Purchase Power BI Pro License for Personal non-school non-work account with Office 365 Family.

[anthonycheng]

Hi there,

Here is my situation. I currently have Microsoft Office 365 Family subscription. Hence, I don't have the option for Microsoft 365 Admin Setting Icon. I don't have any school e-mail account NOR use work organization e-mail account. I would like to use Power BI Pro strictly for personal family use and/or my personal Power BI administration skill training need.

I have been using Power BI Pro Free Trial using personal Azure active directory account xxxx@mydomainame.onmicrosoft.com that I had created thru portal.azure.com using my microsoft account xxxxx@gmail.com.

The Free Trial period had ended, and I would like to purchase/upgrade to Power BI Pro for personal family use only 2 users.

In the portal.azure.com, the only subscription I currently have "Pay-As-You-Go".

In the Azure Active Directory (I have 3 users: the main microsoft account/xxxxx@gmail.com, user1@mydomainname.onmicrosoft.com, user2@mydomainname.onmicrofot.com).

Under above circumstance, how do I purchase Power BI Pro licenses? (for user1@mydomain.onmicrosoft.com and user2@mydomain.onmicrosoft.com). I tried many ways in portal.azure.com or thru app.powerbi.com, but doesn't seem there is clear straithtforward way.

Thanks

[GilbertQ]

Hi @anthonycheng 

Thanks for letting us know the steps you took and glad to hear you got it working!

[anthonycheng · Accepted solution]

Hi GilbertQ/All,

Actually, I just resolved it without having to register the domain. Basically, I still get to maintain my office 365 Family subscription. (non-business Office). Because of this, I don't have the Microsoft Office 365 Admin icon setting. So, next, I called phone Microsoft Office 365 for business phone, let them know I was interested to purchase ONLY the Power BI pro licenses. The customer service agent then sent me a link that "Click Buy Now" that now I had access to Microsoft Office 365 Admin Center site. At this site, I signed in using my admin gmail e-mail account (make sure to have Global Administrator role) that I used for portal.azure.com to purchase the Power BI Pro licenses which then I could use them to assign to my other 2 Power BI free users under my Active Directory users. There was a minor hiccup during the billing/payment. After several attempts, I could not get past beyond the billing address despite the correct information. The solution was, under Microsoft support agent guidance, opened up another browser (Google Chrome, instead of Edge) to complete the purchase in microsoft site. Kind of weird that I had to use non-microsoft browser to get past the billing details part, but it worked. So, now I have Power BI Pro licenses for 2 and I get to keep my Office 365 family subscription. 

Thanks all for your feedback. Greatly appreciated.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @anthonycheng 

You do not need to purchase an Office 365 E5 Subscription.

Once you have got the domain registered and you can receive emails, you can sign up to Power BI, which will send through an email to your email address.

That will start with the Power BI Pro Trial.

What happens in the background is it creates an Azure Active Directory and an Office 365 Admin Portal at no cost to you.

Once that is done, you will have to configure and set up the Office 365 Admin Portal which I provided link before. Then once you can access the Office 365 Portal you can go into the Billing/Purchase Services and sign up for a Power BI Pro License as shown below.

[anthonycheng]

Thanks those who responded. I can't believe that Microsoft has made this so difficult for personal users (no school and no work e-mail account) to be able to purchase Power BI Pro licenses. Apparently, many had expressed same frustration in the community.powerbi.com.  

Sounds like the idea from GilbertQ to register a domain worth to explore. However, if I were to go to this route (registering a domain), would I still be required to have office 365 E5 subscription? If so, that would be way more expensive rather than just paying 2 Power BI Pro licenses (USD$9.99 X 2)?

[GilbertQ]

You can purchase the Power BI Pro license once you have set up your Office 365 Admin portal.

[TomMartens]

Hey @anthonycheng ,

unfortunately I can't say how you can buy Power BI Pro in your situation.

I just can tell that you can't buy Power BI Pro using Azure. Power BI Pro is a product that is located inside the M365 product catalog.

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the subscription you have, maybe you can purchase an E5 office subscription somehow, as it contains 1 Power BI Pro license, but I have to admit that I'm not sure if this is possible.

Regards,

Tom

[GilbertQ]

Hi @anthonycheng 

In order to do this you would need to register a domain name which you can use and have email access with.

You could do this with GoDaddy or Google etc.

The reason for this is the xxx@gmail.com is a shared tenant. And in order to use this you would need your own tenant which you can only do with your own domain name.

The only cost would be for the 2 Power BI Pro licenses, which you can purchase once you have signed up for Power BI.

Admin center overview - Office Support (microsoft.com)