In this blog, you will learn all about Power BI licenses, including Power BI Free, Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium Per Capacity, Power BI Premium Per User (PPU), and Power BI Embedded . You will also discover information about Fabric Capacity.
1. Power BI Free License
- Target Users: Individual users for personal use.
- Capabilities:
- Can create reports and dashboards.
- Limited sharing: Can only publish reports to My Workspace.
- No sharing or collaboration.
- Dataset Limit: Up to 1 GB per dataset.
- Storage Limit: 10 GB per user.
- Data Refreshes: Up to 8 refreshes per day (scheduled).
- Cost: Free.
2. Power BI Pro License
- Target Users: Users who need to create and share reports and dashboards across their organization.
- Capabilities:
- Share reports and dashboards with other Pro users.
- Collaborate within shared workspaces.
- Publish apps to the organization.
- Export to PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF.
- Data governance and lifecycle management.
- Dataset Limit: Up to 1 GB per dataset.
- Storage Limit: 10 GB per user.
- Data Refreshes: Up to 8 refreshes per day.
- Cost: $10 per user per month.
3. Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) License
- Target Users: Advanced users and small teams needing premium features without needing full capacity-based licensing.
- Capabilities:
- Access to advanced features like paginated reports, AI, XMLA endpoint for external tools, and deployment pipelines.
- Users can collaborate and share content with others who have PPU or Premium Capacity.
- Larger dataset support and more frequent refreshes.
- Dataset Limit: Up to 100 GB per dataset.
- Storage Limit: 100 TB (tenant-level storage).
- Data Refreshes: Up to 48 refreshes per day.
- Cost: Around $20 per user per month.
4. Power BI Premium Per Capacity License
- Target Users: Large organizations or teams needing scalable and high-performance capacity for sharing reports and dashboards with an unlimited number of consumers.
- Capabilities:
- Content can be shared with any user, even those without Pro or PPU licenses.
- Supports paginated reports, AI features, larger datasets, deployment pipelines, multi-geo support, and XMLA endpoint.
- Dedicated capacity for enhanced performance.
- Collaboration in shared workspaces.
- Enhanced scalability for complex data models and high consumption.
- Dataset Limit: Up to 400 GB per dataset.
- Storage Limit: 100 TB (tenant-level storage).
- Data Refreshes: Up to 48 refreshes per day.
- Cost: Starts at around $4,995 per capacity per month.
5. Power BI Embedded
- Target Users: Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) or developers looking to embed Power BI content into applications.
- Capabilities:
- Embeds reports and dashboards in custom apps or websites.
- Requires technical development resources to integrate.
- Pricing based on capacity usage.(refer for price)
- Dataset Limit: Up to 400 GB per dataset (depending on capacity tier).
- Storage Limit: 100 TB (tenant-level storage).
- Data Refreshes: Up to 48 refreshes per day.
Microsoft Fabric Capacity License (Power BI within Fabric)
Microsoft Fabric is an integrated platform that combines Power BI with other services for data engineering, data science, and real-time analytics.
Fabric Capacity
- Target Users: Large organizations needing end-to-end data analytics (across ingestion, transformation, and presentation).
- Capabilities:
- Combines capabilities across Power BI, Synapse, Data Lake, Data Engineering, Real-time Analytics, and Data Science.
- Centralized storage and computing resources for data operations.
- Allows creating data pipelines, data models, real-time analytics, and advanced machine learning.
- Embedded analytics for external apps, large-scale dashboards, and reports.
- Capacity Types:
- Scaled similarly to Power BI Premium (e.g., F2, F4, etc.), offering dedicated compute power.
- The larger the capacity, the more data can be processed concurrently.
- Dataset Limit: Up to 400 GB per dataset (same as Power BI Premium).
- Storage Limit: 100 TB (tenant-level).
- Data Refreshes: Up to 48 refreshes per day.
- Cost: Pricing tiers start similar to Power BI Premium Capacity (around $4,995 per capacity per month), but scale depending on data processing and workloads.
| Summary Table | ||||
| License | Dataset Limit | Storage Limit | Data Refreshes | Cost |
| Power BI Free | 1 GB | 10 GB per user | 8 per day | Free |
| Power BI Pro | 1 GB | 10 GB per user | 8 per day | ~$10/user/month |
| Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) | 100 GB | 100 TB (tenant-level) | 48 per day | ~$20/user/month |
| Power BI Premium Per Capacity | 400 GB | 100 TB (tenant-level) | 48 per day | ~$4,995/month |
| Power BI Embedded | 400 GB | 100 TB (tenant-level) | 48 per day | Based on capacity |
| Microsoft Fabric Capacity | 400 GB | 100 TB (tenant-level) | 48 per day | ~$4,995/month and up |
Choosing the Right License:
- For small teams requiring basic reporting and sharing, Power BI Pro is sufficient.
- For larger datasets and advanced capabilities, or if you need to share with many users who don’t have Pro licenses, consider Power BI Premium (either Per User or Capacity).
- For embedded analytics in custom applications, Power BI Embedded is ideal.
- For large-scale data management and comprehensive data workflows that cover ingestion, processing, and visualization, consider Microsoft Fabric Capacity.
Microsoft may also introduce new pricing plans or updates, so be sure to visit the official Power BI pricing page on the Microsoft website for the latest information and detailed comparisons between the different tiers.
Refer to the Microsoft site for latest price update: Power BI Pricing &  Power BI Embedded
