Applies to: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Platform admin center, Dataverse for Teams
I keep hearing the same complaint on discussion boards this month. Makers are losing the free place where they tested flows, AI prompts and quick ideas. Every reply asks the same thing: so where do I build now?
That free place is the developer environment you get when you sign up for the Power Apps Developer Plan. It cost nothing. It was yours alone, and nobody in IT had to say yes. You could try a premium connector, build a table or break a flow on purpose. None of it touched the place where the company’s real apps live.
Microsoft has now put an end date on it. Here are the dates, the three places you can still build, and how I’d pick. Then the steps to move what you have.
What Microsoft is turning off
Power Apps isn’t going paid. One kind of environment is going away: the unmanaged developer environment. That includes the one the free Developer Plan gave you. Microsoft’s deprecation notice puts it in one line: “Unmanaged developer environments are deprecated.”
“Managed” means your admin has turned on Managed Environments for it. That gives IT its rules, usage reports and sharing limits. An unmanaged one sits outside all of that. Microsoft’s reason for the change is simple: admins couldn’t see or control these spaces.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| November 15, 2026 | Developer Plan sign-up stops creating an environment. Nobody can make a new unmanaged one, from Power Apps, the admin center, PowerShell or the CLI. |
| December 15, 2026 | Existing unmanaged developer environments are suspended. Their apps, flows, agents, Power Pages developer sites and data aren’t available. |
| January 15, 2027 | Suspended environments start being deleted. |
Microsoft also lists what this doesn’t touch: production, sandbox, trial and default environments. Developer environments that are already managed are fine too, even if one person has several.
A 2-minute check you can do today
You need admin rights in the Power Platform admin center to see every environment in the tenant.
- Go to Manage, then Environments.
- Read the Type and Managed columns.
- Any row where Type is Developer and Managed is No is on the December 15 clock.
- Check Last activity on each one. Old, quiet ones can go. Busy ones need one of the options below.
Power Platform admin center · Manage > Environments
The Managed column is the one to read. A developer environment that says No here gets suspended on December 15, 2026.
Power Platform admin center · New environment
The New environment panel still offers an unmanaged developer environment, with no warning about the end date.
Option 1: A managed developer environment
This is Microsoft’s replacement. Developer environments stay, but only as managed ones, and each person can create only one. Your admin can turn on Managed Environments for one you already have. Or they can turn on environment routing, which gives each maker their own managed space.
Pros:
- Nothing to move: Converting keeps the apps, flows, agents and data where they are.
- Still yours: It’s a personal space, the same way the old one was.
Cons and hidden traps:
- Premium licences: The Developer Plan doesn’t include Managed Environments. Standalone Power Apps, Power Automate, Copilot Studio, Power Pages and Dynamics 365 licences do. Power Apps Premium is $27.10 CAD per user per month, paid yearly, plus tax.
- It’s per person who runs the app: Five people trying one pilot app is $1,626 a year before tax. At that price I’d ask if the pilot needed Dataverse at all. A SharePoint list might do.
Option 2: A sandbox
A sandbox is a full environment your admin creates for testing. It isn’t part of this deprecation.
Pros:
- Shared on purpose: It’s the right home for anything a team builds together.
- No end date: It lasts until your organization deletes it.
Cons and hidden traps:
- Your admin owns it: You can’t make one yourself, so it starts with a request.
- Not private: Everyone your admin adds can see and change what’s in it.
Option 3: A standard trial
To try premium features, Microsoft points makers to a standard trial environment. Those stay available.
Pros:
- Free: It doesn’t use paid capacity.
- Self-service: You can create one yourself, if your admin allows trials.
Cons and hidden traps:
- 30 days: In the last seven days you can extend it once, for another 30 days. Then it’s deleted, unless someone converts it to production.
- No backups: A trial can be created and deleted, and that’s it. Export your solutions before it ends.
This change also leaves the default environment alone. But the whole company shares it, so it’s no place to break things in private.
Side-by-side comparison
| Option 1: Managed developer environment | Option 2: Sandbox | Option 3: Standard trial | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who creates it | Your admin, or environment routing | Your admin | You, if trials are allowed |
| How long it lasts | Ongoing | Ongoing | 30 days, plus one 30-day extension |
| Private to you | Yes | No | Yes |
| Licence cost | Premium for everyone who runs your apps | Paid by your organization | None |
| Keeps your current work in place | Yes, if converted | No, import your solutions | No, import your solutions |
Which one should you pick?
- Choose Option 1 if your app’s users already have Power Apps Premium, or your admin is turning on environment routing anyway.
- Choose Option 2 if two or more people build on the same thing, or the work is heading to production.
- Choose Option 3 if you want to test a premium feature for a few weeks, and you’re fine throwing it away after.
If you have work in an unmanaged developer environment today, here’s how to keep it.
Move an existing developer environment in 4 steps
Do these before December 15, 2026. Budget about 15 minutes per environment.
Step 1: Export your solutions
In Power Apps, open the environment, go to Solutions, and export each one. This keeps a copy whatever happens next. If your flows aren’t in a solution yet, put them in one first.
Step 2: Export the test data you care about
Don’t count on the solution file to carry the rows in your tables. If the data matters, export it to Excel as well.
Step 3: Ask your admin to convert it or move it
Converting means turning on Managed Environments for it. That’s Option 1. Moving means importing your solutions into a sandbox they give you. That’s Option 2.
Step 4: Convert anything with a Power Pages site
Microsoft says sites in an unmanaged developer environment are suspended and deleted along with it. Export doesn’t save them. To keep a site, the environment has to be converted before December 15, 2026.
Dataverse for Teams isn’t the way out
The obvious move is to build in Teams instead. Dataverse for Teams has been the free option inside Teams for years. I compared it to SharePoint lists only a few weeks ago. It’s deprecated too, on a later clock:
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| November 15, 2026 | No new Dataverse for Teams environments, including the one Teams used to create when you built your first app in a team. |
| September 15, 2027 | Environments not upgraded to full Dataverse are suspended. |
| October 30, 2027 | They’re decommissioned. The team, its chats and its files stay. |
It also has a 2 GB storage cap per environment. Move your work there now and you’ll be moving it again within a year.
What this does not fix
- Production readiness. Converting keeps your work. A developer environment is still the wrong home for an app the whole office runs on.
- The licence question. If your pilot depended on a premium connector, someone now pays for it per user, or the app has to change.
- An admin who says no. Without routing or premium licences, your free options shrink to a 30-day trial and the shared default environment. That’s a governance call. Take it to whoever owns your Power Platform settings before November 15.
- App Builder apps. App Builder and vibe.powerapps.com retire on November 30, 2026 (MC1505609), on their own timeline.
Read next
- App Builder and vibe.powerapps.com retirement: migrate by Nov 30: the other Power Platform deadline landing between November 15 and December 15.
- Dataverse for Teams vs SharePoint list: which back end to pick: if your pilot only needs a list, this is the cheaper home.
- Organising a growing pile of Power Automate flows: naming, solutions, descriptions: get flows into solutions before you export them.
Need a second set of eyes on your Power Platform setup?
Exporting and moving one developer environment takes about 15 minutes. The slow part is deciding which ones to keep, and what the licences will cost.
- Want it sorted or checked once? An hour bank starts at $140 CAD per hour, in banks of 5, 10 or 25 hours, with no expiry.
- Questions first? Email hello@tenantcraft.ca with what your makers are building, and I’ll tell you which option fits.