Most organizations start with Power BI through Microsoft 365. A few people build reports, share them with colleagues, and each holds a Pro licence. Licensing questions usually come up later, when a dataset grows past the 1 GB limit, someone asks for Copilot, the number of viewers reaches the hundreds, or Microsoft notifies you that your Premium capacity is being retired.
Microsoft's rules for those situations are spread across dozens of documentation pages and change often. This guide collects them in one place for the people who approve the purchase.
After reading it, you should know which licence each person needs, whether you need Fabric capacity, roughly what it will cost at Microsoft list prices, and what we need from you to prepare a quote.
Who this is for
This guide is for owners, finance leads, and operations managers at small and mid-sized organizations that:
- use Power BI today or plan to
- are choosing between Pro, Premium Per User, and Fabric capacity
- have been asked about Copilot
- hold Power BI Premium capacity that is coming up for renewal
- want to show reports to customers inside their own application
It assumes no Power BI expertise. Technical terms are explained in Concepts Explained. Prices are Microsoft list prices in Canadian dollars for the Canada Central Azure region, with US dollar figures alongside on the pricing pages.
Where to start
| If you... | Start with |
|---|---|
| Are new to Power BI or unsure what the terms mean | Concepts Explained |
| Want to know what each licence allows | Licensing Options |
| Want to find the licence that fits your organization | Decision Tree |
| Need a cost estimate | Pricing |
| Already hold Microsoft 365 E5 or Office 365 E5 | Pricing, under "Savings from licences you already hold" |
| Want Copilot in Power BI | Concepts Explained, under "Copilot and how it is billed", then example I in Worked Examples |
| Have a dataset over 1 GB or need more than eight refreshes a day | Decision Tree reference, sections 4 and 5 |
| Have BI developers who use external modelling tools or test-and-release workspaces | Concepts Explained, under "Developer tools", then example B in Worked Examples |
| Report on SQL Server or PostgreSQL running on your own servers | Concepts Explained, under "Reporting on SQL Server or PostgreSQL running on your own servers" |
| Want to show reports inside your own application | Licensing reference, section 8, then example G in Worked Examples |
| Hold Power BI Premium P capacity today | Decision Tree reference, section 8 |
| Must keep reports on your own servers | Example J in Worked Examples |
How to use this guide
Each subject has a short page with the answer and a reference page with the full detail. Start with the short pages. Go to a reference page when you need the full feature grid, every capacity size and price, the working behind a cost comparison, or a situation close to yours.
If Power BI terms are new to you, read Concepts Explained first. Otherwise read Licensing Options, use the Decision Tree to find your likely route, and use Pricing to estimate the cost.
What's in the guide
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Licensing Options | What you can buy and the rules that decide what you pay |
| Pricing | Current prices and when capacity costs less than per-person licences |
| Decision Tree | A diagram that leads to your likely licensing route and what we check next |
| Concepts Explained | Plain-language explanations of Premium Per User, Copilot, Fabric capacity, DirectQuery, and other terms |
| Licensing reference | Full feature grid, capacity sizes, Premium retirement, Copilot rules, and embedding |
| Pricing reference | Every capacity price, reservation rules, cost formulas, and break-even points |
| Decision Tree reference | The full eligibility tree, what the published limits mean in practice, and capacity sizing |
| Worked Examples | Thirteen situations, each with a recommendation, the reasoning, and the cost |
Common questions
The questions that come up most often when an organization reviews its Power BI licensing.
Do we need Premium to produce invoices or statements?
Invoices and statements do not need Premium. Invoices, statements, and other print-ready documents are built as paginated reports, and Power BI Pro publishes them to shared workspaces. Any Power BI report can also be printed or exported to PDF on any licence.
Is Copilot a separate licence?
Power BI has no per-person Copilot licence. Copilot needs a Fabric capacity of F2 or larger, and each request uses some of that capacity. Pro or Premium Per User on its own is not enough. The details are in Concepts Explained.
We have Microsoft 365 E5. Do we need to buy Power BI?
E5 includes Power BI Pro, so those people need nothing more for Pro. If they need Premium Per User, they move up at the add-on price, which is CAD 19.00 per person per month at list. Count your E5 holders before pricing anything else.
Can we still buy Power BI Premium (P SKUs)?
Power BI Premium capacity (P SKUs) is no longer sold. Microsoft stopped selling P SKUs on July 1, 2024. Organizations on an active Enterprise Agreement can renew until that agreement ends and then move to Fabric capacity. The migration steps are in section 8 of the Decision Tree reference.
When can viewers read reports without a paid licence?
Viewers can read reports without a paid licence only when the reports are hosted on Fabric capacity of F64 or larger, or on Premium P capacity you already hold. Below F64, every viewer needs Pro or Premium Per User. People who publish reports need Pro or Premium Per User at any capacity size. At Canadian list prices, F64 becomes cheaper than Pro from about 406 viewers who hold no licence today.
Why can't you tell us the capacity size up front?
Microsoft does not publish a users-per-capacity table, because consumption depends on data size, refresh volume, report complexity, and how many people use the reports at once. A refresh can also more than double a dataset's memory use while it runs. We measure your workload on a trial or pay-as-you-go capacity before recommending a size.
How current are these prices?
The prices in this guide are Microsoft list prices as of the date at the top of each page, and Microsoft changes them without notice. Prices through a reseller differ from list. We confirm current pricing before any quote.