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Blog · Alternatives and comparisons

Power BI pricing: what the published price covers, and what else a first year includes

Power BI pricing, from its published sources, and the other costs to budget in year one: implementation, modelling, training and consumption.

The short answerFree account for personal report creation (sharing requires a paid licence). Power BI Pro is $14.00 per user per month and Premium Per User is $24.00 per user per month, both paid yearly. Power BI Embedded and Fabric capacity (reserved or pay-as-you-go) are variably priced. Copilot requires paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Premium (P1 or higher); a Pro or PPU licence alone is not enough. Beyond the published price, a first year can also include implementation, building and maintaining the data model, training, and any consumption charges. Ask the vendor for each in writing.

Licence prices are the visible part of the cost of an analytics tool. This page sets out what Power BI publishes, from sources checked on 24 September 2026, and the other lines a finance team should put in the first-year budget before comparing options.

What Power BI publishes

Free account for personal report creation (sharing requires a paid licence). Power BI Pro is $14.00 per user per month and Premium Per User is $24.00 per user per month, both paid yearly. Power BI Embedded and Fabric capacity (reserved or pay-as-you-go) are variably priced. Copilot requires paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Premium (P1 or higher); a Pro or PPU licence alone is not enough.

  • Power BI Pro is listed at $14.00 per user per month and Premium Per User at $24.00 per user per month, both paid yearly.
  • Copilot in Power BI requires paid Fabric capacity at F2 or higher or Power BI Premium at P1 or higher; trial capacities and free SKUs are not supported.

Other lines for the first-year budget

Line What to ask Your figure
Licences or seats Which roles need a paid licence, and the price per role
Consumption Whether queries, refreshes or AI questions are metered, and at what rate
Implementation Who does it, how many weeks, and the day rate
Data model What must be built before the first answer, and who maintains it
Warehouse or platform Whether a separate warehouse or compute is required, and its cost
Training How many people, how long
Year two What recurs, and what the renewal terms are

What Power BI needs before the first answer

  • A semantic model (tables, relationships and DAX measures) built by someone comfortable with Power Query and DAX.
  • Power BI Desktop on Windows for most report authoring.
  • An on-premises data gateway where data sits behind the firewall.
  • Paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Power BI Premium (P1 or higher) to use Copilot.

A different cost shape

Covirage starts from the exports your systems already produce, so there is no warehouse to build and no modelling language to learn. We set it up for you within a week. Prices are on one sheet, shared in a conversation, and the tiers are described on the pricing page.

More on Power BI alternatives and how to evaluate an analytics vendor.

Sources

Facts about other products were checked on 24 September 2026 from the pages below. Product names are trademarks of their owners; Covirage is not affiliated with them.

Questions people ask

How much does Power BI cost?

Free account for personal report creation (sharing requires a paid licence). Power BI Pro is $14.00 per user per month and Premium Per User is $24.00 per user per month, both paid yearly. Power BI Embedded and Fabric capacity (reserved or pay-as-you-go) are variably priced. Copilot requires paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Premium (P1 or higher); a Pro or PPU licence alone is not enough. Actual contracts vary with users, data volume and edition; ask the vendor for a written quote.

What else should I budget for?

Implementation, the modelling work before the first answer, training, and consumption or usage charges where they apply. Ask whether Copilot needs Fabric or Premium capacity for your use, and which authors need a Pro or Premium Per User licence.

How is Covirage priced?

Three tiers on one sheet, shared in a conversation: a single-user tier with no human in it, a business tier where we set it up, and an enterprise tier with connections built with your team.