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Expert Power BI licensing guidance from BCN. Choose the right plan for your business needs with specialist support.
TRANSFORM DATA INTO INSIGHT
Power BI is Microsoft’s leading business intelligence platform, part of the Power Platform suite. It connects data from multiple sources, transforms information into meaningful insights, and creates dashboards that support faster, smarter decisions. With Power BI, businesses can prepare, model, and analyse data effectively. Get ready to turn raw information into competitive advantage with a Power BI license for your business.
LICENSING OPTIONS
Selecting the right Power BI license is a crucial step for any organisation looking to unlock the full potential of its data. Microsoft offers four distinct licensing tiers, each designed with specific use cases, business sizes, and budget considerations in mind. These tiers range from the free entry-level license, which provides individuals with the ability to explore dashboards and basic reporting, through to the Premium and Embedded solutions, which are aimed at enterprise-scale deployment and customer-facing integration.
Understanding these options is not simply a matter of comparing price points; it requires organisations to think carefully about how their teams will work with data, what level of collaboration is required, and the scale at which reports and dashboards need to be distributed. For instance, while a free license may suffice for early experimentation or a single analyst testing concepts, businesses that rely on shared insights across departments will quickly require Pro or Premium capabilities to ensure efficiency and compliance.
Each licensing tier comes with its own balance of flexibility, scalability, and functionality. At the lower end, the emphasis is on individual productivity and exploration. Moving up the scale, the focus shifts towards collaborative features, advanced analytics, security controls, and seamless integration into wider business ecosystems. Choosing the right license is therefore about aligning technical capability with strategic objectives — whether that means empowering a single user, enabling cross-department collaboration, or embedding branded analytics directly into external customer platforms.
Ultimately, by carefully assessing business goals, budget constraints, and the type of insights required, organisations can select the most cost-effective Power BI license that delivers both immediate value and long-term scalability.
Power BI Free provides basic data visualisation capabilities for individual users exploring business intelligence. This entry-level option includes personal dashboard creation, data connection to multiple sources, and fundamental reporting features. However, free licenses restrict content sharing and collaboration capabilities, limiting users to personal workspaces without organisational sharing permissions or advanced security features essential for business environments.
Power BI Pro delivers comprehensive business intelligence capabilities including content sharing, collaboration features, and workspace access. This license enables users to publish reports, share dashboards across teams, and access advanced data refresh capabilities. Pro supports small to medium-sized organisations requiring regular collaboration whilst maintaining cost-effectiveness. However, Power BI Pro licenses include capacity limitations that may impact larger deployments or intensive usage scenarios.
Power BI Premium Per User combines Pro functionality with enterprise-grade features including advanced analytics, AI capabilities, and enhanced security controls. This license provides access to dataflows, paginated reports, and sophisticated data modelling tools without capacity restrictions. As Microsoft retires Premium Per Capacity in favour of Fabric SKUs, Premium Per User remains a cost‑effective option for organisations to access advanced analytics and enterprise‑grade features on a per‑user basis, avoiding the significant expense of dedicated capacity licensing.
Power BI Embedded enables organisations to integrate analytics directly into custom applications, websites, and portals for external customers or partners. This license provides white-label capabilities, allowing businesses to embed interactive reports and dashboards whilst maintaining brand consistency. Embedded licensing suits software vendors and organisations developing customer-facing applications requiring integrated business intelligence without exposing underlying Power BI infrastructure to end users.
Could your organisation reduce costs and unlock more value by optimising Power BI licenses? Our free licensing assessment is designed to help you select the most cost-effective license mix, avoid overspending, and ensure your teams have access to the features they need.
What’s Included:
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Schedule your free Power BI licensing assessment today and let BCN ensure you’re getting maximum value from your investment.
Use Cases Per License Type
Understanding which Power BI license best serves your organisation requires examining real-world applications across different business scenarios. Each licensing tier addresses specific operational needs and user requirements. From individual exploration to enterprise-wide deployment, selecting the appropriate license ensures optimal functionality whilst maintaining cost efficiency for your business intelligence initiatives.
Power BI Free serves individual users exploring data analytics capabilities within their personal workspace. This option suits consultants, analysts, and small business owners requiring basic visualisation tools for personal projects. Users can create reports and dashboards from various data sources, experiment with Power BI functionality, and develop proof-of-concept solutions. The free tier provides an excellent starting point for organisations evaluating Power BI’s potential before committing to paid subscriptions.
Power BI Pro addresses collaborative business intelligence requirements across teams and departments. This license enables organisations to share dashboards, collaborate on reports, and maintain centralised data governance. Professional services firms, marketing teams, and departmental analysts benefit from Pro’s sharing capabilities and workspace collaboration features. The license supports moderate data refresh requirements and provides essential security controls for team-based analytics projects requiring regular reporting and stakeholder communication.
Premium Per User caters to organisations requiring advanced analytics capabilities without Premium capacity investment. This option suits data-heavy environments needing paginated reports, AI features, and enhanced data processing capabilities. Financial services, healthcare organisations, and manufacturing companies leverage Premium Per User for regulatory reporting, advanced analytics, and large-scale data processing. The license provides enterprise-grade features for organisations with substantial analytical requirements but manageable user counts.
Power BI Embedded enables software developers and independent software vendors to integrate analytics into custom applications. This license suits organisations building customer-facing applications, creating white-label solutions, or embedding analytics into existing software platforms. Technology companies, consultancies developing bespoke solutions, and organisations requiring branded analytics experiences benefit from embedded customisation capabilities. The license provides programmatic control over Power BI functionality within custom application environments.
