Power BI stands out as a first-level business analysis service, combining powerful data visualization tools with sophisticated business intelligence capabilities. Its intuitive interface ensures that even those without technical training can create informative reports and dashboards. Power BI offers several licenses: Power BI Pro, Free and Premium. Choosing between these licenses is not an easy option, each company has its own needs, its own resources and each organization is different from the others. This article explores the different licenses available for Power BI. We will provide a comparative analysis between Power BI Pro, Free and Premium. Whether you're a data enthusiast or part of a large enterprise, understanding these options will help you choose the right tools to meet your needs.
Microsoft's primary business analysis tool, Power BI, offers users the ability to create dynamic visualizations and take advantage of comprehensive business intelligence capabilities.
What sets Power BI apart from the multitude of other services is its intuitive interface, which allows even non-experts to easily create and manage their reports and dashboards.
Power BI allows users to connect to various data sources, clean and transform information, carry out personalized calculations and present results through graphs, charts and tables. Transform data from different sources into business intelligence reports and interactive tables. In addition, it provides numerous connectors for various services and software.
By integrating with existing Microsoft systems such as Azure, SQL and Excel, the platform simplifies the creation of data visualizations. This makes it an ideal choice for those who already use Microsoft products such as Office 365, Azure and Excel.
Accessible through a web browser, mobile device or desktop application, Power BI integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft tools such as Excel and SharePoint. Just like other versatile tools, Power BI is designed to grow in complexity based on user needs. It offers a number of advanced features that can be used to improve the experience.
We'll review and compare the three available versions of Power BI: Power BI Free, Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium.
Power BI offers numerous advantages, allowing management teams to make quick decisions without compromising the company's profitability. Power BI simplifies data visualization by providing comprehensive summaries of business data in various visual formats, including tables, charts, indicators, and maps. This variety of display options makes it easier for teams to use information effectively.
One of the main advantages of Power BI is its intuitive nature. You don't need to have a degree in data science to use this BI tool! Both managers and analysts can easily access detailed information with just a few clicks. Users can customize their analysis of the results based on their unique roles and requirements.
There's no need to segment raw data yourself because Business Intelligence has already taken care of it. A customized Power BI dashboard allows users to immediately view the data that is important to them.
Power BI is accessible on all platforms and can be used at any time, allowing employees to act more autonomously by easily accessing data. This ease of access also enhances collaboration. Of course, access is safe and secure to ensure the integrity of the information.
A very useful aspect of Power BI is the modeling and transformation of data. Power BI offers exceptional data modeling and transformation capabilities through Power Query and Power Pivot. Power Query is used to import, clean and model data, while Power Pivot is used to establish relationships between queries and create meaningful tables from clean data. These data modeling and cleaning capabilities allow businesses to maintain consistency and accuracy, ensuring that they receive reliable information.
Users can easily create compelling visualizations, while interactive dashboards and reports allow dynamic data exploration. These engaging visualizations make it easier to fully understand business metrics, trends, and patterns.
Collaboration plays a crucial role in achieving organizational success, and Power BI excels in this regard. Its workspace and sharing capabilities allow teams to work together efficiently on reports and dashboards, promoting a culture where decisions are driven by data. In addition, the integration with SharePoint and Teams amplifies the collaborative experience, facilitating fluid communication and knowledge exchange.
Last but not least, let's not forget the advanced analytics capabilities offered by Power BI with artificial intelligence. Power BI uses advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to improve business insights. With the Quick Insights and Q&A capabilities, users can quickly get data-based answers to their questions. Using Azure Machine Learning and AI services, organizations can easily implement predictive analysis models and anticipate future trends, facilitating proactive decisions.
Now that we've browsed the main benefits and capabilities of Power BI, let's see how these are applied in the different Power BI licenses.
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There are essentially three licenses that Microsoft makes available for Power BI, two of which apply to an individual user, while the third is based on the type of storage capacity that a company has purchased.
Respectively, the three main licenses are: Power BI Free (or Desktop), Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium.
Below is a table extracted from the Microsoft page that summarizes and compares the three licenses.
As the name suggests, Power BI Free, or Power BI Desktop, is the free version that can be downloaded directly from the Microsoft Store. This option allows users and organizations to take advantage of the powerful Power BI service at no cost. Users can easily download the software and start creating visualizations and dashboards using their organization's data.
