Microsoft Power Automate is Microsoft's tool for automating work across Microsoft 365 and hundreds of other apps. If your business uses Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Excel, you may already have it.

This guide explains what Power Automate is, practical Power Automate examples for small businesses, current UK pricing, and when it's worth getting help.

What is Power Automate?

Power Automate lets you build "flows": automated sequences that start when something happens and then carry out a series of steps. For example: when an email with an attachment arrives in the accounts inbox, save the attachment to SharePoint, add a row to a spreadsheet and post a message in Teams.

There are three main kinds of flow:

  • Cloud flows connect apps and services online, triggered automatically, on a schedule or by a button. This is what most businesses use.
  • Desktop flows automate tasks on a Windows computer by clicking and typing in applications, which is useful for older software with no other way in. This is often called robotic process automation (RPA).
  • Approval flows send requests to the right person, collect their decision in Outlook or Teams, and carry on accordingly.

Power Automate is part of Microsoft's Power Platform, alongside Power Apps for simple business apps and Power BI for reporting, and it now includes Copilot, so you can describe a flow in a sentence and have a first draft built for you.

Power Automate examples for small businesses

Email and documents

  • Save email attachments from a shared mailbox into the right SharePoint folder, renamed consistently.
  • Turn emails with a certain subject into tasks in Planner or a list in SharePoint.
  • Convert completed Microsoft Forms responses into Word documents or PDFs.

Approvals

  • Holiday requests: an employee submits a form, their manager approves in Teams, and the calendar and spreadsheet update automatically.
  • Purchase and invoice approvals with limits by amount. See our guide to accounts payable automation.
  • Document sign-off, with a record of who approved what and when.

Client and sales admin

  • New enquiries from a web form added to your CRM or a SharePoint list, with an instant reply and a Teams alert. Our guide to CRM integration covers this in more detail.
  • New client onboarding checklists created automatically when a deal is won. See our client onboarding process guide.

Reporting and reminders

  • Weekly summaries of overdue tasks or unpaid invoices sent to managers.
  • Reminders before deadlines, renewals or expiring documents.
  • Data copied from Excel files into a single list for reporting in Power BI.

Power Automate pricing in the UK

In October 2026, Microsoft listed:

  • Power Automate in Microsoft 365. Many Microsoft 365 business plans include Power Automate for cloud flows using standard connectors, such as Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and Excel.
  • Power Automate Premium: £11.50 per user per month, paid yearly. Adds premium connectors, attended desktop flows and process mining.
  • Power Automate Process: £115.30 per bot per month, paid yearly, for unattended automation that runs without a person logged in.
  • Power Automate Hosted Process: £165.30 per bot per month, paid yearly, which includes a Microsoft-hosted virtual machine.

Prices exclude VAT. A 30-day free trial is available. Check which connectors your flows need before you buy, because many non-Microsoft apps count as premium.

Power Automate vs Zapier, Make and n8n

Power Automate is the natural choice when most of your work happens in Microsoft 365, because it's often already included and works within your existing Microsoft security. Zapier and Make are easier for workflows that mostly involve non-Microsoft apps, and n8n gives more control and better value at high volumes. Our Zapier vs Make vs n8n comparison and Zapier alternatives guide cover these in detail.

Common Power Automate pitfalls

  • Flows owned by one person. If the person who built a flow leaves and their account is removed, the flow stops. Use service accounts or shared ownership for important flows.
  • No error handling. Flows fail quietly unless you add steps to catch errors and tell someone.
  • Premium surprises. A flow that uses one premium connector needs a premium licence for the people who run it.
  • Permissions. Flows act with the permissions of the connection they use. Check what each connection can access.
  • No documentation. Keep a simple list of every flow, what it does and who owns it.

When to use a Power Automate consultant

Many businesses build simple flows themselves. A Power Automate consultant is worth it when:

  • flows need to work across SharePoint permissions, several mailboxes or several Microsoft 365 tenants;
  • you need approvals with an audit trail for regulated work;
  • you want desktop automation of older software;
  • you need Power Automate to connect reliably to systems outside Microsoft;
  • important flows were built by someone who has since left.

How FDE Solutions can help

We build and fix Power Automate flows for UK businesses, alongside Zapier, Make, n8n and custom code where they fit better. We document every flow, set up error handling and ownership properly, and make sure nothing depends on a single person's account.

Read about our intelligent automation service or book a discovery call.