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Microsoft Power BI

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The 4 Types of Licenses for Power BI: Which License best
suits your Company?

Pro, Premium or is the Free version enough? Microsoft offers four license types for Power BI - with different functional scope at different prices. But which license best meets the requirements and needs of your company and your Power BI users?

Ask yourself Basic Questions first

Start by asking yourself these fundamental questions:

  • How big is your company?
  • How many employees should use Power BI?
    • How many of them should create and publish reports?
    • And how many employees should only be able to view the reports and dashboards?
  • Do you need extensive functions such as advanced AI or paginated reports?
  • Do you want to work in the cloud or on-premises?
  • Do you want to work mobile?
  • What data volumes are you dealing with?

Typically, you need to distinguish between two groups of Power BI users with different roles:

  • Report designers: These users create and publish reports.
  • Report consumers: These users work with the finished reports, datasets and dashboards in the Power BI service.

What does this mean for the Licenses?

All Report designers need at least the Pro license. Report consumers also need a Pro license - unless the reports are stored on a Power BI Premium capacity. You can think of the capacity as a kind of “virtual container” in which you store the data. If you have this license for your company, even the free version is sufficient for consumers to view the reports.

All Types of Licenses at a Glance

Function / Target Group Organization Price Strengths Limitations
Power BI Desktop Beginners Small enterprises oder Single users € 0.00 Free use without time limit
  • No shared use
  • No automatic updates
  • Low data protection
  • No mobile use
  • Only 1 GB data storage per user
Power BI Pro Individual users and teams working together on data reports Small, medium and large companies that require the standard functions € 9.40
per user per month
60 days free trial without subscription		 Full version: More features than in the free version, including:
  • Seamless collaboration in workspaces
  • Dashboards teilen
  • Low license costs for small teams<liLarge pool of visualizations
  • Automatic updates in real time
  • Monitoring and control of data access
  • Apps are available for use
  • Data storage capacity of 10 GB per user
  • Every user needs a license
  • Cloud usage obligatory
  • No classic reporting with reports with a fixed layout possible
Power BI Premium Per User
(available since 04/2021)		 Reporting, large amounts of data and AI possible
→ Licenses for individual users		 Small, medium and large companies that require extended functions € 18.70
per user per month		 All functions of Power BI Pro and in addition, among others:
  • Better scalability and performance for reports
  • Classic reporting with reports with fixed layout possible
  • Automated control of the development process
  • External management tools
  • Advanced AI functions
  • Paginated reports
  • Maximum storage size of 100 TB per capacity
  • Every user needs their own license
  • Cloud use obligatory
Power BI Premium P1 Many users and high performance
→ Capacity for the entire company		 Large companies with many Power BI users From € 467.56
per capacity and month		 Functions of Premium Per User:
  • Any number of users
  • Can also be used on-premises
  • Very large data volumes: Maximum storage size of 100 TB per capacity
  • Users need a Power BI Pro license or Premium/User to publish content.
  • High license costs per user - does not pay off for small and medium-sized teams

The Microsoft E5 Packages: Power BI Pro included

If you have the Microsoft E5 packages Microsoft 365 E5  or Office 365 E5 , the Power BI Pro license is already included. To benefit from this, you can also “upgrade” from an E3 package to an E5 package.

Difficult Decision: Power BI Desktop, Pro or Premium? Or a Combination?

Which license is better for you depends on the number of report designers and report consumers. To help you decide, we have three simple calculation examples for you:

  • Company A:

    This company employs 195 employees who are to work with Power BI. Of these, 15 are report designers and 180 are users who are only supposed to see and use the reports. The standard functions are generally sufficient for report creation.

    → In this case, the cheapest option is to provide all 195 employees with a Pro license. You pay 195 x €8.40 per month, i.e. a total of €1,638. The premium license for €4,212.30 would not pay off for this company.

  • Company B:

    The next company would like 50 of the 420 Power BI users to be authorized to create and publish reports. Of these, 20 should work with larger amounts of data and use more extensive additional functions. The remaining 370 users are report consumers.

    → Under these conditions, you should opt for 400 Pro licenses and 20 Premium Per User licenses. This costs a total of €3,698: you pay €3,360 for the Pro licenses and €338 for the Premium/User licenses. Here too, the Premium capacity is not yet worthwhile for the entire company.

  • Company C:

    This company has a much larger team: there are 730 employees who are supposed to work with Power BI. Of these, 30 employees should be able to create reports themselves, while the remaining 700 are report consumers.

    → Here you should opt for 30 Pro licenses and one Premium license with capacity for the entire company. Without the Pro licenses, the report designers would not be able to create and publish reports. This is because a single user license is always required. The 700 consumers have access to the reports via the Free version in combination with the Premium capacity. Your monthly costs in this case are €252 for the Pro licenses and €4,212.30 for the Power BI Premium license - a total of €4,464.30.

    Alternatively, you could also purchase Pro licenses for all 730 employees. This would then cost you a total of €6,132. With the combined version, you save more than €1,600 per month.

Not sure which License best suits your Company?

If you are still unsure which license is best suited to your company or are considering a combination of different licenses, we will be happy to help you decide.