Power BI Pricing: Plans and Actual Cost | Canada
Are you looking to leverage Microsoft Power BI's analytical capabilities? But unaware of Power BI pricing. No worries! I got you covered.
Understanding the pricing of each plan is crucial for you to align your budget with your business needs.
Since pricing has a high impact on your company's revenue, profitability, market position, and more, you must be aware of the pricing or licensing costs.
With accurate pricing, you can make informed decisions, plan for future investments, and maximize your revenue.
Additionally, if you are searching for Power BI pricing, this means you are interested in using Power BI but are confused about selecting the best version for your business.
Power BI offers three versions: free, pro, and premium.
The free version doesn't charge you a single penny but comes with limited functionality compared to the other two versions. The price for the remaining two versions depends upon customer demographics, additional requirements, and more.
Here, I will dive deeper to uncover the pricing for each version.
Table of Content
Let’s First Understand Power BI
Before diving into the Power BI pricing guide, we will understand what Power BI is. It is a business intelligence tool offered by Microsoft.
Imagine seeing organized, data-driven reports in front of you that have been gathered from various sources.
This is what Power BI does. It presents the data in an easy-to-understand format that makes it easy to consume. Additionally, this also eliminates data silos, resulting in consistent growth and profitability.
Businesses can share this insight across their departments for transparent data visibility.
MS Power BI can generate data in real-time by connecting 70-plus resources. By leveraging this feature, you can visualize these insights, create reports, and share reports with your team.
This can improve your decision-making practices.
What Are the Types of Power BI Licenses?
MS Power BI offers three licenses to users. However, if you are wondering, “Is the Power BI license free?” Yes, Power BI also includes Free licensing along with Pro and Premium in its offering across demographic locations, including Canada.
Power BI Desktop/Free
This is the only free version that is available for both businesses and individuals. You can access this Power BI product with the Microsoft Fabric account.
Users can analyze large sets of data and create creative dashboards as it is easy to use.
However, it comes with limited functionality, and businesses can’t share reports or collaborate with any dashboard. Remember that you don’t need a subscription to use this version.
You can simply download it from Microsoft at no cost.
Power BI Desktop is compatible with a wide range of platforms, such as Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2, and more. The free version offers 10 GB of cloud storage per user and Python support.
It also allows data importation from 70-plus different countries from various sources, such as in-house or via cloud.
This free version can be a great support for beginners, allowing them to become familiar with Power BI and understand how it can suit their business.
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro is a full version available for users on a license basis. It provides users with an extra option to create reports, share dashboards, and more with others who have licensed Power BI.
However, each user requires a separate user license.
This version requires a license for every team member. Go for it if you have limited team members. In simple words, this can be great for small and medium-sized businesses.
Power BI Premium
This license is offered on an enterprise level and not designed on an individual level. It is dedicated to businesses with large teams, so unlimited users can access this version.
Businesses can also increase their data capacity whenever necessary.
It enables 100 TB of cloud storage and hosts up to 50 GB of data sets. Additionally, it can be deployed on-premises servers or cloud servers.
If you are a business owner and looking for Power BI pricing in Canada, you might see two options:
Power BI Premium Per User
This is a relatively new license option offered to businesses that want advanced features but have a smaller team. Power BI premium pricing is also low compared to premium capacity.
This also provides features of data memory models of up to 100 GB.
Power BI Premium Capacity
This license is usually preferred by larger organizations, as it allows an unlimited number of accesses to the reports and dashboards.
For larger organizations, Power BI premium capacity pricing is a cost-effective option, as they don’t need to buy based on per user. You can access the data model memory size limit of 400 GB.
Power BI Free vs Power BI Pro vs Power BI Premium
| Power BI Desktop | Power BI Pro | Power BI Premium Per User | Power BI Premium Capacity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | CAD 13.60 per user per month | CAD 27.10 per user per month | CAD 6,777.20 per month |
| Allow Power BI Report Sharing | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Advanced Capabilities, like AI | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Model memory size limit | - | 1 GB | 100 GB | 400 GB |
| Cloud Data Allocation | - | 10 GB/user | 100 TB | 100 TB |
| Data security and encryption | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Power BI Pricing for Each SKU Version
Microsoft also offers Power BI embedded analytics to organizations, independent software vendors (ISVs), or software developers.To use this, you require a capacity, a dedicated resource for exclusive use, which ensures consistent content performance.
There are three types of capacity: Power BI Embedded, Power BI Premium, and Microsoft Fabric. Each of them requires different SKUs.
Power BI Embedded allows developers to add interactive reports to their applications. This enables users of those applications to consume content and understand it without any difficulties.
On the other hand, Microsoft Fabric brings new and existing components into a single integrated environment.
Power BI Embedded offers A SKUs, and Power BI Premium provides P and EM SKUs. Microsoft Fabric uses F SKUs. So, Power BI embedded pricing can vary based on SKUs:
Power BI premium SKU pricing for A
| Node Type | Virtual Cores | Memory | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | 1 | 3 | $1.0081/hour |
| A2 | 2 | 5 | $2.0081/hour |
| A3 | 4 | 10 | $4.0242/hour |
| A4 | 8 | 25 | $8.0565/hour |
| A5 | 16 | 50 | $16.121/hour |
| A6 | 32 | 100 | $32.2506/hour |
Power BI SKU pricing for P
| Capacity Node | Virtual Cores | RAM in GB | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | 8 | 25 | $4,995/month |
| P2 | 16 | 50 | $9,995/month |
| P3 | 32 | 100 | $19,995/month |
Power BI SKU pricing for EM
| Capacity Node | Virtual Cores | RAM in GB | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| EM1 | 1 | 3 | $625/month |
| EM2 | 2 | 5 | $1,245/month |
| EM3 | 4 | 10 | $2,495/month |
How Can Power BI Benefits Your Business?
If you are looking to leverage Power BI capabilities, you must be familiar with these benefits.Here are some of the benefits of using Power BI:
- Bridging the gap between data and decision-making
- Increasing operational efficiency
- Providing insights into customer behaviour
- Tracking sales marketing, and financial performance
- Providing clear benchmarks
- Providing alerts
- Sharing analyses in real-time
- Real-time dashboards
- Natural Language Queries
- Mobile Accessibility
- Scalability
- Customization and extensions
- Cost-Effectiveness
Which Power BI License Should You Buy?
If you are looking to purchase a license from them, you should consider various factors, such as budget, requirements, and data scope.
Power BI Desktop is a free version that offers a wide range of functionalities and can be great for personal use. Power BI Pro is a paid version that can be a good option for smaller companies.
It allows content sharing and collaborative features in Workspaces. Its capabilities go beyond the free version.
PPU offers the full feature set, including advanced AI insights and paginated reports, and can be a good option for businesses with a small team but that want advanced capabilities.
Concluding Remarks!
If you are getting started with this, you can contact a Microsoft implementation partner.
Randhir is a Content Expert at Dynamics Square. He enjoys crafting content that simplifies intricate technical concepts into easy-to-understand, jargon-free material. His goal is to provide readers with comprehensive and up-to-date information. In order to improve the caliber of his work, he is also constantly keen to learn new approaches and is passionate about experimenting with different styles of writing.
