You'll need 500 pros or premium. Answer from manofmatt on reddit.com
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › power-bi › fundamentals › service-features-license-type
Power BI service features by license type - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
There are three per user license types: Fabric (Free), Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium Per User (PPU). The license you need depends on where the content is stored, how you interact with it, and whether it uses Premium (capacity) features.
Microsoft Fabric Community
community.fabric.microsoft.com › t5 › Desktop › What-is-the-limitation-of-Power-BI-Free-license › td-p › 2439522
Solved: What is the limitation of Power BI Free license ? - Microsoft Fabric Community
April 6, 2022 - But, publish to web is a non-secure way to share reports, as it is public. Any one with a link can view he report without security authentication. To share securely, both sharer and recipient have to have pro license or the report needs to be in a workspace with premium capacity. Power BI Free doesnt give you:
Videos
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/powerbi › free license for only viewing users?
r/PowerBI on Reddit: Free License for only Viewing Users?
September 25, 2023 -
My company is currently in the process of reviewing if/how to implement Power BI.
As I'm sure you all well know, MS's licensing structure is stupidly complicated.
So hypothetically, we basically need 10 licenses for Dashboard creators, and 490 licenses for users who will be mainly just viewing the dashboards. (there will be some interactivity such as drill down/through data and pages for the users)
How should I structure our licenses? 10 Pros and 490 Free?
After some reading, some say it'll work, some say it won't. Some as offered buy 10 Premium licenses and implement Read-Only license for the using BI apps or Embedded dashboards.
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You'll need 500 pros or premium.
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It’s funny because Power BI is one of Microsoft’s simplest licensing models. One of the problems is people conflate the terms “free” and “included”. Viewers are included with Premium, not free. Embedded has included viewers but there are other development costs to deploy it. Publish to Web is a hack to have included Viewers with the cost of exposing all your company data to the entire Internet. If licensing costs are problematic, you have bigger problems. There are other costs like Azure, consultants to help get you up and running, and/or roles like Data Engineers who can create dimensional models in a Data Warehouse. Thinking this is all a $100/month investment is orders of magnitude off to roll out Enterprise BI to 500 people. Start small with Premium Per User ($20) licenses so you can use the right feature set.
DataCamp
datacamp.com › blog › power-bi-license-types
Power BI License Types: Who Each Plan Is For | DataCamp
May 7, 2025 - Power BI Premium Capacity (P SKUs): A capacity-based license providing dedicated resources for enterprise-grade performance. Pro or PPU users can create content and share it with users of any license type, including Free.
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › power-bi › fundamentals › end-user-license
Licenses and Subscriptions for Business Users - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
For more information about workspace roles and permissions, see Collaborate in workspaces. Each user of the Power BI service has a free license, a Pro license, or a Premium per-user (PPU) license.
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › power-bi › consumer › end-user-features
Feature availability for Free users in Power BI service - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Being assigned any other role requires that a free user upgrade to Pro or PPU. When an organization has a qualifying capacity subscription (Fabric F64+ or Premium), admins and Pro/PPU users can assign workspaces to that capacity. Content in workspaces hosted on a qualifying capacity can be accessed by users with any Power BI license (including free) as long as they have appropriate permissions.
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › power-bi › fundamentals › service-self-service-signup-purchase-for-power-bi
Sign Up or Purchase Power BI as an Individual - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
This article explains how individuals in an organization can sign up for or purchase Power BI when self-service is enabled, so they can analyze data and create visualizations when self-service is enabled for their account by their organization. These self-service methods include upgrading to a paid license, starting individual trials, and getting free licenses if your organization allows self-service.
Folio3
dynamics.folio3.com › blog › power bi free vs power bi pro vs premium -a detailed comparison
Power BI Free vs Pro vs Premium: Key Differences
July 9, 2025 - Microsoft currently offers several licensing options: Power BI Free (Desktop) – a free license ideal for personal use and learning.
Syskit
syskit.com › blog › power-bi-comparison-free-pro-premium
Power BI Pro Vs Premium Vs Free Comparison
November 13, 2024 - Power BI Free: Exactly what is in the name, it’s free. Power BI Pro: $10 per user with access to all services and features · Power BI Premium per user: $20 in a compromise for smaller businesses who want to avail Premium license services ...
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Cobalt
cobalt.net › home › blog › power bi free vs pro vs premium (feature & pricing examples)
Power BI Free vs Pro vs Premium (Feature & Pricing Examples)
December 1, 2023 - The Power BI Free license for Microsoft Fabric gives users access to a wide array of features at no cost. Power BI Pro licenses add content sharing and collaborative features through Workspaces for a monthly cost of $10 per user.
