Latest Power BI Pricing: Comparison [Free vs Pro vs Premium]

“Microsoft Power BI is an interactive data visualization software with embedded visual analytics features. You can perform analytics at scale to help you make informed decision-making better. Explore this blog for pricing comparison, features, and the top 5 benefits of Power BI.”

As we step deep into 2023, where AI-based language models like OpenAI’s GPT4-based Copilot for Office 365, Power Platform, as well as Dynamics 365, are going to take your workflows to the next level.

So, it’s important to understand how the pricing and licensing structure of Power BI gets influenced. It is to ensure you’re getting the most out of this bespoke “business intelligence (BI)” and “Ad hoc Reporting” tool for your business-specific needs.

If you’re a Power BI Pro, this article is for you. I’ll help you review and compare the pricing and licensing of Power BI for 2023.

What is Power BI?

Power BI is Microsoft Power Platform’s data visualization wizard. This BI software is available for both on-premises and online use (on the Microsoft Cloud). 

This business intelligence software is an easy-to-use data analysis and data visualization application to help business analysts deliver at-par report generation and report sharing facilities. With Power BI’s affordable pricing model, this is a great tool to enhance customer service experiences based on insights from gathered data.

Hence, with its features, Power BI can be a Value for Money product for your long-term investment.

What are the features of Power BI?

MS Power BI comes with many data analysis features, including:

Availability on Cloud

To meet requirements for regulations and compliance, your BI teams may develop and distribute interactive data visualizations across many global data centers, including the United States’ national clouds.

Self-Service for Data Analytics & Data Visualization

Power BI offers a single, unified platform for self-service and business data analytics, embedded with semantic models, application lifecycle management, open connectivity, and pixel-perfect paginated reports for ad hoc reporting.

Data Prep with Azure for Accelerated Data Analysis

You can leverage the limitless Azure data lake with the same pricing models of Power BI to streamline the analysis and sharing of enormous amounts of data. This will help you reduce your collaboration time and improve efficiency for business analysts, data engineers, and concerned stakeholders.

Embedded with Industry-Leading AI Models

Microsoft AI enables non-data scientists to prepare data, create machine learning models, and get insights from structured and unstructured data.  

For example, using text and images instead of complex calculations for robust decision-making.

Seamless Integration with EXCEL and Microsoft Dynamics 365

You can connect Excel queries, data models, and reports to Power BI dashboards for collecting, analyzing, publishing, and sharing business data in Excel.

Moreover, Power BI can be integrated with Business Central and other business apps in Dynamics 365 suite. This allows you to visualize data and gain insights from the ERP system through customizable dashboards and reports based on real-time data and analysis.

How much does Power BI cost in 2023?

Microsoft Power BI has 3 pricing plans with a FREE TRIAL option:

Power BI Pro

This pricing plan starts at $9.99 per user with a monthly payment frequency, with credit card buy-now availability

The latest Power BI pro plan includes:

• AI-based Visuals
• 1 GB of Model Size Limit
• Encryption and Data Security
• Visualizations and Create Reports
• Embed Apis and Controls
• Publish Reports
• Mobile App Access
• Refresh Rate – 8/Day

Power BI Premium Per User

Starting at $20 per user/month. With this pricing plan for Power BI, you can use the buy now option from our website with your credit card

Power BI Premium Plan Includes:

• Advanced AI Capabilities with Embedded Copilot
• 100 GB of Model Size Limit
• AI-based Visuals
• Dataflows
• Application Lifecycle Management
• Embed Apis and Controls
• Create Reports and Visualizations
• Mobile App Access
• Data Security and Encryption
• Refresh Rate – 48/Day
• Publish Reports
• Paginated (RDL) Reports

Power BI Premium Per Capacity

From $4995 for Per Capacity usage with monthly pricing (cost can vary based on your requested customization)

You can make it available with a “buy now with a credit card” option

 Power BI Premium Per Capacity Plan Includes:

• AI Visuals
• Advanced AI
• 400 GB Model Size Limit
• Create Reports and Visualizations
• Application Lifecycle Management
• Nring Your Own Key
• Custom Content
• Embed Apis and Controls
• Multi-Geo Deployment Management
• Dataflows
• Data Security and Encryption
• Mobile App Access
• Paginated (RDL) Reports
• Refresh Rate – Same as Power BI Premium plan

What are the Top 5 Benefits of Power BI for SMBs in 2023?

