Power BI Premium do you still need to buy pro at 7.50 a month

[DebbieE]

There is one thing I am still confused about.

Power BI Premium Starts at around £3,766.60 a month so the first thing you have to do is try and establish why you would pay so much for this service. But it also seems that you still need to spend £7.50 a month for developer Pro licences. When I tell people this they immediately say but we are already spending £3,766.60 a month for Premium. And you still want to add in 7.50 a month for all our developers. Its actually quite offputting to taking up the service.

Is this right and how do you spin this as a good thing for people who want to buy into the service. it seems incredibly expensive

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@DebbieE I would suggest that you look into all the different features that the Premium license lights up for you. While initially it was pushed out as only a way to share with many users, there are a myriad of capabilities that it offers that make it well worth the price even without the sharing. I would suggest spending time understanding all the features and determine what other systems would need to be in place to support those without premium. If you view the license as a platform you are standing up, then the individual licenses for content creators also makes sense. For example: If I create an application I need to pay for licenses for a database, a front end host, etc, etc. The developers still need Visual Studio licenses to write code for the application and those licenses are seperate. Slightly different, I know, but the principal stays the same. I've had many customers with less than 100 people that would recieve reports gladly pay for premium due to the feature sets they get.

[DebbieE]

It is clear that Power BI are making lots of features only available on Premium to the point where it seems that you cant really do without it. 

can I just clarify, As a developer I would still need to pay £7.50 a month for Pro even though we have premium

Ive spent months reading info on Premium. I guess you have to do a full run down of each service to look at costs because for many companies the yearly costs of Premium at around £46,199 are fairly staggering.  If you mention that straight off the block its offputting since most people turn to Power BI because its advertised as a low cost way of getting into Analytics. 

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

@DebbieE Yes, developers of reports still need a Pro license. And I would respectfully disagree, the regular Pro option is more than enough for the vast majority of businesses and the reporting needs they have. While I don't disagree there are a few things I would argue shouldn't have been stuck behind the premium wall and should be available for Pro, I do think the license is a fair cost. There is another cost vs. competitors aspect we could consider here as well and it matches or beats that typically too.

[DebbieE]

Its not my view, It seems to be the view of many customers when you explain Premium and how much it will cost. 

For me, Incremental processing is a big issue and should be available in Pro.  Obviously you can add Analysis Services into the mix but I find Incremental processing way more manageable in premium.  Also the fact that you cant connect to an App Workspace thats none premium with things like SSMS and DAX Editor. 

At least I can be assured that Im correct when I say that Developers still need Power BI Pro. 

Thank you