Most people are not aware that Power BI is actually a suite of services, not a single application. This is good news for users as it allows you to find the right service at the right price for your unique needs. But how do you know when to pick each one?
In this article we talk you through the features of each and the different reasons to select each route.
Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop is a free application you install on your local computer that lets you connect to, transform, and visualise your data. With Power BI Desktop, you can connect to multiple sources of data, and combine them (often called modeling) into a data model.
This data model lets you build visuals, and collections of visuals you can share as reports, with other people inside your organisation.
Most users who work on business intelligence projects use Power BI Desktop to create reports, and then use the Power BI service to share their reports with others. This is worth noting as you cannot easily share Power BI desktop reports, so if this is a requirement then Power BI pro is the better selection.
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro, is the most popular service available from Microsoft. It provides a wide range of capability and is for users within your organisation who need to create, share, publish and access Power BI reports.
Collaboration and access to the online platform are the key capability provided by Power BI Pro. Power BI Pro is £7.50 per user per month. One of the main challenges with Power BI Pro is only users with a license can access the reports.
Power BI Premium
Power BI premium is the enterprise level solution from Microsoft. It is designed to support organisations with more complex reporting needs.
Power BI Premium also provides a license option for your entire company, meaning you don’t need to purchase a license for every user within your organisation. Power BI Premium also provides additional capability in terms of model sizes, refresh rates, on-premise connectivity and advanced AI capability.
Depending on the size of your company and the number of users, the per company one might be beneficial.
Power BI embedded
Power BI embedded is a service targeted at developers or providers of digital solutions. It allows you to embed Power BI reports into your applications or websites and serve up these reports to users of this system.
The pricing for Power BI embedded is based on the compute requirements.
To find out more about the range of services available from Power BI download our Power BI guide here or contact us for Power BI advice.
