Hey guys!
In this article, I will share with you more information about free Power BI licensing.

If you are interested in learning about an innovative solution that allows you to reduce monthly spending on Power BI PRO licenses by up to 90%, I recommend that you learn more about Power Embedded, a tool that will improve the governance and sharing of reports in your company.

 

Summary of all Power BI license types:

FreePROPPUReport ServerPremium by Capacity (SKU P)Premium by Capacity (EM)EmbeddedMicrosoft Fabric
License TypeBy UserBy UserBy UserLocationBy CapacityBy CapacityBy CapacityBy Capacity
ValueR$ 0.00R$54.90 per user/monthR$ 109.80 per user/monthIncluded with Power BI Premium or SQL Server Enterprise + SAFrom R$31,960.00 per monthFrom R$4,070.65 per monthFrom R$5.63 per hour onFrom R$1.06 per hour on
Can share reportsNoOnly with PRO accountsOnly with PPU or PRO accounts*Yes, with any user on the local networkYes, even with Free account users.Yes, with any user on the local networkYes, with any user. You don't even need to have a Power BI account.Yes, with any user. You don't even need to have a Power BI account.
Pro account required to view reportsNo (Does not allow sharing)YesYesNoNoNoNoNo
Form of hiringOffice 365Office 365Office 365Office 365Office 365Office 365Azure PortalAzure Portal
How to access reportspowerbi.compowerbi.compowerbi.comLocal serverpowerbi.comWeb portal created by the companyWeb portal created by the companyWeb portal created by the company
Maximum data model size1GB1GB100GBUnlimited400GB (P5)10GB (EM3)400GB (A8)400GB (F1024+)
Daily updates18481.44048484848
Allows you to embed reportsNoYes (limited quantity for testing only)Yes (limited quantity for testing only)Yes (intranet and sharepoint only)YesYes (intranet and sharepoint only)YesYes
 

Power BI Free (Free license)

This is the only free Power BI license, and is recommended for people who want to learn and test Power BI. This is a very complete license, which allows you to explore almost all features that you have access to in the PRO license, with the exception of sharing reports.

To create a Power BI account, you will need to have a corporate email ([email protected]) or student email ([email protected]). Emails from personal providers (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) are NOT supported.

You will be able download Power BI Desktop on the Microsoft website and start your UNLIMITED tests and studies. There is no time limit to use this license and all features to create reports will be available to you.

The only ways to share reports with others are to send the report's PBIX file for the other person to open in Power BI Desktop or by generating a public link using the “Publish to Web” option, which allows anyone who has access to the link to view the reports. Only use this option for public data, as even without sharing the link with anyone, the report will be public and visible through simple Google searches.

The contracting method for this license is through Office 365.

Comparison table between the Free account and the Pro account

Power BI FreePower BI PRO
PriceR$ 0.00R$ 54.90
Storage limit1GB/user10GB/user
Use Power BI DesktopYesYes
Connect to 70+ data sourcesYesYes
Publish Reports (Personal Workspace)YesYes
Publish reports (Shared Workspace)NoYes
Explore data with natural languageYesYes
Power BI app for iOS and AndroidYesYes
Scheduled updatesDaily8 times a day
Data streaming10k lines/hour1 million lines/hour
Publish to the webYesYes
Connection to real-time sources (DirectQuery and Live Connection)NoYes
Gateway managementNoYes
Share reports with othersNoYes
Use Azure AD for access controlNoYes
Paginated ReportsNoYes
Insert report on the web or portalNoYes
Embed reports using APINoYes
Row-level Security (RLS)NoYes
DataflowsNoYes
Create and share appsNoYes
Incremental updateNoYes

Features and Limitations

What you can do with this license:

  • Download Power BI Desktop (always free, even without an account)
  • Create reports, connecting to any data source
  • Publish reports to your personal workspace
  • Use data streaming
  • Configure personal data gateway to update local data up to 8x per day (for each dataset)
  • Use the feature Publish to the web (CAUTION: Use ONLY with PUBLIC data. NEVER, EVER use this feature with private data)

What you CANNOT do with this license:

So that's it, folks!
I hope you enjoyed this post and follow the series where I will explore all types of Power BI licensing!