Power BI Free offers access to almost all the tools available in the Power BI Service. This version allows you to connect data from multiple databases, transform them and create dashboards and reports with tables, graphs and diagrams.
Power BI Free is an individual license that allows users to use the product under certain conditions, including the use of 10 GB of storage per single user.
For an organization, it is vitally important to monitor developments to achieve its objectives. One way to monitor these factors is through KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, which track the trends of a specific activity.
For this reason, with the Power BI visualization tool, you can create charts and diagrams that track the progression of your success. Once you have designed a dynamic and visually appealing and clear dashboard, with Power BI Desktop you can upload the customized dashboard directly to Microsoft Dynamics 365, if you wish.
A wide range of filters and visualization tools, the ability to connect and import data from the cloud and local sources, the creation of reports and dashboards and be able to upload them online and, finally, the convenience of accessing content shared by users who have a Power BI Pro or Premium license - but only if the shared content is in the Premium user's workspace.
All these tools are already available in the version of Power BI Free, or Desktop, whatever you want.
Let's now analyze what you can do with the Power BI Pro license, before comparing the two.
Power BI Pro offers a full range of services designed for professional users who want to make the most of the Power BI ecosystem. Like the free version, Power BI Pro is also an individual license per user.
The main difference between Power BI Free and Pro concerns sharing capabilities. With Power BI Pro, users can share data, reports, and dashboards with other Pro license holders. In addition, Power BI Pro users can create Workspace Apps. Both versions have a storage limit of 10 GB, while individual files are limited to 1 GB.
In addition, Power BI Pro allows connections to various local datasets and supports the automatic updating of the latter. If your data is stored on-premises instead of in the cloud, you can connect and analyze it without problems.
A typical example is a self-hosted SQL database. With Power BI Pro, you can schedule data updates efficiently, ensuring that your team always has access to the most recent version of the data.
All users with this license can share data, reports and dashboards, publish apps and content packages protected by RLS Security, but only with other users who also have a Power BI Pro license.
The other solution to overcome this issue is to upgrade to the Power BI Premium version.
Power BI Premium is the third license that, as mentioned above, is based on capacity. This does not imply that it is an exclusively capacity-based license, in fact Power BI Premium also offers the option for a single user, let's see them below.
Power BI Premium offers two options: by capacity and per user. While both alternatives share many features, the main difference is that Premium for Capacity allows you to share Power BI content with external people who don't have per-user licenses.
Capacity allows you to allocate a set of resources for exclusive use, accompanied by optimal performance for the type of content.
Each capacity allows you to choose from a range of SKUs, and each SKU provides different levels of computing power resources. The specific SKU is proportional to the type of solution you intend to deploy.
In addition to content sharing features, both the Premium per User and Premium Capacity options include all the features of the Power BI Free and Pro licenses. In fact, Power BI Premium also offers several additional features.
For organizations that intend to use Power BI Premium, it is necessary to have some users with Power BI Pro licenses, since development, collaboration, and administration take place primarily in Pro. One of the main advantages of Power BI Premium is its design to enhance and support the functionality of Power BI Pro.
Historically, and by default, every piece of content published in Power BI uses shared capacity. However, with Power BI Premium, administrators can assign content to premium capacity on dedicated hardware.
Premium capacity improves asset management, offering dedicated resources that lead to better and more reliable performance. It also allows for more frequent automatic data updates and the ability to store larger volumes of data.
A significant change with Power BI Premium is that sharing with business users now requires the use of embedded content or apps that run on premium capacity.
A key benefit of Power BI Premium is the inclusion of Power BI Report Server, the long-awaited on-premises solution. With Report Server, users can create, publish and manage reports, providing them to the public in a variety of ways. Report Server supports SQL Server Reporting Services reports and allows publishing on mobile devices. In addition, the content created inside can later be transferred to the cloud.
This option is ideal for organizations that are not yet ready to fully switch to the cloud, for those that already use SQL Server Reporting Services, or for organizations that need some content to remain on-premises within their organization's firewall.
In addition, Power BI Premium allows you to share your reports and dashboards with external users, as well as with internal ones.
Premium options offer unique features such as paginated reports, which are particularly beneficial for users. These reports allow for the customization and formatting of Power BI data, ensuring that everything fits perfectly on printable pages. In addition, the inclusion of a Report Builder allows you to create high-quality physical copies with precise and detailed layouts.
