If you're exploring Power BI for your organisation, understanding its licensing options is key. Microsoft offers a few different licence types, each designed to meet specific needs around reporting, collaboration, and scalability. In this blog, we’ll break down the differences between the main licence types so you can make an informed decision about what’s right for your business.
Power BI Free
Power BI Free is the entry-level option, ideal for personal use or experimentation. It allows users to build reports using Power BI Desktop and publish them to their workspace in the Power BI Service. However, it doesn’t support sharing or collaboration with others and is limited in terms of scheduling and connectivity.
Key Features
- Create reports with Power BI Desktop
- Connect to a wide range of data sources
- Use Power Query for data transformation
- Publish reports to the Power BI Service (personal workspace only)
- Manual refresh in the Power BI Service
Limitations
- No ability to share reports or dashboards with others
- No collaboration features
- No scheduled data refresh in the Power BI Service
- Limited access to Microsoft Fabric workloads and advanced features
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro is designed for teams and departments that need to collaborate on analytics. It unlocks sharing, collaboration, and scheduled refreshes. Users can publish content to shared workspaces, consume content created by others, and participate in team-level analytics initiatives.
Key Features
- Everything in Power BI Free
- Share and collaborate in workspaces
- Scheduled data refresh (up to 8 times daily)
- Connect to both on-premises and Cloud data sources
- Use dataflows and DirectQuery
- Export reports to Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF
- Access via Power BI Mobile app
Limitations
- Requires all collaborators to also have a Power BI Pro or PPU licence
- Does not include Premium-only features like paginated reports or dedicated compute
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Power BI Premium Per User (PPU)
Premium Per User is a step up from Pro, unlocking many features previously only available with Premium Capacity. It’s great for individuals or smaller teams who need advanced analytics but don’t require large-scale deployment.
Key Features
- Everything in Power BI Pro
- Paginated reports (pixel-perfect formatting and printing)
- AI capabilities (AutoML, Cognitive Services integration)
- Larger model sizes (up to 100GB per dataset)
- XMLA endpoint read/write access
- Enhanced refresh frequency (up to 48 times daily)
- Access to Microsoft Fabric workloads when supported
Limitations
- All users consuming PPU content must also have a PPU licence
- No access to dedicated capacity, performance still shared
Power BI Premium Capacity (P SKUs / Fabric Capacity)
Premium Capacity provides dedicated cloud infrastructure, allowing for enterprise-scale deployments. It’s designed for large organisations with demanding workloads, complex data modelling, or the need to serve reports to users without Pro or PPU licences.
Key Features
- Everything in PPU and Pro
- Dedicated compute and memory resources
- Share content with free users (view-only)
- Larger storage and model limits (up to 400GB+ per dataset)
- Full support for Microsoft Fabric workloads
- On-premises Power BI Report Server included
- Multi-geo deployment and advanced governance options
- 100TB total storage per capacity
Limitations
- Requires capacity planning and management
- More suited to enterprise-wide adoption or high-traffic reporting environments
Choosing the Right Licence for Your Needs
When deciding which Power BI licence is right for your organisation, ask yourself:
- Who needs access? Are you enabling just a few analysts or hundreds of users across departments?
- What kind of reports do you need? Are basic visuals sufficient, or do you require paginated reports, AI integration, or large datasets?
- Do users need to collaborate? Sharing and collaboration require at least Pro or PPU.
- How complex is your data landscape? Advanced modelling, higher refresh rates, and data governance features may steer you toward Premium options.
Final Thoughts
Power BI’s flexible licensing model allows businesses of all sizes to adopt analytics at a level that suits them. Whether you’re an individual exploring dashboards or an enterprise looking to scale reporting across global teams, there’s a licence that fits.
If you're unsure which option is right for you, a Power BI consultancy partner (like us) can help assess your needs and guide you towards the most effective setup. Get in touch today to find out more.