Dynamics 365 document generation tools compared

There is no single best document generation tool for Dynamics 365. Built-in Word templates cover simple one-record documents at no extra licence cost. Word-authored add-ins such as DocumentsCorePack suit business users. Power Automate connectors suit flow-first teams. Paginated reports suit print-exact reports. A configuration-driven engine in your own Azure suits high-volume documents that change often.

The options at a glance

“Not published” means we found no public figure. That is not a criticism; most of this category sells through a call.

Built-in Dynamics 365 Word templates

Microsoft’s own feature. An administrator downloads a template for a table, lays it out in Word using the XML Mapping Pane, and uploads it; users then pick it from the command bar and get a populated Word file (Microsoft Learn). The limits are documented on the same page: only Plain Text and Picture content controls, related records chosen at download time, at most 100 related records per relationship, lists in creation order, and a template that works only in the environment where it was downloaded. We cover each limit in Dynamics 365 Word template limitations.

Choose it if the document is one record plus a short list, has no conditional sections,. Do not buy anything for this case.

Look elsewhere if you need conditions, sorting, filtering, more than 100 related rows, PDF batches, or templates that move through your ALM from test to production.

Power Automate: “Populate a Microsoft Word template”

The Word Online (Business) connector has two actions that matter here: Populate a Microsoft Word template and Convert Word Document to PDF. It is a premium connector in Power Automate (connector reference). Microsoft lists Power Automate Premium at $15 per user per month and Process at $150 per bot per month, paid yearly, both including premium connectors (Power Automate pricing).

The connector supports plain text, combo box, drop-down, image and repeating section controls. It does not support rich text, date picker or check box controls. Other documented limits include a 10 MB input file, a two-minute conversion timeout, no images in headers, and 100 API calls per connection every 60 seconds. The Populate action cannot be used when a multi-factor authentication conditional access policy is enabled. Convert to PDF does not support files labelled Confidential or Highly Confidential.

Choose it if you already hold premium Power Automate licences, volume is modest and the layout is fixed.

Look elsewhere if you generate hundreds or thousands of documents in a batch, your tenant enforces MFA conditional access on the connection, or your documents carry sensitivity labels. The logic lives in the flow, and someone has to own it.

Power BI paginated reports and SSRS

Microsoft positions paginated reports for highly formatted, print-ready output that prints every row of a long table across as many pages as needed (Microsoft Learn). Reports are built in Power BI Report Builder, which is free to download. Publishing outside My Workspace needs a Pro or Premium Per User licence (Microsoft Learn), listed at $14 and $24 per user per month (Power BI pricing).

Bulk generation is where licensing bites. The exportToFile API needs the report in a workspace backed by Premium, Embedded or Fabric capacity. On Premium Per User it allows one request per five-minute window. On capacity, the limit is 250 concurrent render requests (Microsoft Learn). Microsoft’s Power Automate templates for exporting paginated reports list A4–A6 or P1/F2 and above as prerequisites (Microsoft Learn). Microsoft does not publish a fixed capacity price on the Power BI pricing page.

Inside Dynamics 365, customer engagement apps support only Fetch-based SSRS reports, authored in Visual Studio with the 32-bit Report Authoring Extension (Microsoft Learn).

Choose it if you already run Power BI capacity, the output is really a report, and someone is comfortable in Report Builder.

Look elsewhere if you would be buying capacity just to export documents, or if business users need to change the layout themselves.

DocumentsCorePack (mscrm-addons)

DocumentsCorePack is the benchmark most “alternative” searches start from, and it earns that. Templates are designed in Word with a drag-and-drop Template Designer. The designer supports all relationship types, filtering and sorting, conditional fields, charts, field formatting and calculations. Output formats include PDF, DOCX and HTML. It integrates with DocuSign, Adobe Sign and others. The connector offers 25+ Power Automate actions, and the product works from Dynamics 365, Power Apps and Power Pages (product page). Processing runs in the vendor’s infrastructure, and you choose the region, for example EU, US, UK, Canada or Australia.

The price is published. Tiers run from $950 a year for up to 10 users (1 Template Designer, 1 sandbox, 500 documents a month) to $12,700 a year for up to 600 users (10 Template Designers, 5 sandboxes, 50,000 documents a month). Above 600 users, pricing is on request. The vendor counts as a user “every user with a security role that grants write permission to a table in Dynamics 365”, and prices include hosting, support and maintenance (pricing page).