Premium users also have access to advanced AI modeling tools. These powerful features support text analysis, image recognition, and automated machine learning, all integrated within the Power BI software.
Now that we have individually analyzed the three licenses that Microsoft makes available, let's come to the direct comparison between the Power BI Pro vs Free license.
Power BI Free offers users access to approximately 90% of its functionality. However, a key distinction between Power BI Pro and Free concerns the improved content sharing and collaboration capabilities available with the Pro license, which significantly elevate interactions between Power BI users.
With the Power BI Pro license, users can view and interact with reports and dashboards published by others. This promotes a collaborative environment, allowing teams to create connections to data together, transform information, and build dashboards and reports. Such improved collaboration can save time and ensure that everyone is aligned.
A fundamental limitation of the Power BI Pro license is that data, dashboards and reports can only be shared with users who also have a Pro license. Therefore, to take full advantage of these sharing and collaboration features, all team members must obtain their Power BI Pro license.
This license is ideal for organizations that are looking for strong sharing, visualization, and collaboration capabilities in an internal environment.
There are different methods for sharing and collaborating on Power BI dashboards, reports, and datasets within the team. An effective approach is to use Workspaces, which allow users to easily interact with each other.
Workspaces provide a centralized space where your team can access and edit Power BI reports at any time. All members within a Workspace share ownership of these reports, promoting a flexible and efficient collaborative environment.
In addition, Workspaces provide different roles that allow administrative users to assign various levels of authorization to those who access and manage Power BI reports, dashboards, and datasets. Available roles include Admin, Member, Contributor, and Viewer. Admins have full access to the workspace, while Viewers can only view and interact with items or read datasets.
To assign these roles, simply click on the Access tab in the selected Workspace.
Beyond Power BI Free, which, as its name suggests, is free, for the other two licenses it is necessary to focus on the considerations of cost, requirements and functionality.
The Power BI Pro license includes content sharing and collaboration across workspaces at a cost of €9.40 per month per individual user.
Instead, Power BI Premium also allows you to access other features, such as AI insights and paginated reports. Regarding the monthly cost, a distinction must be made between the two types of licenses: Power BI Premium per user (PPU) or by capacity.
The first, PPU costs €18.70 per month per user. A Premium capacity license, on the other hand, costs 4675.60€ per month per single capacity. The latter, unlike the PPU, also includes an increase in the maximum size of the models to 400 GB, unlimited distribution of the contents within the capacity, and Multi-Geo support, which allows to fulfill the conditions of data localization.
When deciding between Power BI Pro vs Free, the right choice depends on your specific requirements. Power BI Free, or Desktop, is a good option for those looking for powerful data visualization and reporting tools at no additional cost. It provides a solid foundation for personal data analysis but lacks robust sharing and collaboration capabilities.
In contrast, Power BI Pro unlocks extensive collaborative features, allowing users to share reports and dashboards with others who hold Pro licenses. This ability is indispensable for teams and organizations that aim to maintain synchronized and collaborative workflows around information derived from data.
Cost is another crucial factor. The price of Power BI Pro is reasonable considering the wide range of advanced features compared to the free version. For organizations that need even more advanced capabilities, Power BI Premium, while more expensive, offers superior functionality and greater capacity.
In conclusion, the choice between Power BI Pro vs Free should be guided by the importance of data sharing and collaboration in your work, along with the complexity of your data needs. For those looking for a comprehensive and collaborative data solution, Power BI Pro stands out as the optimal choice.
Here are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about Power BI Pro, based on the content of our article.
Power BI Pro is a business analytics service by Microsoft that allows users to share data, reports, and dashboards with other licensed users. It includes features for data visualization and business intelligence.
Power BI Pro offers enhanced sharing and collaboration capabilities, allowing users to publish and share reports and dashboards with other Pro users. Power BI Free is limited to personal use without sharing capabilities.
Power BI Pro is priced at €9.40 per user per month.
Power BI Premium includes all Pro features plus enhanced data capacity, AI insights, and the ability to share content with non-licensed users. It offers both per-user and capacity-based licensing options.
Power BI Free (Desktop) can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store, providing access to most tools and features for personal use without collaboration capabilities.
Power BI Pro is ideal for organizations needing robust data sharing and collaboration capabilities, allowing teams to work together on data analysis and reporting.
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