Power BI licensing/ pricing

[JonasBI]

Hi everyone,

I'm rather new to PowerBI and my employer asked me, to find out the difference between Pro, Premium per user, Premium per capacity when it comes to publishing and sharing reports. 

We do have a Pro license but I'm wondering why you can not publish and share with a Premium per capacity?

[samwillam]

Leverage the capabilities of Power BI and empower your team to access any information from any location in a visually appealing way to accelerate informed decision-making. Read this blog to know more about Power BI Free, Pro and Premium: Features, Limitations and Pricing: https://www.dynamicssquare.com.au/blog/guide-power-bi-free-pro-premium/

[FasihaF]

Power BI offers several licensing options for organizations to choose from, each with its own set of features and capabilities for publishing and sharing reports. Here's a brief explanation of the three licenses you mentioned and their key differences when it comes to publishing and sharing reports:

1. Power BI Pro: This is the most basic license and is intended for individual users. With a Pro license, you can publish and share reports with other Power BI Pro users, as well as collaborate on shared workspaces. However, you cannot share reports with users who do not have a Pro license.

2. Power BI Premium per user: This license is designed for organizations that require more advanced features than what is offered by the Pro license. With Premium per user, you can publish and share reports with anyone in your organization, regardless of whether they have a Pro license or not. Additionally, Premium per user offers features such as paginated reports and AI-powered insights.

3. Power BI Premium per capacity: This license is intended for large organizations or those with heavy reporting needs. With Premium per capacity, you can deploy and manage dedicated Power BI capacity in the cloud, which enables you to share reports with anyone, regardless of whether they have a Pro license or not. Additionally, Premium per capacity offers advanced features such as high availability and disaster recovery.

To answer your question, users with a Premium per capacity license can indeed publish and share reports with others. In fact, Premium per capacity is designed for large organizations with many users who need to access reports, so it is ideal for sharing reports widely within your organization. However, to use Premium per capacity, you must first purchase and deploy dedicated capacity in the cloud. This can be a more expensive option, but it offers the most flexibility and advanced features.

For further information on Power BI, you can check out our blog - What is Microsoft Power BI? Why Should You Use It?

[TomMartens · Accepted solution]

Hey @JonasBI ,

I admit that the table can be difficult to read.

The two leftmost licensing options "Power BI Pro" and "Premium Per User" are user centric, meaning each individual user needs one of the licenses either Pro or PPU.

The rightmost most license plan "Premium Per Capacity" assumes that users who consume content from within a Power BI App (this is not the same as a Power BI workspace) do not need a Pro license, as these users can access the app content with a Free Power BI license assigned. Users who have a free license assigned can not share content or publish to a Power BI App workspace.
This is what the table states - Premium Per Capacity does not provide single users (as these users have a free license assigned) with the ability to share or publish content. 

You are absolutely correct - you can publish a Report (a Power BI Desktop file) to a Premium Per Capacity workspace if this user has a Pro license assigned. To be more precise, a user must have a Pro license assigned (at least).

Hopefully, this clarifies things.

Regards,

Tom

[amitchandak]

@JonasBI , If you can premium capacity, then as pro user, if you have access to the premium workspace you can share it with other pro users. With premium capacity, you can share power bi app with no pro users too

https://rigorousthemes.com/blog/power-bi-pro-vs-premium-whats-the-difference/

https://www.syskit.com/blog/power-bi-comparison-free-pro-premium/

https://www.bemopro.com/cybersecurity-blog/power-bi-pro-vs.-power-bi-premium