than filtering first. The flow runs fine in testing on a short list and then silently stops partway through once the source data crosses the threshold, the same quiet-failure pattern that SharePoint's own list limits produce in a canvas app.
The other place a small tenant meets a wall is turning on Concurrency Control without testing it first. It's meant to stop two triggers processing the same record at once, a real problem worth solving, but the default degree of parallelism of 25 concurrent runs, and the fact the setting can't be switched off again without rebuilding the trigger, has caught more than one maker who turned it on to fix a race condition and then wondered why runs started queueing.
The workaround
For the action-count ceiling, split logic into child flows once a single flow starts feeling unwieldy in the designer, well before 500 becomes the actual blocker. For the array-processing cap, filter or query the source down to the rows that matter before the Apply to each loop runs, rather than looping over the whole table and discarding most of it inside the loop; that also keeps the flow well clear of the daily request allowance, since every loop iteration burns its own request. For the daily allocation itself, moving a heavy flow's ownership to a user with a Power Automate Premium or Process licence lifts the ceiling from 6,000 to 40,000 or 250,000 a day without touching the flow's logic at all; what each of those licences costs in NZD is on Power Platform pricing in NZ.
Common questions
How many actions can a single Power Automate flow have?
500 actions per flow definition is the documented limit, and Microsoft warns that flows can feel sluggish to edit well before that, in the Power Automate designer. A flow that needs more logic than that is usually a sign it should be split into child flows rather than pushed further.
How many flow runs can happen at the same time?
Unlimited, by default, because Concurrency Control ships turned off. Turning it on caps concurrent runs to a number from 1 to 100, defaulting to 25, and that switch cannot be turned off again without deleting and re-adding the trigger, so it's worth testing before flipping it on a live flow.
How many Power Platform requests does a flow's licence allow per day?
6,000 a day for a free or Microsoft 365-included user, 40,000 for a Power Automate Premium or per-user plan, and 250,000 for a flow carrying a Process or per-flow licence. A flow inherits the performance profile of whoever owns it, so moving ownership to a better-licensed user can lift the ceiling without touching the flow itself.
Has a flow started stopping partway through?
Free 30-minute call. Tell me what it loops over and how big the source has grown, and I'll tell you which limit it's hitting.