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Power BI Free vs Power BI Pro vs Power BI Premium

Last Updated : 08 May, 2025
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Power BI is a tool developed by Microsoft to help users connect to various data sources and create interactive reports. It allows you to visualize your data in a way that makes it easier to see patterns and insights. Power BI was built using some of the features from Excel, like Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View to help you analyze and visualize your data. It works together with these first three fundamentals:

  • Power BI Desktop: A desktop application for data extraction, data modeling, dashboard creation and report creation. Windows desktop software called Power BI Desktop.
  • Power BI service: An online SaaS (Software as a Service) application is the Power BI service.
  • Power BI Mobile Apps: Power BI offers mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Windows that allow user to interact with Power BI dashboards and reports.

Power BI Desktop Or Power BI Free

Power BI Desktop is a free app you can install on Windows. It helps to connect to many types of data sources like Excel, Azure, Salesforce, SharePoint, JSON, XML and ODBC databases. You can clean, combine and transform your data and build interactive reports. But you can not share reports online without upgrading. A basic interface of the Power BI Desktop can be seen below:

power-bi
 

Power BI Pro

The main difference between Pro and Free is that users who have a Power BI Pro license can access each other's data, reports and dashboards when using Pro. Additionally you can make App workspaces. There is a 10 GB per Pro user data storage limit for Power BI Free and Pro. A below shown comparative analysis would be displayed if you try to start your Power BI Pro journey while purchasing the license. Pro users can share content and work with free and PPU users if a Power BI Premium capacity holds the content.

power-bi-pro
 

Power BI Premium

Power BI Premium uses the Power BI Report Server to deploy and distribute Power BI reports. It improves speed, handle bigger workloads and removes the need for individual licenses for viewers. Premium plans vary based on memory and processing power and help businesses to scale better. These features can be summarized as shown below:

power-bi-premium
Power

With a Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) license you get all Power BI Pro features plus Premium features like advanced AI, big data prep and faster performance. Only users with a PPU license can access PPU workspaces. To share content everyone must have a PPU license unless the workspace is in Premium capacity. Microsoft provides Power BI Pro and Premium pricing currently as follows:

pricing-comparison

Difference between Power BI Free, Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium

Good for Personal use and learning with real-time dashboards and reports.

Features

Power BI Free

Power BI Pro

Power BI Premium

License type

Power BI Free per-user license

Power BI Pro license

Power BI Premium per user (PPU) license

Sharing with Others

Accessibility towards the content they produce on their own.

Share dashboards, publish material to other workspaces subscribe to dashboards and reports and share with Pro-licensed users.

Share dashboards, publish material to other workspaces, subscribe to dashboards and reports and share with PPU-licensed users.

Premium Workspace Features

Consume material that Pro or PPU users have shared with them.

Provide material to users with PPU or free licensing.

Make material available to consumers with both free and paid licenses.

Max Storage

10 GB/User

100 TB

100 TB

Pricing

Free

$9.99
Per user/month

$20
Per user/month 

$4,995
Per capacity/month

Advantage

Users can make data preparation easier, get insights faster and manage data more efficiently across the business by buying licenses.

Scalable for large teams no need for individual licenses for viewers and advanced features

Ideal for organizations no need to buy individual licenses for viewers.

Disadvantage

The free Power BI option only lets you work on your own computer. You can't share, collaborate or publish reports. It's good for learning or experimenting alone or in a shared network.

Individual licensing for every user within the same organization is costly.

You can't create reports or manage dashboards with the free version. To make reports users need to buy individual Power BI Pro licenses.

Microsoft provides both of these choices Pro and Premium as a monthly subscription service. You can connect to more than 70 data sources, publish content online and export data to Excel using Power BI Free. The free version has several restrictions.


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