Which Power BI license do I need?
It's a question we get asked very often. Whether it's from people who have just started to look at Power BI as a possible Business Intelligence tool, or people who are already making reports and dashboards in Power BI Desktop and want to 'Publish' them. Everyone who comes into contact with the Microsoft product, will run into this question at some point. It's very likely you will encounter the screenshot on the right.
This page helps you answer the questions about Power BI's licensing and helps you choose the right one.
Start small and grow
Per user licensing
For smaller companies and use-cases, you pay for users.
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro is a per-user license allowing users to create, share, and interact with content in the Power BI service. Pro users can collaborate and share content with other Pro users. If Pro users want to share with non-Pro/Power BI-users, it needs to be hosted in Power BI Capacity. If hosted in Capacity, Pro users can also share with free and PPU users.
-
€ 9,40 per user per month *
-
Data refreshes per day (up to 8)
-
Maximum storage: 10 GB per user
-
Memory model limit: 1 GB
* As of April 2025, this will be $14 (USD) as announced by Microsoft
If you want to share your reports or dashboards this means:
-
Access to app.powerbi.com
-
Everyone needs to be in your tenant, people outside your organization need to be invited as a 'Guest'
-
Everyone needs a license
Power BI Premium per user (PPU)
A PPU license includes all Power BI Pro features plus most capacity features. PPU users can access advanced features and content, but sharing and collaboration require all participants to have a PPU license unless the content is hosted in capacity.
-
€ 18,70 - per user per month*
-
Advanced AI, data streams, data marts, and reading/writing to XMLA endpoints
-
More compute power than Pro
-
Maximum storage: 100 TB
-
More data refreshes per day (up to 48)
-
Memory model limit: 100 GB
* As of April 2025, this will be $24 (USD) as announced by Microsoft
If you want to share your reports or dashboards this means:
-
Access to app.powerbi.com
-
Everyone needs to be in your tenant, people outside your organization need to be invited as a 'Guest'
-
Everyone needs a license
Large loads and numbers
Capacity licensing
For larger companies and use-cases, you pay for usage.
Power BI Embedded
Flexible and scalable, but not on users-level but capacity-level.
-
€ 706 – € 94.000 per month
-
Capacity is billed per hour
-
Can be paused (for e.g. at night, to reduce costs)
-
Data refreshes per day (up to 48)
-
Memory model limit (3GB to 400 GB)
-
No Fabric features available (Fabric workloads/Copilot)
-
Needs custom development to share reports
If you want to share your reports or dashboards this means:
-
Viewers don't need a Pro license
-
Report builders/managers still need a Pro/PPU license
-
Development of custom portal can be costly, especially keeping it updated and performing maintenance
-
NO access to app.powerbi.com
Microsoft Fabric
Choose between either:
Fabric Capacity Pay-As-You-Go.
This variation is paid per hour, It is more expensive, but can be paused.
or
Fabric Capacity Reservation. Paid per month or year, either upfront or monthly invoiced. Cheaper because it's a commitment made for longer term.
(Previously Power BI Premium Capacity license)
-
F SKU: € 246 – € 252.000 per month
-
Consume PBI content without paid-per-user
F64 or higher required -
Access to Fabric workloads & Copilot
F64 or higher required -
Data refreshes per day (up to 48)
-
Access to OneLake storage
-
Access to app.powerbi.com
-
Memory model limit (3GB to 400 GB)
If you want to share your reports or dashboards this means:
-
F64 or higher required, or all viewers need Pro/PPU license
-
Report builders/managers still need a Pro/PPU license
-
Everyone needs to be in your tenant, people outside your organization need to be invited as a 'Guest'
Unfortunately,
None of the options Power BI offers are really suitable for external sharing
Not only are these options complicated to understand. Even if you understand the differences and know which to use, you might still run into limitations or issues that can only be solved with for a disproportionately high cost. Especially when it comes to sharing outside your own company, for example with partners, customers or governmental bodies.
Flexible & scalable
Webdashboard as an easier, more affordable alternative
We believe licensing should not be so complex that you'll have to compare endlessly and read through Miscrosoft Documentation or be a technical expert to understand what you need. Let alone that you would have to do custom development on top of already expensive licensing.
These are the reasons why we made Webdashboard.
For Webdashboard, we have easy, affordable licensing - in many cases even cheaper than Power BI's options.
-
€ 8,99 per user per month *
(minimum 3 licenses required) -
Easy sign-up and go
-
High performance in our Azure Datacenter
-
Managed & monitored
-
Includes Power BI licenses
-
Shared (limited) capacity
* As of April 2025, this will be € 9,99 per user per month
Hybrid
Start small and grow. For companies that expect to need a lot, but want to test first and grow.
Ideal for 20 - 200 users
-
€ 5 per user per month
(minimum 20 licenses required)
+ own capacity * -
Support with connecting your existing environment
-
Choose your Azure Datacenter [location]
-
No Power BI license per user
-
Fabric features possible
* Lowest Capacity starts at €266 (pay-as-you-go) / €158 (reservation)
Enterprise
For companies that need to share with many users, or already have an existing environment.
Ideal for 200 - unlimited users
-
fixed price per month/(multiple) year(s) + own capacity*
-
Share with large numbers of users
-
Support with connecting your existing environment
-
Choose your Azure Datacenter [location]
-
No Power BI license per user
-
Annual subscriptions possible (tiers with discounts)
-
Fabric features possible
* Lowest Capacity starts at €266 (pay-as-you-go) / €158 (reservation)
How do I know which
option is the best for me?
To help you make the decision, here are some questions to take into consideration, during your decision making process:
-
What is your concrete use-case at this moment? With whom do you want to share your insights with at this moment? What do you want to share and why? Who is allowed to see what and what not?
-
What do you foresee for the future, long-term? Will users and use-cases change over time? Will you share more as your needs grow? With other divisions, countries or companies?
-
What is important for you? When it comes to management of the application/platform, of reports, of users and access, but also security. Where do you want to save time or costs compared to your current way of working? But also, things like: How large are my reports and the models behind? and Where should they be hosted?
-
What is important to your (end)users? To the people that actually use the reports and dashboards. Should they be able to access it on-the-go, on mobile? Do they need in-depth info or just the KPIs? Do they desire a lot of engagement? How often will they need to have a look at the insights? Are they experienced (Power) BI-ers or not? And yes, even think about those difficult questions that might come, like: 'Can I get this in Excel?' or about printing it. 😉
Try to think about their situation and needs as well as yours.
Download the presentation
In our brief overview presentation "Power BI Licensing Comparison for Sharing Purposes", you will find:
The difference in Power BI licenses regarding: costs, requirements, limits, advantages, disadvantages etc., to help you make the choice that fits your and your company's needs best. Feel free to share this with your colleagues or management.
Compare costs & options, choose which is right for you
Advantages & disadvantages in one overview
Methods to share for different scenarios