What is Power BI?
Power BI is Microsoft's business analytics platform for connecting data, building reports and dashboards, and sharing them. It runs as a Windows desktop app (Power BI Desktop), a cloud service, and mobile apps for viewing reports, and Copilot adds AI chat features on top.
Who it's for
Microsoft's overview describes business users who view reports, report creators who build and publish them, administrators and developers who embed or extend it. Copilot in Power BI is aimed at organizations with paid Fabric or Premium capacity.
Pros & cons
Strengths
- Microsoft says Power BI Desktop is free, runs on Windows 10 or later, and connects to more than 100 data sources.
- Microsoft lists a free account for creating reports; Pro adds publishing and sharing, and Pro and Premium Per User are sold self-service or through the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- The Power BI service lists workspaces, apps, scheduled refresh, email subscriptions, alerts, embedding, row-level security and sensitivity labels.
- Microsoft says viewers can read reports without per-user licenses on Premium P1 and above, and Fabric F64 and above.
- Microsoft's privacy page says Copilot data stays within the organization's tenant boundary, is not used to train foundation models, and prompts and responses are not stored after the session ends.
- Microsoft says tenant administrators can enable or disable Copilot in the admin portal, and lists separate tools for paginated reports and an on-premises Report Server.
Limitations
- Sharing and publishing reports requires a paid license; the free account is for creating reports in Desktop only. Power BI Desktop is Windows-only, and the Desktop docs do not mention macOS.
- Copilot in Desktop requires access to a workspace on paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher), Premium capacity (P1 or higher) with Copilot enabled, or a Fabric Copilot capacity. Microsoft shows Copilot in Fabric under the Fabric capacity plans, not the free account.
- Pro lists a 1 GB model size, 8 refreshes a day and 10 GB native storage per license. Premium Per User lists a 100 GB model, 48 refreshes a day and 100 TB storage.
- Fabric capacity (pay-as-you-go or reservation) is priced separately and was not listed on the Power BI pricing page. A Pro license is still needed to publish Power BI content to Fabric, and Microsoft's page says prices may differ by currency, country and region.
- Microsoft's Fabric Copilot capacity page says a Copilot capacity is supported only in the tenant's home region and, for some Fabric workloads, the workspace capacity must be smaller than F64. Reported: an earlier Microsoft Learn page said Copilot is unavailable in sovereign clouds and that trial and free SKUs are not supported; this conflicts with the capacity page, which says Trial workspaces can use Copilot with Power BI.
Plans and pricing
- Free account: $0. Create reports in Power BI Desktop; no credit card required. Sharing requires an upgrade.
- Pro: $14 per user a month, paid yearly. Publish and share reports. 1 GB model, 8 refreshes a day, 10 GB storage per license. Included with Microsoft 365 E5.
- Premium Per User: $24 per user a month, paid yearly. Includes Pro features plus advanced AI, advanced dataflows and datamarts, and XMLA read/write. 100 GB model, 48 refreshes a day. A step-up add-on is listed for Pro and E5 users.
- Power BI Embedded: Variable. Embed reports in your own apps; contact sales.
- Fabric capacity: Variable. Pay-as-you-go or annual reservation (Microsoft says annual saves 40.5%). Lists Copilot in Fabric; see the Fabric pricing page.
The US pricing page could not be fetched this session. The $14 Pro and $24 Premium Per User figures come from Microsoft's Power BI blog (price increase effective April 1, 2025), and plan features and limits from Microsoft's Canadian pricing page, which lists CAD $19.00 and CAD $32.60 paid yearly plus tax; no monthly (non-annual) price was shown. Prices are for marketing purposes and may differ by region. Confirm on the live pricing page.
Details checked October 2026 against the vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change, so confirm before you buy. Official pricing page ↗
Sources
This profile was compiled from these public pages. We have not run hands-on tests.
- community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Power-BI-Updates-Blog/Important-u...
- microsoft.com/en-ca/power-platform/products/power-bi/pricing
- learn.microsoft.com/mt-mt/fabric/enterprise/fabric-copilot-capacity
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/power-bi-overview
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/desktop-get-the-des...
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/fundamentals/copilot-power-bi-priv...
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/tutorial-copilot-...
Power BI — at a glance
Power BI is Microsoft's business analytics platform for connecting data, building reports and dashboards, and sharing them. It runs as a Windows desktop app (Power BI Desktop), a cloud service, and mobile apps for viewing reports, and Copilot adds AI chat features on top.
Try Power BI →