Power BI licensing can be complicated. Below, we summarise the various Power BI license types so you can make an informed decision.
• Choose Free if you’re just experimenting, or using Power BI Desktop for personal projects.
• Choose Pro if you’re part of a team, and need to automate data refreshes, secure sharing and collaboration.
• Choose Premium Per User if you need enterprise grade capabilities, advanced features, or work with very large and complex datasets.*
• Consider Fabric licenses when you've got 500+ users internally.
• Consider Fabric licenses when sharing content externally, such as a customer portal.
*Start with Pro if you’re collaborating, and upgrade to Premium Per User if your data and analytics requirements grow more advanced.
For anyone learning Power BI, and / or personal projects.
Power BI Desktop is free to use. This is ideal for people who want to learn Power BI, or create reports for personal use.
✓ Connect to a wide range of data sources
✓ Build dashboards and visuals
✓ Manually refresh data
✓ Export to PDF and Excel
✗ No secure sharing with others
✗ No scheduled data refreshes
Free
For companies needing security, automation and collaboration.
Pro is the entry level paid plan, required if you want to securely share dashboards and collaborate with others.
'Free' plus
✓ Secure, automated sharing to other Pro users
✓ Collaborate in workspaces
✓ Scheduled data refreshes
✗ More than 8 refreshes per day
✗ Large data sets (> 1GB)
NZD $22.60 per user per month
All Creators and Viewers require Pro licenses
Advanced features, larger data models and more frequent refreshes.
Pro is the entry level paid plan, required if you want to securely share dashboards and collaborate with others.
'Pro' plus
✓ Larger datasets (100 GB)
✓ Up to 48 refreshes per day
✓ Advanced AI & dataflows
✗ More than 8 refreshes per day
✗ Large data sets (> 1GB)
NZD $38.80 per user per month
Accessing PPU content require a PPU license
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