Discover How Power BI Gives Your firm A Competitive Advantage
Power BI empowers organisations to unlock the full potential of their data, turning raw information into actionable insights that drive smarter, faster decisions. By enabling clear visualisation, seamless integrations, and collaboration across teams, it helps businesses move beyond guesswork to build a truly data-driven culture. With the ability to connect to hundreds of data sources and surface insights wherever they’re needed, Power BI equips your business with the agility to adapt, innovate, and stay ahead of competitors—delivering a measurable edge in today’s data-driven marketplace.
Power BI can be leveraged in a variety of ways to help you gain valuable insights into your business operations, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. BCN specialise in Power BI services to businesses of all sizes and provide training and support to ensure our customers get the most out of the tool.
Transform your data with Power BI’s range of visually appealing charts, cards, data maps and more. Give your teams the insights they need to make better decisions, faster.
Power BI connects to 150+ data sources, including Excel, SQL, Oracle, Google Analytics, CRM systems, EPOS systems and accountancy software, enabling you to generate powerful and accurate reports and insights. Power BI can further enable you to embed visualisations into apps or your website.
Collaborate and share your Power BI reports and dashboards with colleagues in Power BI Workspaces or in Microsoft Teams, giving your teams visibility and management of dashboards, reports, and data sheets.
Power BI can be seamlessly integrated with Microsoft products like Excel and the other Power Platform applications. Power BI can also be layered across a number of stand-alone data sources or integrated as part of your Microsoft Azure environment.
Power BI can be surfaced to your business users through a host of end user platforms. Power BI apps can give your team reporting on the go, Teams embedded reports gives your team the insights where they work. Power BI can be embedded into all kinds of user platforms such as Power Apps, SharePoint, .NET applications, portals and beyond with Power BI Embedded Licensing.
Deploying Power BI within your organisation requires not only a data and analytics strategy but a strong vision for the governance and control of the data that is exposed to your business users. There are a number of features in the Power BI platform that enable visibility and control of access, lineage and data source control. For more advanced reporting we have a number of tools to extend and enhance this functionality, enabling disaster recovery, usage analytics, change tracking and assurance within your Power BI estate.
Choosing the right option
Selecting the appropriate Power BI license requires careful consideration of multiple factors including user numbers, data volumes, sharing requirements, and advanced feature needs. The decision becomes increasingly complex when evaluating Premium capacity versus Premium Per User options, particularly for growing organisations with evolving analytics requirements.
Budget constraints often conflict with functional requirements, creating challenging decisions for procurement teams and IT managers. Organisations must balance immediate needs against future growth projections whilst considering integration requirements with existing Microsoft 365 environments. Regulatory compliance requirements further complicate licensing decisions, particularly for industries requiring advanced security features and audit capabilities.
FAQs
Our specialists break down the most common questions about Power BI licensing and how it works. Have a different query? We’re ready to support you.
Yes, Office 365 includes only Power BI Free functionality. Power BI Pro requires a separate license to access sharing capabilities, workspace collaboration, and enhanced data refresh limits essential for business use.
Pro focuses on collaboration and sharing amongst teams, whilst Premium provides advanced analytics features, larger data models, and enhanced performance. Premium also includes AI capabilities and paginated reports unavailable in Pro.
Yes, Power BI licenses offer flexible switching between tiers. You can upgrade or downgrade subscriptions based on changing requirements, though some features may become unavailable when downgrading from Premium to Pro.
Absolutely. Organisations commonly deploy mixed licensing approaches, assigning Pro licenses to general users whilst providing Premium licenses to power users requiring advanced analytics capabilities. This hybrid approach optimises costs whilst meeting diverse user needs.
Competitor Comparison
Power BI competes with established business intelligence platforms including Tableau, Qlik Sense, and Looker. Each platform offers distinct capabilities, but Power BI provides superior value across key business requirements.
Cost advantages make Power BI accessible to organisations of all sizes. Integration with Microsoft ecosystems delivers seamless connectivity unavailable from alternative platforms. Power BI’s intuitive interface and rapid feature development ensure organisations access cutting-edge analytics capabilities without complex implementation requirements.
Why BCN?
BCN brings deep Microsoft expertise to Power BI implementations, ensuring organisations maximise their analytics investment. As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, we maintain the highest certification levels across the Power Platform ecosystem, providing clients with proven technical competency and strategic guidance.
Our comprehensive approach encompasses licensing assessment, implementation planning, data migration, and ongoing support services. We understand the complexities of Power BI deployment within existing IT environments and deliver solutions that integrate seamlessly with current business processes.
BCN’s team combines technical excellence with practical business understanding, helping organisations navigate licensing decisions whilst aligning Power BI capabilities with strategic objectives. Our proven methodology reduces implementation risks and accelerates time to value for analytics initiatives.
We provide ongoing optimisation services that ensure Power BI environments continue delivering value as business requirements evolve. From initial assessment through long-term support, BCN offers the expertise and reliability essential for successful Power BI adoption across diverse industry sectors and organisational sizes.
Our growing team has industry-recognised accreditations and expertise from our leading in-house academy. We’re always one-step ahead, providing our staff with the latest training and support.
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We are the ongoing partners with over 1600 businesses across the UK and abroad, trusted to deliver leading IT support and digital transformation solutions for all aspects of their operations.
