Yes, Microsoft Power BI is free - but with limitations.

Firstly, Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence and data visualisation tool that turns data into insights. It has various licensing options with different pricing, ranging from completely free to options like Power BI Pro (per-user), Premium Per User (per-user), Microsoft Fabric (per-capacity) and Embedded (per-capacity). In this article, we’ll focus on what’s available for Power BI Free and when you’ll need to upgrade.

Note: It's worth noting, we previously had Power BI Premium, which offered SKUs P1 to a P5. However this has been retired, and any new customers should explore MS Fabric F SKUs. Also, a P1 is equivalent to a F64.

If you're an individual looking to explore Power BI for reporting and data visualisation, the free version of Power BI can take you surprisingly far. But when it comes to sharing reports, collaborating across teams or unlocking enterprise-level features, you will need to look at the other licensing options available.

Also, if you want a deep dive into Power BI & MS Fabric Licensing, well this is the best blog for it: Navigating Power BI & Fabric Licensing.

What Can You Do with Fabric Free?

The Fabric Free, previously known as Power BI Free, is ideal for individual users who want to:

• Connect to over 100 data sources
• Clean and transform data using Power Query
• Build data models using Power Pivot
• Write business calculations and measures through DAX
• Create fully interactive reports
• Export reports to PDF
• Save files locally or to a personal workspace (folder)

If you're a solo analyst wanting to build dashboards and reports, a student learning Power BI or small business owner doing personal reporting and analytics, this version might be all you need.

Where does the Free Version Fall Short? (Power BI Free vs Pro)

The below diagram is from our deep dive licensing blog, which you can access here and will be sure to answer all your questions. However, notice the Free and Pro are more or less the same, the main difference is anything in relation to sharing, collaboration and where you can publish reports and semantic models (datasets). Yes, there are some additional features and capabilities not available, but the core different is sharing and collaboration.

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So, the statement I made above should now be even more clear. If you are a solo analyst wanting to build reports and dashboards, a student needing to create reports or a single user/person business, the Free version might do the trick. But the moment you want to share, its time to think Power BI Pro. Also, as you scale to a more enterprise setup, you may need to unlock premium like features such as advanced AI, XMLA, Copilot and more. To support self-service and centralised data analytics, this often requires a per capacity option. Microsoft Fabric offers one platform to go beyond Power BI and into various other workloads and experiences.

Note: It's worth calling out, that if you already have a Microsoft 365 E5 license, Power BI Pro is included. Power BI comes with E5, and also you receive a discount on Premier Per User licenses, hence it may change conversations on MS Free vs Power BI Pro, Power BI Pro vs Power BI PPU, etc.

When Do You Need to Pay for another Microsoft license?

Here are some common scenarios where businesses outgrow the free version:

• You want to share reports across your team or organisation.
• You need to collaborate in shared workspaces - not your personal, "my workspace".
• You’re working with large volumes of data.
• You need scheduled refreshes.
• You want more premium features such as deployment pipelines, XMLA, AI features and more.
• You need more advanced security and governance features.

In these cases, you'll need to explore Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium Per User or a MS Fabric SKU - depending on your organisation's specific requirements.

Is Fabric Free (Power BI Free) and Power BI Desktop the same thing?

Not quite. Power BI Desktop is free - it's an application you install on your machine. This is where all the development magic happens. Here we can ingest, transform, model our data and of course build reports. When people say “Power BI Free” they often mean using Power BI Desktop without a paid license.

Power BI Free, now Fabric Free, is the licensing option, whilst Power BI Desktop is the application you install. However, Fabric Free includes limited use of the Power BI Service (Cloud) and is intended more for personal use. You can’t share content or collaborate unless you upgrade to Power BI Pro license which is a per user license.

So in short:

• Power BI Desktop: Free report-building tool (local installed).
• Power BI Free: Includes Power BI Desktop and limited cloud use in Power BI Service (Cloud).

So… Is Microsoft Power BI Free for Business?

Technically, yes - but practically, not really. For internal testing, evaluation or more so, individual use, Power BI Free works well. But if you're serious about rolling it out across your business, you’ll want to explore the paid options.