Previously, Power BI Premium was only available on a capacity-based pricing model. This made it a very expensive solution for smaller companies. Recently, however, it has also become possible to purchase Power BI Premium on a per-user basis. This makes it much more attractive for smaller businesses, but what exactly is the difference between Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium?
The Differences
The key differences between Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium per user are clearly outlined on the Microsoft website. Below, I’ll discuss a few key differences so you can determine whether purchasing Power BI Premium would be beneficial for your organization. It is possible to combine Power BI Pro licenses with Power BI Premium on a per-user basis. However, as a Pro user, you will not be able to access the Premium content.
| Position | Power BI Free | Power BI Pro | Power BI Premium | Power BI Premium | |||
| Per user | By capacity | ||||||
| Collaboration and Analytics | |||||||
| Access via mobile apps | • | • | • | • | |||
| Publishing Reports to Facilitate Exchange and Collaboration | • | • | |||||
| Paginated Reports (RDL) | • | • | • | ||||
| Using Content Without a Per-User License | • | ||||||
| On-premises reporting with Power BI Report Server | • | ||||||
| Data Preparation, Modeling, and Visualization | |||||||
| Model Size Limit | 1 GB | 1 GB | 100 GB | 400 GB | |||
| Refresh Rate | 8 per day | 8 per day | 48 per day | 48 per day | |||
| Connect to 100+ data sources | • | • | • | • | |||
| Creating Reports and Visualizations with Power BI Desktop | • | • | • | • | |||
| Embedding APIs and controls | • | • | • | • | |||
| AI visuals | • | • | • | • | |||
| Advanced AI (text analytics, image detection, automated machine learning) | • | • | |||||
| Connectivity for reading from and writing to XMLA endpoints | • | • | |||||
| Data flows (direct queries, linked and calculated entities, improved calculation engine) | • | • | |||||
| Governance and Management | |||||||
| Data Security and Encryption | • | • | • | • | |||
| Metrics for Creating, Using, and Publishing Content | • | • | • | • | |||
| Application Lifecycle Management | • | • | |||||
| Multi-Region Implementation Management | • | ||||||
| Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) | • | ||||||
| Availability of the "Automatic Scaling" Add-in (preview) | • | ||||||
| Maximum storage | 10 GB per user | 10 GB per user | 100 TB | 100 TB | |||
| Costs | Free | €9.40 per user per month | €18.70 per user per month | Starting at €4,675.60 / capacity / month | |||
Paginated Reports
With Power BI Premium per user, you can save paginated reports in the Power BI service. For some reports, a Power BI dashboard might not be the best option. In such cases, a paginated report might be a useful alternative. Paginated reports are built using Power BI Report Builder, which is very similar to the Report Builder we’re familiar with from SSRS. A nice bonus is that you can also distribute these reports via email, for example as PDF files. Please note that with Power BI Premium per user, it is not possible to send reports to people outside your organization. This requires Premium Capacity. However, it is possible to send reports to people within your organization who do not have a Premium subscription.
Data Flows
In a number of previous blog posts, I've discussed the use of Dataflows (Power BI Dataflow / Power BI Dataflows/Datasets vs. SQL Server Analysis Services). Dataflows is also available with the Pro subscription, but the functionality is much more extensive with the Premium plan, which means that using Dataflows can provide real added value for your organization.
Direct Query
It is possible to connect a dataset to a dataflow via DirectQuery. This means the data no longer needs to be loaded into a dataset before it can be used in Power BI.
Linked entities
Entities within Dataflows can be reused, so the data does not need to be retrieved multiple times.
Incremental
Premium also offers the option to load data incrementally. It goes without saying that this can, of course, result in significant performance gains for large Dataflows.
XMLA endpoints
Connectivity via an XMLA endpoint. Simply put, this means that it’s possible to connect to Power BI Premium using external tools. XMLA endpoints have been around for a long time for SQL Server Analysis Services, for example. This means you can connect to Power BI Premium using any tool that supports this. Here’s a short list of commonly used tools:
- SQL Server Management Studio
- SQL Server Profiler
- Visual Studio
- DAX Editor
- Tabular Editor
Of course, there are many more tools out there, and with the ability to write to the service as well, the possibilities are truly endless. In the future, I might explore this topic in more depth in a separate blog post.
Capacity
The model sizes for Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium may be presented somewhat confusingly in the table above. For example, the total capacity for Pro is 10 GB per user and 100 TB per user for Premium, but that does not mean the datasets on which the reports are based are limited to those sizes. In Power BI Pro, a dataset can be up to 1 GB in size, and in Power BI Premium, up to 100 GB.
Another key difference regarding datasets is the refresh rate. With a Pro license, a dataset can only be refreshed 8 times per day, whereas with a Premium license, it can be refreshed up to 48 times per day.
Deployment Pipelines
Another useful feature is Deployment Pipelines. This feature allows you to set up workspaces as development or testing environments. Content can then be deployed to the various environments via pipelines. This makes developing and testing content much easier and more organized.
Conclusion
With Power BI Premium per user, premium functionality is now available to smaller organizations as well, allowing them to add a lot of extra functionality to the Power BI service with a limited investment. While it was previously not possible to fully transition to the Power BI service in the cloud, it is now definitely worth considering.
