How to buy Power BI Pro without an Office 365 account?

[webportal]

Hello,

I have read this other similar question before posting, but it doesn't answer my question.

Our client is trying to buy a bunch of Power BI Pro Licences for their company, after their trial versions have expired.

They don't have an Office 365 subscription and have been around for weeks searching for a "Buy Now" button for Power BI Pro.

But no luck. It seems Impossible to buy Power BI Pro.

I've searched the forums and contacted MS support by phone, but they also don't know how to do this.

In order to avoid more frustration, I'd like to know how to do one of the following:

1. We, as partners, buy the licenses for the client

2. We have detailed instructions on how to buy Power BI Pro licenses without and office 365 account

Thank you so much for any help!

[v-shex-msft]

HI @webportal,

You can brought pro license from Microsoft partners(some of partners have their owner pro licenses), but these licenses can't direct activation in office admin portal, you need to contact these providers for activation license methods.

Maybe you can contact to power bi support to know more about these:

Contact a Power BI expert today

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

[webportal]

Actually, in order to buy PBI Pro without an office 365 account it is necessary to be a domain administrator.
With that, it is possible to be a PBI admin and buy licenses.
Still, not very intuitive.
😉

[PaulDBrown]

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@webportal wrote:
Actually, in order to buy PBI Pro without an office 365 account it is necessary to be a domain administrator.
With that, it is possible to be a PBI admin and buy licenses.
Still, not very intuitive.
😉

---

How??

[webportal]

You need to create an office 365 account and assign a domain to that account (you must own that domain). In the administrator page you go to "buy services" and choose Power BI Pro.
If you don't own a domain, your office 365 account will create one for you (within Microsoft domain).
It's complicated...

[PaulDBrown]

@webportal @v-shex-msft 

Thanks for that input. It really baffles me how difficult it is to purchase  a Pro account. This should be a one-click process, especially since I already had the trial period Pro license until it expired. 

As it is, I now actually have two directories in Azure (long story...), neither of which I can apparently purchase a Pro account from. I don't own a corporate level Office 365 license (I do have a "Home" licenses, but that doesn't seem to fit the bill). I also own a domain, but do not want to associate it to my PBI licenses (I will be changing the domain in the near future, and the old -current- domain will no longer be relevant).

So it seems I now need to set up another Office 365 account, and let Microsoft allot a domain in order to be able to purchase a Pro account. And then worry about all the maintenance/admin entailed with the two Azure Directories, a Home Office 365 and another Office 365 account. I hate to think what admin headaches I'm going to have down the road when I start selling PBI consulting services to clients. 

[v-shex-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @webportal,

In fact, even if you got the third party license and activation in your tenant. I think you still need tenant admin to assign license to users.

Regards,
Xiaoxin Sheng