Which Power BI license is right for you? Choose the one that best suits your needs
Power BI is one of the most popular data analysis tools, but many people may be confused about the different types of licenses available, each with different features and conditions. This article will help you understand the differences between each license and recommend which type is best suited for your needs
What is a Power Bi License?
Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Fabric are solutions that enhance data management and data analysis. Power BI offers strong capabilities for report creation, easy-to-understand visualization, and data collaboration, while Microsoft Fabric focuses on processing large datasets and managing complex data resources at the enterprise level. Therefore, we need to choose which Power BI license version best suits our organization's needs and challenges
To ensure these tools empower businesses to effectively collect, analyze, and utilize data for decision-making—whether for strategic planning, goal setting, or process improvement—it's important to consider the characteristics of your organization and which Power BI license features are most suitable for you
Ask basic questions
- Organizational Size and Structure: How large is your organization? (Is this for your own organization?)
- Number of employees: How many employees are there? And who in the organization uses Power BI?
- Report creation requirements: How many employees need to be able to create and publish reports?
- Access to reports: Most employees only need to view reports and dashboards, or they may want to participate in their creation
- Functionality: Do you need advanced functions such as AI or paginated reports?
- Working environment: Do you need to use Power BI on the cloud or on an on-premises data system?
- Mobile usage: Do you want to use Power BI on your mobile device?
- Data quantity: How much data needs to be analyzed?
Once you have the answer, compare the features of each license
What are the different license options for Power BI?
Power BI Free
Features
- This is a license for an individual (single-user) application
- Reports created using Power BI Desktop can be stored and displayed
- You can create and edit reports, as well as build data models in Power BI Desktop
- New reports can be created on Power BI Service by referencing existing datasets uploaded from Power BI Desktop
- It has 10GB of report storage space and can be refreshed 8 times per day
- The report creator (Owner) creates the report in Power BI Desktop and then publishes it to Power BI Service. The Owner can then access the report stored on Power BI Service via a web browser or Power BI Mobile
Limitations
- Other users will not be able to view the Owner's reports (unless a public link is shared)
- Content cannot be shared or collaborated on
Power BI Pro
It has the same basic features as Power BI Free for creating and visualizing reports, but with additional features
Additional features
- Reports can be collaboratively generated and shared with others in the organization, but end users must also have a Power BI Pro license
- Security settings can be configured for reports and data, such as assigning access rights to reports at the individual or group level
- Supports Embed APIs and controls
Power BI Premium per user , or PPU.
It has similar features to Power BI Pro, but with added AI features and improved storage and processing performance
Additional features
- Increase the model size limit to 100GB
- Increase storage space to 100TB
- You can set the refresh rate to 48 times per day
- It is possible to create a data flow
- It can manage the application lifecycle (ALM).
- Paginated (RDL) reports can be generated
- Supports advanced AI applications (text analytics, image detection, automated, machine learning)
- Supports AI visuals
- Supports data analysis from Azure Data Lake Storage
Microsoft Fabric (Power BI Premium Capacity)
Microsoft Fabric is a comprehensive data analytics solution, integrated with a Premium per Capacity license, providing the ability to manage all data-related functions within an organization. It enables data flow control, real-time data analysis, and business data management
Additional features
- It can store up to 100 TB of data
- You can select a model size limit up to 400 GB
- Reports can be accessed without a per-user license on F64 and later versions
- It has the capability for multi-geo deployment management
Power BI Embedded
- It is a Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) on the Azure Cloud for software or application developers
- To enable the integration of Power BI visualizations with other applications, reports can be displayed through Power BI as if the Power BI report were an integral part of the application developed by the developer
- Users of this application do not need to be familiar with or have a Power BI license, as all access is handled through Power BI Embedded and its related APIs
- This license is ideal for independent application developers because app users don't need a Power BI license, and they can also upgrade to access additional features
Compare Power BI Free, Pro, Premium per user and Microsoft Fabric
| Feature | Power BI Free | Power BI Pro | Power BI Premium per use | Microsoft Fabric |
| Mobile app access | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Publish reports to share and collaborate | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (In F64 and above) |
| Paginated (RDL) reports | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Consume content without a per-user license | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Maximum storage | ❌ | 10 GB/license | 100 TB | 100 TB of Power BI storage |
| Model size limit | 1 GB | 1 GB | 100GB | Varies |
| Refresh rate | 8/day | 8/day | 48/day | 48/day |
| Connect to 100+ data sources | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Create report sand visualizations with Power BI Desktop | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Embed APIs and controls | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| AI visuals | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Advanced AI | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| XMLA endpoint read/write connectivity | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Dataflows | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Analyze data stored in Azure Data Lake Storage | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Data security and encryption | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Metrics for content creation, consumption, and publishing | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Application lifecycle management | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multi-geo deployment management | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| price | Free | $14.00 per user/month | $24.00 user/month | Variable |
Examples of licensing selection.
Company A
Context
The client has 20 Business Intelligence (BI) users, 5 of whom create BI reports, while the remaining users only need to view or access those reports.
Additionally, the client requires premium features such as advanced AI technology and Dataflows for reporting.
Licensing requirements
To achieve the client's BI goals, they need to purchase Premium Per User for every user, as everyone wants access to Premium features.
expenses
- Power BI Premium Per User
Cost: $20 per user per month
- Number of users required to obtain permission:
20 in total. - That's a total of $400 per month
Not sure how to buy or which type to choose? We are happy to provide advice and solve your problems
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