Visualitics
visualitics.it › home › power bi licensing guide
Power BI Licenses: differences between Pro, Free, and Premium | Visualitics
January 10, 2025 - However, sharing and collaboration features are not available. The Free license is ideal for individuals who want to develop dashboards using all the features of Power BI Desktop without the need to share them with other users.
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › fabric › enterprise › powerbi › service-admin-power-bi-licensing
Power BI Licensing Guide for Organizations - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
When a user signs in, they automatically receive a license. Turning off self-service sign-up prevents users from exploring Power BI for data visualization and analysis. If you block individual sign-up, you might want to get Fabric (Free) licenses for your organization and assign them to all users.
Dynamics Square
dynamicssquare.com › blog › power-bi-pricing-and-licensing-free-vs-pro-vs-premium
Power BI Pricing and Licensing: Free vs Pro vs Premium
The capabilities and server strength cannot be shared with another user. Power BI Free or Desktop version is freely available for all users to help them analyze and visualize the reports.
Veelead Solutions
veelead.com › home › blog › power bi license types: power bi free vs pro vs premium plan comparison
Power BI License Types: Power BI Free Vs Pro Vs Premium Plan Comparison - Veelead Solutions
August 24, 2021 - The multiple versions of the software often lead to the debate on the benefits of Power BI Free vs Pro versions. What are Power BI license types that are available? Power BI currently has three versions: Microsoft Power BI Free / Desktop Microsoft Power BI Pro Microsoft Power BI Premium What ...
Kwixand
kwixand.com › post › power-bi-pro-vs-free-vs-premium
Microsoft Power BI Pro vs. Free vs. Premium
April 10, 2025 - Users may share PBIX files outside of the Power BI cloud service and consume them using Power BI Desktop without requiring any Power BI license · While Power BI's free desktop version allows you to access the program’s basic functionalities, if you need to share your created reports with colleagues and other users, you need the Pro version.
Microsoft Power BI
powerbi.microsoft.com › en-us › getting-started-with-power-bi
Getting Started with Power BI for Free - Microsoft
Begin your Power BI free trial within Microsoft Fabric and experience the next generation of data analytics.
Imaginet
imaginet.com › home › power bi licensing simplified
A Comprehensive Guide to Microsoft Power BI Licensing | Imaginet
May 30, 2023 - You can get started with the Power ... that email address and password to sign up. You’ll get a Power BI free license when you first sign up....
Reddit
reddit.com › r/office365 › get powerbi free... for free (even if your license doesn't include it!)
r/Office365 on Reddit: Get PowerBI Free... For Free (Even if your license doesn't include it!)
November 28, 2020 -
So I'm a tinkerer.... I like to play with O365 just to see what it's capable of outside of the enterprise world.
I'll make a post about the "best bang for the buck" O365 licenses you can but for your personal tenant (Spoiler alert, is the M365 Business Premium license), but I did just want to show you how you can get unlimited, PowerBI Free licenses if your current licence doesn't include it.
Simply navigate to your PowerApps admin portal, scroll down on the left, and under admin centres you'll find a link for PowerBI. Follow this, and you'll get signed up to the PowerBI free package with unlimited licenses.
A short time later, you will also see the PowerBI admin portal show up under your main admin console.
I'm sure there are other way to add this, but for me it worked well, and gives me the chance to play about with all the PowerBI admin controls.
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Just a note: you CANNOT share PowerBI graphs or templates with other users with the free vwrsion.
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PowerBI Free is a standard license available to office 365 subscribers. You don’t need to find workarounds to use it, just subscribe at no cost. Free version is good to create reports with all rich visuals as long as you only need to keep it to yourself. If you need to SHARE or PUBLISH reports to the service so coworkers, management, clients etc can see it, you need Power BI Pro. If your datasets are too big, reports are too heavy to process under standard compute resources which one gets in Power BI Pro, or if you need to run everything on your internal servers only, you can subscribe to PowerBI Premium where you use dedicated servers (various sizes available) in MSFT datacenter to run your reports. It also optionally allow you to run software to do all this internally within your network.
Antdata
antdata.eu › home › articles › power bi license and subscription types. which one to choose?
Power BI License and Subscription Types. | Antdata
June 16, 2025 - Power BI Free (Desktop) is a cost-free license allowing users to connect to data sources, analyze data, and build reports.
RADACAD
radacad.com › home › radacad blog › power bi licensing ultimate guide
Power BI Licensing Ultimate Guide - RADACAD
January 11, 2023 - The Power BI Desktop, which is the tool for authoring and creating the data model and the report and creating the PBIX files, is free to use. You do not even need to have an account to use it.