Power BI service features by license type
- 2 minutes to read
There are two kinds of Power BI per-user licenses: free and Pro. Which type of license a user needs is determined by where content is stored and how they'll interact with that content. Where content can be stored is determined by your organization's subscription type.
Subscriptions and license types
One type of subscription, Power BI Premium, allows users with a free license to act on content in workspaces that are assigned to Premium capacity. Outside of Premium capacity, a user with a free license can only use the Power BI service to connect to data and create reports and dashboards in My Workspace. They can't share content with others or publish content to other workspaces. To learn more about workspace types, see Types of workspaces. To discover more about Power BI Premium, see What is Power BI Premium?
A standard Power BI subscription uses shared capacity. If content is stored in shared capacity, users who are assigned a Power BI Pro license can collaborate only with other Power BI Pro users. They can consume content shared by other users, publish content to app workspaces, share dashboards, and subscribe to dashboards and reports. When workspaces are in Premium capacity, Pro users may distribute content to users who don't have a Power BI Pro license.
The table below summarizes the basic capabilities of each license type.
| License type | Capabilities when workspace is in shared capacity | Additional capabilities when workspace is in Premium capacity |
|---|---|---|
| Power BI (free) | Access to content in My Workspace | Consume content shared with them |
| Power BI Pro | Publish content to other workspaces, share dashboards, subscribe to dashboards and reports, share with users who have a Pro license | Distribute content to users who have free licenses |
For a comparison of Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium, see the Power BI features comparison section of Power BI pricing.
To learn more about the capabilities your license provides, see Feature availability for users with free licenses and Types of licenses for Power BI consumers.