We’ve helped configure and license hundreds of users on Power BI, and we’ll admit that licensing, sharing, and securely deploying Power BI is not always straightforward.
Basically, unless you’re an enterprise organization, anytime you develop a Power BI report and want to share that report with someone else, both you and the report consumer will need to pay for a Power BI license.
Anyone can develop Power BI reports for free using Power BI Desktop, but as soon as someone else needs to consume the report, you’ll need to pay. For most small-to-medium business use-cases, all you will need is Power BI Pro at $10/user/month.
We’ve put together a Q&A of the most common questions we get asked at Extrada:
Question: Difference between Power BI Premium and Power BI Premium per User?
Question: How I can share my Power BI report outside my organization?
Answer: There are a few options. Unless you are paying for some Power BI capacity already (Premium capacity, BI Embedded, Fabric), it’s likely you would share the reports at the user level. As an example, let’s say you developed a report and published it to the service in your company. Now, you want to share that report with an outside consultant. You will first invite them as an ‘External User’ to your tenant. This can be done in Azure B2B portal under ‘Users’ or though Microsoft 365 Admin Center. After the invite is accepted, you can share the report with that new external users’ email.
Question: How do I license external users to my organizations Power BI reports?
Answer: There are two options. If a client already has a license, they come to your tenant with their own license, no need to assign a second. If the external user doesn’t have a Power BI license, then you can purchase one for them and assign it in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Question: Can you explain when to use Power BI Embedded?
Answer: Power BI Embedded is when you want to embed a Power BI report inside of a custom web application and allow external users to authenticate and interact with the report without requiring individual Power BI licensing. This is typically the right solution when thousands of users will interact with the reports. Check out our other blog post for more.
Question: When to build a custom dashboard vs relying on Power BI?
Answer: In our experience Power BI can be used to iterate and develop quickly. Design and development time is shortened, and you can bring a Power BI report to market in a few days depending on complexity. This reduces up front development costs and time while allowing the client to guide and refine requirements. After a successful product launch, it’s important to reevaluate if it makes sense to develop a custom application to mirror the Power BI reporting or continue paying for the monthly Power BI licensing. This decision typically comes down to factors like number of users, requested functionality (Power BI will still have technical limitations when compared to a custom application), and long-term viability.
Have a Power BI question, or specific use case, we didn’t cover?
Send us a note, if it’s one we hear often, we might turn it into a future post. For all the detailed, up-to-date information direct from the source, check out the Microsoft Power BI Pricing Page.
Whether you’re just getting started with data visualization or looking to scale your analytics with enterprise-level tools, we’re here to help. Let’s discuss how the right Power BI plan can transform the way you work with data.