Here are five key features of Power BI that businesses should be aware of in 2023:

AI-Powered Insights: Power BI offers deeper AI-powered insights, providing small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) with faster and more accurate analysis of their data. This is to help you identify patterns and trends and make informed decisions better.

Improved Data Governance: For better data governance features, Power BI is a “Goto-a-Tool”.  This allows businesses to keep control over their data and ensure compliance and regulations. It includes enhanced security, data lineage, and audit trail capabilities.

Enhanced Collaboration: Since Power BI is now a cloud service, it will continue to improve collaboration between team members by making it easier to share reports and dashboards across the organization in real time. It will improve communication and decision-making.

Embedded Analytics: In 2023, Power BI will make it easier for businesses to embed analytics into their applications, allowing users to access insights directly from their workflows. This will enable businesses to make data-driven decisions without leaving their current workflows.

Customizable Dashboards: Power BI will continue to offer customizable dashboards that can be tailored to the specific needs of each business. You can create more advanced dashboards, with features like custom visuals and natural language queries, enabling more advanced data analysis.

If you need more learning about Power BI, read our FAQs for Power BI:

What are the options to purchase and get a License for Power BI?

Power BI offers several options (pricing plans) for buying and licensing its software, including:

Power BI Free: This pricing plan is free and allows you to create and share interactive reports and dashboards, but with limited functionality.

Power BI Pro: Starting at USD 10 per user/month, this pricing for Power BI offers business analysts (BAs) a more advanced set of features such as collaboration, data governance, and more storage space.

Power BI Premium: This option has two sets of subscriptions. The first one is from $20 per user/month and is designed for organizations with large or complex data needs that require leveraging advanced AI like GPT4-based Copilot. It is to hasten self-service data preparation for big data and streamline data management and accessibility at an enterprise level to speed up gaining deep insights.

The other pricing plan starts at USD 4995 per capacity/month. This option includes all the features of Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium per user. Plus, other capabilities such as more capacity, advanced data preparation, and paginated reports. It is licensed by capacity, which means that organizations buy a dedicated number of resources to ensure their data is always available and performant.

Moreover, this pricing plan is also known as Power BI Embedded plan and allows:

• Developers embed Power BI content within their applications, websites, or portals.
• The same functionality as Power BI Premium but is licensed hourly or monthly and can be used to build custom, white-labeled solutions.

Overall, Power BI has a range of pricing plans for you to purchase and get its license. From a FREE basic version to more advanced and specialized options for organizations with business-specific needs, you have everything you need. Get in touch with us to explore more offers and added benefits of Power BI.

Is Power BI available on the Cloud?

Power BI is a PaaS/cloud-powered data analytics service that enables BAs to visualize and share insights with others in their organization at pace. With Power BI, your teams can collaborate seamlessly and efficiently by leveraging features such as shared workspaces, real-time dashboards, and secure sharing capabilities.

Additionally, with Microsoft Teams (which is now powered by AI) integration, you can think, plan, and create together like never before and stay coordinated without rigorously switching apps for small, repeated tasks.

How can I purchase Power BI premium per capacity?

To purchase Power BI Premium per capacity, you can either go to the Power BI pricing page on the Microsoft website and select the “Premium” option.

From there, you can choose the capacity that best suits your organization’s needs and follow the instructions to complete your purchase.

You can Contact Power BI Experts at Dynamics Square for easy purchase, buying offers, and extra customized features that best suit your needs.