Choose it if business users should own templates in Word, you want e-signature and SharePoint delivery out of the box, and your user count and monthly volume fit a tier. For a small team it is likely the cheapest capable option here.

Look elsewhere if your licensed-user count is large relative to the people who actually generate documents, your volume runs past your tier’s monthly cap, or your policy requires documents to render inside your own tenant.

dox42

dox42 has a Dynamics 365 CE module. Templates are built with add-ins in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Data comes from standard and custom Dynamics entities, selected in a designer or by FetchXML. The same document can combine other sources such as Business Central, Finance and Operations, SAP, SharePoint or SQL. Output can be Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF or HTML, and dox42 runs in the cloud, hybrid or on premises (dox42 for D365 CE).

According to its FAQ, some products are subscriptions and others are one-time licences with annual Software Assurance. The standard dox42 Server includes unlimited users and documents. The standard dox42 Online includes unlimited users and up to 100,000 documents a month (dox42 FAQ). The dox42 Online page says “starting from 590.-” without a currency or billing period (dox42 Online). The FAQ otherwise asks you to contact sales, so we treat the full price as not published.

Choose it if a document has to pull from several systems, not just Dataverse, you want Excel or PowerPoint output as well as Word, or you need an on-premises server.

Look elsewhere if you want published prices before a sales call.

Experlogix Document Generation (formerly Xpertdoc)

Xpertdoc is now Experlogix, sold as Smart Flows. Experlogix’s marketing site blocked our automated access, so these facts come from its help centre and Microsoft Learn. Templates are .docx files designed with the Template Builder add-in for Word. They can be combined into “compositions” that merge several templates into one document (Experlogix help). The Power Automate connector is premium. It connects to a Smart Flows project URL with an API key. Experlogix describes the platform as creating, storing, delivering and e-signing documents “in batches or through automated flows”, from Dynamics 365, Salesforce and external data (connector reference). Its help centre shows Smart Flows running when Dataverse records are updated (Experlogix help). We could not find a published price or licensing model.

Choose it if you need composed documents, forms and e-signature in one hosted platform, especially across more than one CRM.

Look elsewhere if you need a published price to shortlist, or a tool that runs entirely inside your own tenant.

Encodian and Plumsail (Power Automate connectors)

Both are connector-first: you build a flow that reads Dataverse, shapes the data and calls their action.

Encodian Flowr populates Word, Excel and PowerPoint templates from JSON, converts HTML to PDF and merges files. Its Templater add-in for Word builds conditional logic and tables (Encodian Flowr). One subscription covers nine connectors. Pricing is fully published, in euros, dollars and pounds. In euros, plans run from €449 a year (500 credits a month) through €4,999 (12,000 credits) to Dedicated at €9,999 (18,000 credits) and Dedicated+ at €35,000 (unlimited), with unlimited users. Most non-utility actions consume one credit. Paid plans let you choose the Azure processing region, and the Dedicated plans run in your own Azure tenant (Encodian pricing). The Encodian – Word connector is classed as standard (connector reference).

Plumsail Documents creates documents from Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF templates and can collect e-signatures (Plumsail Documents). Its connector is standard in Power Automate (connector reference). Plans are set by monthly document count (Folder 200, Drawer 1,000, Cabinet 3,500), and each process run counts as one document (licensing details). Prices are in Plumsail’s online store (store). They load in the browser and we did not capture a figure. You choose the data centre region when you register (data centre location).

Choose them if your team already lives in Power Automate, documents are one part of a wider flow (convert, merge, stamp, sign), and a per-credit or per-document plan matches your volume. Encodian’s Dedicated plans also answer the “must run in our tenant” question.

Look elsewhere if users need a button on the Dynamics 365 form rather than a flow, or you would rather not maintain the data-shaping step in every flow.

SSS DocGen

Ours. DocGen is a document engine that deploys into your own Azure subscription as a scale-to-zero Azure Container App. It is called through one Dataverse custom API, sss_GenerateDocument, from a model-driven app, Power Automate, Code Apps or Power Pages. A template is configuration, not code: a Handlebars template.html plus FetchXML datasets, stored as rows in your Dataverse and seeded by an idempotent upsert. Output is a PDF rendered by Chromium, or HTML or the data tree while you author (DocGen, template guide).

The price is on the page: €7,500 per production environment per year, excluding VAT. It is not per user, per document or per template, and dev and test environments are free. It includes one template change per quarter. Deployment and onboarding is €5,500 for the first environment, so year one for one environment is €13,000. Azure run costs are billed to you by Microsoft, typically well under €900 a year (pricing). In the case study, change turnaround went from weeks to days.

