Power Automate approvals alternative

Easyflow vs Power Automate approvals: which fits your team?

If your company runs on Microsoft 365, Power Automate approvals look like the obvious answer: the licenses may already be paid for and approvers live in Outlook and Teams. The trade-off is that someone has to build each flow, and keep it working when people and rules change.

This page compares who builds the process, approvals from email, people outside the company, approval limits by amount, branching, integrations and the pricing model, then shows how to move one process. Disclosure: Easyflow is our product. Every claim about Power Automate was checked on Microsoft's official website and Microsoft Learn in October 2026. Plans and features change, so confirm what matters to you before you decide. We do not list Microsoft prices.

Microsoft Power Automate

Power Automate is Microsoft's automation platform, and its Approvals actions can be added to any flow. Approvers respond from Outlook, a Teams adaptive card, the approvals center or the mobile app, approvals can be sequential or parallel, and flows reach other systems through more than 1,400 prebuilt connectors. It is strongest for companies standardized on Microsoft 365 with someone in-house who builds and maintains flows.

Easyflow

Easyflow gives you the process ready-made instead of a flow to build: a request form, then a straight line of steps and approvals. Approvers decide from the email after a confirmation page, amount tiers pick the approvers, deadlines remind and escalate, and every request keeps a tamper-evident timeline. Suppliers and customers take part through public forms and guest steps without accounts or licenses.

Side by side

	Microsoft Power Automate	Easyflow
Approach	Flows you build with an Approvals action, across Microsoft 365	Ready-made linear processes: a request form, then steps and approvals
Approvals from email	From Outlook, a Teams adaptive card, the approvals center or the mobile app	Approve or reject from the email, after a confirmation page
People outside the company	Microsoft Entra guest users with a license; actionable Outlook emails are not supported for guests	Public request forms, guest steps by email link and a tracking page; outsiders never count as users
Approval limits by amount	Condition actions you add to the flow, such as greater than	Built in: amount tiers pick the approvers and recalculate when the amount changes
Branching	Conditions, parallel branches, sequential and parallel approvals	Linear only: conditions skip steps or hide fields, no parallel branches
Deadlines and long waits	Flow runs time out after 30 days; Microsoft recommends storing longer approvals in Dataverse	Deadlines per step, overdue reminders, escalation and wait steps
Integrations	More than 1,400 prebuilt connectors	Signed webhooks and CSV export, no connector library
Pricing model	Limited use included with Microsoft 365 licenses; Premium per user, Process as a capacity license	One plan with every feature: $49/month for 5 users, $5/month per extra user
Free plan or trial	Free license for basic flows with standard connectors, plus a premium trial	14-day free trial, no credit card

Which one fits

Choose Microsoft Power Automate if

You are standardized on Microsoft 365 and have someone who builds and maintains flows.
Approvals need to read or update SharePoint, Dynamics 365 or other systems through Microsoft's connectors.
You need parallel approvals, custom responses or complex branching.

Choose Easyflow if

Nobody on the team wants to build and maintain flows; you want to start from a ready-made process.
Suppliers or customers should take part without becoming Microsoft Entra guest users.
You want the request form, approvals, reminders, delegates and history in one place without wiring them together.

Moving a process to Easyflow

Pick one approval flow to move first and write down its trigger, form or list columns, approvers and conditions.
Start from the closest Easyflow gallery process (for example Vacation request or Expense reimbursement) and recreate the fields that lived in your form or SharePoint list.
Turn approval actions into steps and amount conditions into approval tiers. Parallel approvals become a sequence of steps.
Keep or export the list and approval history you need. Easyflow has no importer, so let pending approvals finish, then turn off the old flow and send people to the Easyflow request form.

Questions

Is Power Automate free with Microsoft 365?

Partly. Microsoft 365 licenses include a limited set of Power Automate capabilities, and the Approvals connector is a standard connector, so a license that allows standard connectors is enough to build approval flows. Premium connectors need a Premium user license or a Process capacity license. Check your own licenses before you compare costs.

Can people outside the company approve in Power Automate?

Yes, as Microsoft Entra guest users who accepted the invitation and have a license assigned. Microsoft notes that actionable approval emails in Outlook are not supported for guests, so they act in the Power Automate portal. In Easyflow, outsiders use public forms and guest steps by email link without an account.

Can I import my flows into Easyflow?

No. Easyflow has no importer. You rebuild each process from a gallery template, which usually replaces the flow, the form and the tracking list in one place.

Try it with one real process

Start from a ready-made template, invite the people involved and send the first request today. 14 days free, no credit card.

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