Note: The cost will vary depending on the selected capacity and payment plan (monthly or annual).

Is there any demand for Power BI in 2023?

According to Microsoft’s 2023 Wave 1 Release Plan for Power BI, there are several new and enhanced features that show the continued investment in and demand for the platform.

These new features include:

• Advancements in AI and machine learning
• Expanded data modeling capabilities
• Enhanced data security and compliance
• Improved integration with other Microsoft products such as Azure and Teams.

With these developments, you can be assured that Power BI is likely to remain a highly in-demand tool for data analytics, visualization, and overall business intelligence in 2023 and beyond.

Why do Businesses use Microsoft Power BI?

Power BI is a highly sought after BI tool that offers various features and benefits for all sizes of businesses. Some of the key factors why businesses use Power BI include:

1. AI-powered Insights that give faster and more relevant analysis of their data.

2. Data governance for increased data security, audit trails, and data lineage.

3. Collaboration among different teams to share reports and data dashboards across the organization.

4. Embedded analytics for enhanced data-driven decision.

5. Customized dashboards for more enhanced data visualization and resolving natural language queries.

Is it worth Implementing Power BI in 2023?

Yes. It is worth implementing Power BI in 2023 to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions at scale.

Many companies across different industries extensively use Power BI to strengthen decision-making for scaled growth, making it consistently ranked as a top business intelligence tool in terms of user satisfaction and adoption.

Additionally, ongoing investment, research, and development from Microsoft ensure that Power BI will continue to evolve and remain relevant in 2023, and beyond. Thus, it can be a valuable investment for businesses of any size looking to enhance their visibility into collected data from different data-sources.

What is Microsoft’s business model for Power BI?

Microsoft’s business model for Power BI is focused on providing businesses with a flexible and scalable data analytics tool.

You can get a customized power BI solution with your Dynamics 365 Partner or Power BI Partner’s help to meet any of your business-specific needs.  

As already mentioned, Power BI is available in different pricing tiers, including a free version and several paid versions, which offer added features and functionality.

Contact Power BI experts at Dynamics Square for immediate assistance either to implement this BI tool from scratch or get a customized solution that best suits your requirements.

Do content creators need a Power BI Pro License?

Content creators are highly creative beings. From them, producing content at scale is not easy. I can understand. So, to create and publish Power BI content, you need a Power BI Pro license or higher if you want to share Power BI content with others.

However, the free version of Power BI, called Power BI Desktop, can be used to create and design reports and dashboards, but it does not allow content creators to share their reports and dashboards with others.

So, it’s recommended to buy a Power BI Pro license, which enables that feature.

In addition to the Power BI Pro license, content creators may also need to purchase added capacities, such as Power BI Premium or Power BI Embedded, depending on the size and scale of their deployment and the number of users who need access to their content.

Contact our Power BI professionals to help you find a suitable solution.

How expensive is a Power BI License?

There is no specific answer to this question like Power BI’s clear pricing because Microsoft allows business-centric customizations of its functionality. Thus, Power BI cost depends on the type of license and the pricing plan that best fits your needs.

That’s why Power BI offers several licensing options, as already discussed.

Thus, it’s important for you to note that pricing and licensing details can vary by region (your country and the locality of your business operations). And over time, it’s best to visit the official Microsoft website or contact a gold Microsoft sales partner like Dynamics Square to get the most up-to-date and accurate information on pricing and licensing options for Power BI.

Conclusion

Microsoft Power BI is a next-gen data visualization and business intelligence tool that can help businesses of all sizes make data-driven decisions at scale.

With its flexible pricing plans, enterprises can choose a plan that meets their needs and budget.

In addition to that, this BI platform’s ease of use and integration with other Microsoft products like Microsoft Business Central make it a popular choice for organizations looking to streamline their data analysis and reporting processes.

If you’re ready to see how powerful Power BI is, contact your Power BI experts at Dynamics Square for expert guidance and suitable Power BI pricing model.