Choose it if your documents change several times a year, volumes are high enough that a per-document cap or per-seat count hurts, you want documents rendered and returned inside your own tenant, and you want to read the price before the first call.

Look elsewhere if any of these apply:

• You are a small team. €7,500 a year plus onboarding is more than a small per-user tier. For ten users and a few hundred documents a month, DocumentsCorePack’s entry tier will cost you less.
• You want business users designing in Word. DocGen templates are HTML and Handlebars.
• You need editable Word output. DocGen produces PDF, or HTML and data while authoring. Its pages do not describe DOCX output.
• You want SaaS with no Azure. DocGen needs your Azure subscription, an Entra app registration and a Key Vault.

Know the costs up front, too. After an idle period, the first request cold-starts in 10–20 seconds. Genuinely new business logic lives in server-side code, so it is a chargeable change (€1,300) rather than a template edit (case study). Default scaling is about 40 documents in flight at once, so a month-end run of thousands is raised deliberately (cost notes).

How to choose

Stop at the first clear answer.

1. Is it one record, a short list, no conditions? Use the built-in Word template. Done.
2. Is the output really a report, and do you already run Power BI capacity? Use paginated reports.
3. Should business users own the templates in Word, and does your user count fit a published tier? Shortlist DocumentsCorePack. Add dox42 if documents pull from systems other than Dataverse, and Experlogix if you need composed documents and e-signature in one platform.
4. Is document generation one step in a wider Power Automate process? Shortlist Encodian or Plumsail. Pick Encodian’s Dedicated plans if processing must stay in your tenant.
5. Do documents change often, run at volume, and have to render in your own Azure? That is the case DocGen was built for. Compare the flat environment price against your seat count and monthly volume on the others.

Two numbers settle most of these decisions: how many people hold a licensable role, and how many documents you generate in your busiest month. Price each shortlisted option at those numbers. The per-environment vs per-seat licensing piece walks through that arithmetic. If your pain is the cost of changing templates rather than the cost of generating them, read compiled templates vs configuration first.

SSS DocGen

Published price, your tenant, no document count

SSS DocGen renders documents from HTML and Handlebars templates with FetchXML data, held as rows in your own Dataverse and rendered in your own Azure subscription. €7,500 per production environment per year, excl. VAT; unlimited users, templates and documents; development and test environments are free.

See DocGen and its rate card Compare all prices

Related reading

• Dynamics 365 Word template limitationsWhere the native Word template stops: 100 related rows, no conditions, no filtering.
• Aspose.Words for Dynamics 365: compiled templates vs configurationWhat a template compiled into the application costs every time the wording changes.
• Per-environment vs per-seat licensing for Dataverse add-onsWhere the crossover sits and five questions to ask a vendor.
• DocGen case study: twelve compiled templates moved to configurationOne firm’s change costs before and after, at six changes a year.

Sources

Vendor and Microsoft pages this comparison relies on (checked 25 September 2026):

1. Use Word templates to create standardized documents, Microsoft Learn
2. Word Online (Business) connector reference, Microsoft Learn
3. Power Automate pricing, microsoft.com
4. Paginated reports in the Power BI service, Microsoft Learn
5. What are paginated reports in Power BI?, Microsoft Learn
6. Export paginated report to file, Microsoft Learn
7. Export Power BI paginated reports with Power Automate, Microsoft Learn
8. Power BI pricing, microsoft.com
9. Report writing environment using SQL Server Data Tools, Microsoft Learn
10. DocumentsCorePack product page, mscrm-addons.com
11. DocumentsCorePack pricing, mscrm-addons.com
12. dox42 for Dynamics 365 CE, dox42.com
13. dox42 FAQs, dox42.com
14. dox42 Online, dox42.com
15. Smart Flows: Templates, Experlogix help centre
16. Trigger Smart Flows from the Power Platform, Experlogix help centre
17. Experlogix Smart Flows connector reference, Microsoft Learn
18. Encodian Flowr, encodian.com
19. Encodian pricing, encodian.com
20. Encodian – Word connector reference, Microsoft Learn
21. Plumsail Documents, plumsail.com
22. Plumsail Documents connector reference, Microsoft Learn
23. Plumsail Documents licensing details, plumsail.com
24. Plumsail Documents store, plumsail.com
25. Plumsail data centre location, plumsail.com