Employee Ideas Power App cost when you roll it out company wide
The Employee Ideas Power App costs nothing to install and nothing to run while it stays inside one Microsoft Teams team on Dataverse for Teams. The cost starts when a company outgrows that team. Upgrading the environment to full Dataverse means every person who opens the app needs a Power Apps license, listed at $20.00 per user per month paid yearly, so a 150 person idea program costs about $36,000 a year in licenses before anyone builds the features the template lacks.
This is the math an operations, HR or innovation lead needs before deciding whether to extend Microsoft's free template or buy a dedicated tool. All Microsoft figures below come from Microsoft's Power Apps pricing page and its Power Platform admin documentation. If you only want the product comparison, the Employee Ideas app alternative page lays it out feature by feature.
What you pay for while the app stays in one team
Employee Ideas is a sample template Microsoft published for Teams. Adding it to a team creates a Dataverse for Teams environment, which Microsoft includes with select Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Inside that team there is no extra license to buy. Members submit and vote, owners manage campaigns, and guests can run the app and see the records they created.
The real costs at this stage are time and risk rather than invoices:
- Setup. The template is no longer added from the Teams store. An admin downloads the package from Microsoft's GitHub repository and uploads it as a custom app or imports the solution. The Employee Ideas folder there was last changed in March 2023.
- Ownership. The original repository was archived on March 22, 2023. Any fix or feature is your own maker's work, on a copy nobody else maintains.
- Storage. Each team environment holds 2 GB of database and file storage, and Microsoft states the limit cannot be extended. At 100 percent, nothing new can be installed in that team.
- Inactivity deletion. An environment with no user activity is disabled after 90 days and deleted at 120 days. Only team owners get the warnings, at 83 and 87 days.
For one department running a suggestion box, that is often acceptable. For a program leadership expects to report on, the last two points are where people start pricing alternatives.
What triggers the paid licenses
Microsoft's documentation lists the situations that push a team environment to an upgrade: the 2 GB cap, any need to run the app outside Teams as a standalone Power App, API access to the data (for a Power BI report, for example), and features that only full Dataverse has. The upgrade is a one way step taken by a tenant admin in the Power Platform admin center.
After the upgrade, Microsoft is explicit that any apps running in the environment require Power Platform licenses to be accessed. The environment also starts counting against your tenant's Dataverse capacity, and extra database capacity is listed at $40.00 per GB per month, paid yearly.
There is one important exception to the math below. If your people already hold Power Apps Premium licenses for other business apps, the marginal license cost of a company-wide Employee Ideas app is close to zero for them. Check your Microsoft 365 admin center before you model anything.
Employee Ideas Power App cost by company size
The table assumes nobody has Power Apps Premium yet, uses Microsoft's list price of $20.00 per user per month paid yearly, and compares it with Brainstormer's yearly prices. The $12.00 volume price applies only from 2,000 seats, so it does not change any row here.
| People in the idea program | Power Apps Premium, per year | Brainstormer plan | Brainstormer, per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | $6,000 | Team, up to 25 members | $1,788 |
| 75 | $18,000 | Business, up to 150 members | $4,788 |
| 150 | $36,000 | Business, up to 150 members | $4,788 |
| 500 | $120,000 | Enterprise, up to 1,000 members | $11,988 |
| 1,000 | $240,000 | Enterprise, up to 1,000 members | $11,988 |
The license line is only part of it. The upgraded app is still the 2023 template, so the features a leadership team usually asks for have to be built on top: scoring against this year's goals, duplicate detection, a record of who decided what, and a report per campaign. Price that build at whatever a week or two of your Power Apps maker's time costs, then add the upkeep every time Microsoft changes the platform underneath.
Why per-user pricing hurts an idea program in particular
Idea programs have an unusual usage shape. A few people run them every week, but most employees open the tool a handful of times a year, when a challenge asks a question they care about. Per-user licensing charges the same for the person who submits one idea in March as for the program manager who lives in the tool. That is the reason the gap in the table widens with headcount.
It also creates a quiet incentive to invite fewer people, which defeats the point of asking the company for ideas. If you track per-user SaaS licenses across the business, it helps to monitor SaaS license spend read-only so an idea tool does not become one more seat count that drifts upward unnoticed.
When extending the Power App is the right call
Buying is not always the better answer, and it helps to be clear about when it is not:
- Your people already have Power Apps Premium, so the license column above is zero.
- Submitting ideas without ever leaving the Teams client is a hard requirement. Brainstormer runs in the browser and is not a Teams app.
- You need single sign-on, an API or a Power BI feed on day one. Brainstormer offers none of these.
- You have a Power Platform team with spare capacity that wants to own the app long term.
If none of those apply, the cheaper path for most US companies between 25 and 1,000 people is a dedicated tool priced per company.
What the Brainstormer price includes
Every plan covers the whole team up to its member limit, with no per-user charge. You get challenges with a deadline, AI starter ideas, AI expansion of each submission into problem, solution, first step and success measure, scoring against your strategic goals (equal weights on Team), duplicate merging with authors and votes kept, theme grouping, seven logged decision stages, votes and CSV export. Business adds unlimited open challenges, goals weighted the way your company ranks them, the printable board report, the admin role and the decision trail as CSV. Enterprise raises the limit to 1,000 members and adds a full workspace export.
Team is $149 a month billed yearly, Business $399 and Enterprise $999. Month to month billing is available at twice the monthly rate. You can compare the plans on the pricing page or run a demo challenge on the homepage before creating an account. If you are still choosing between vendors, the idea management software buyers guide covers what else to check.
Questions buyers ask about the Employee Ideas Power App
Is the Employee Ideas Power App free?
Yes, while it runs inside one Microsoft Teams team on Dataverse for Teams, which comes with eligible Microsoft 365 plans. It stops being free once the environment is upgraded to full Dataverse, because every user then needs a Power Apps license, listed at $20.00 per user per month paid yearly.
Do guests need a Power Apps license to use Employee Ideas?
Not inside a Dataverse for Teams environment. Guests invited to the team can run the app and see the records they create, but they cannot build or edit apps. After an upgrade to Dataverse, the licensing requirement applies to anyone who accesses the app.
How much storage does the Employee Ideas app get?
Each Dataverse for Teams environment has 2 GB of combined database and file storage, with part reserved for the system, and the limit cannot be raised. Attachments on idea submissions are the usual reason a team gets close to it.
Is there a cheaper Power Apps option than Premium?
Microsoft lists Power Apps Premium at $20.00 per user per month, dropping to $12.00 only for organizations buying 2,000 seats or more. Check Microsoft's pricing page for other plans that fit your case, and check whether your users already hold a qualifying license.