Power BI Licensing and Setup
Written By: Austin Levine
Last Updated on September 22, 2026
Power BI has three per-user licenses and one capacity license. Free lets you build reports for yourself. Pro, at $14.00 per user per month paid yearly, lets you share and collaborate. Premium Per User, at $24.00, adds larger models, 48 refreshes a day and most Premium features, but only among other PPU users. A Fabric capacity of F64 or larger lets people with a free license view reports, which is what makes it cheaper than Pro for large audiences.
The detail that catches most teams out: a Fabric capacity smaller than F64 does not remove the need for Pro. Every person viewing Power BI content on F2 to F32 still needs a Pro or PPU license.
The four license types at a glance
Free | Pro | Premium Per User (PPU) | Fabric capacity (F SKU) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Price | $0 | $14.00 per user/month, paid yearly | $24.00 per user/month, paid yearly | Per capacity, billed through Azure |
Build reports in Power BI Desktop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not a user license. Builders still need Pro or PPU |
Publish outside My workspace | No | Yes | Yes | Not a user license. Publishers still need Pro or PPU |
Share with others | No | With other Pro or PPU users | With other PPU users | With anyone who has viewer access, on F64 or larger |
Scheduled refreshes per day | Not applicable | 8 | 48 | 48, or more through the API |
Semantic models larger than 1 GB | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Paginated reports | My workspace only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
XMLA endpoint | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Lakehouses, warehouses, notebooks | No | No | No | Yes |
Prices are Microsoft's list prices in US dollars for Pro and PPU. Fabric capacity prices vary by region and by pay-as-you-go versus reservation. See our Power BI license cost guide for the numbers.
Power BI Free
A free license is assigned automatically when someone signs in. It lets you build reports in Power BI Desktop and publish them to your own My workspace. It does not let you share with anyone or publish to a shared workspace.
A free user can view other people's reports in one case only: the report sits in a workspace on a Fabric capacity of F64 or larger, or on a Power BI Premium P capacity, and the user has the viewer role on that workspace.
Who needs it: people learning Power BI, and report viewers in organizations that run an F64 or larger capacity.
Power BI Pro
Pro is the license most teams run on. It lets you publish to shared workspaces, share reports and dashboards, build apps and subscribe to reports. Pro users can share with other Pro users, and with free users when the content sits on a large enough capacity.
Pro includes paginated reports. With Pro you can publish paginated reports built in Power BI Report Builder to any workspace where you have at least the contributor role.
Limits: semantic models up to 1 GB, and 8 scheduled refreshes a day.
Who needs it: everyone who builds and shares reports, and every viewer when you have no capacity or a capacity smaller than F64.
For a closer comparison with the free license, see Power BI Free vs Pro.
Power BI Premium Per User (PPU)
PPU gives one person most Power BI Premium features: 48 refreshes a day, semantic models larger than 1 GB, the XMLA endpoint (a connection protocol that lets external tools like Tabular Editor edit the model directly), and deployment pipelines.
The limit is that PPU content is only visible to other PPU users. Put a report in a PPU workspace and a Pro user cannot open it. Microsoft describes PPU as the cost-effective choice when fewer than 250 people need Premium features.
PPU is not a Fabric capacity. It does not let you create lakehouses, warehouses, notebooks or any other non-Power BI Fabric item. For those you need an F capacity or a trial.
Who needs it: small teams where every report user is also a heavy user, or developers who need the XMLA endpoint. See Power BI Pro vs Premium for the full comparison.
Fabric capacity (F SKUs)
A Fabric capacity is compute you rent for the whole organization. F SKUs start at F2 and double in size at each step. They are billed through Azure per second with no commitment, or cheaper with a one-year reservation. Workspaces are assigned to the capacity, and everything in them uses that compute.
Two sizes matter for Power BI:
F2 to F32: you get Fabric workloads such as lakehouses and pipelines, but every Power BI viewer still needs Pro or PPU.
F64 and larger: users with a free license and the viewer role can view Power BI content. This is where a capacity starts replacing Pro licenses.
A 60-day Fabric trial gives you capacity equivalent to F64. It does not include Copilot.
Who needs it: organizations with many report viewers, or anyone who wants to use Fabric for data engineering alongside Power BI. We walk through that decision in Why choose Microsoft Fabric.
What happened to Power BI Premium (P SKUs)
Power BI Premium per capacity, the P1 to P5 SKUs, is being retired. Microsoft now sells P capacities only to customers with an active Enterprise Agreement, and tells new and existing customers to buy Fabric F SKUs instead. In capacity terms, P1 corresponds to F64.
If your organization still runs a P SKU, plan the move to an F SKU at your next renewal.
Power BI Embedded (A SKUs)
A SKUs are Azure capacities for embedding Power BI reports in your own application. They support Power BI items only, not other Fabric workloads. When you embed for your own staff on an A SKU, each viewer still needs Pro or PPU. When your application authenticates on behalf of external customers, the end users need no license.
How to choose
A small audience and no Fabric workloads: give everyone Pro. Add PPU only for the developers who need XMLA or larger models, and remember PPU content is invisible to Pro users.
Many viewers, few builders: an F64 or larger capacity, with Pro for the people who publish. Free licenses cover the viewers.
You want lakehouses, pipelines or notebooks: you need an F capacity of some size, whatever you decide for Power BI viewers.
The break-even between buying Pro for every viewer and buying F64 depends on your region and on reservation pricing. Price both before you commit.
FAQs
What Power BI license do I need to share reports?
Pro or PPU. Free users can only view shared reports when the workspace is on an F64 or larger capacity, or a P capacity, and they have the viewer role.
Is Power BI Premium Per User better than Pro?
It has more features: 48 refreshes a day, models over 1 GB and the XMLA endpoint. But PPU content can only be viewed by other PPU users, so it only pays off when everyone who needs the reports has PPU.
Can free users view reports on a Fabric capacity?
Only on F64 or larger. On F2 to F32, each viewer needs Pro or PPU.
How does Power BI licensing relate to Microsoft Fabric?
Power BI is one workload inside Fabric. Fabric capacities host Power BI workspaces as well as lakehouses, warehouses and pipelines, and the same Pro and PPU licenses apply to the Power BI items.
Sources
Understand Microsoft Fabric licenses and capacity - Microsoft Learn
Power BI service features by license type - Microsoft Learn
What are paginated reports in Power BI? - Microsoft Learn
Power BI pricing - Microsoft
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