Licensing is the question that comes up most before a Power BI project starts. Most companies either overpay for capacity they do not need, or keep buying Pro seats long after capacity became cheaper. The answer usually depends on one number: how many people only view reports.

The three options in one minute

  • Power BI Pro ($14 per user per month). Everyone who publishes, shares or views content in a shared workspace needs a license. Covers most small and mid-size teams.
  • Premium Per User ($24 per user per month). Everything in Pro plus Premium features: larger models, up to 48 scheduled refreshes a day, deployment pipelines and XMLA read and write. The catch: every person who views PPU content also needs PPU.
  • Fabric capacity (F SKUs). You pay for compute by the hour instead of per person: $0.18 per capacity unit per hour pay-as-you-go in US regions, about 40.5% less with a one-year reservation. From F64 up, viewers with a free license can open reports. Below F64, viewers still need Pro. Report creators always need Pro.

The number that decides it: viewers

An F64 costs about $8,410 a month pay-as-you-go, or about $5,004 a month with a one-year reservation. Pro costs $14 per viewer. Divide one by the other and you get the break-even point: a reserved F64 pays for itself at about 358 viewers, and pay-as-you-go at about 601 viewers.

The number of creators does not move this point, because creators need Pro in both setups. Below it, Pro for everyone is cheaper. Above it, F64 wins, and the gap grows with every viewer you add.

A worked example

A company has 12 analysts building reports and 200 managers and sales staff viewing them. Pro for everyone: 212 × $14 = $2,968 a month. A reserved F64 plus 12 Pro seats: $5,004 + $168 = $5,172 a month. Pro wins by more than $2,000.

Now the group rolls the dashboards out to every branch and reaches 450 viewers. Pro for everyone: 462 × $14 = $6,468 a month. The F64 setup stays at $5,172. Capacity now saves about $1,300 a month, and every new branch makes it cheaper per person.

When the cheapest option is not the right one

  • You need Fabric workloads. Lakehouses, pipelines and notebooks only run on capacity. A small F2 plus Pro seats is often the cheapest way in.
  • Your models are outgrowing Pro. Pro caps model size at 1 GB and scheduled refresh at 8 times a day. PPU or capacity removes both limits.
  • You have Microsoft 365 E5. E5 already includes Pro, so Pro costs you nothing extra, and Microsoft lists the step up to PPU as an add-on of $14 per user per month.
  • You want to show reports to customers. Embedding reports in your own app or portal needs capacity, not per user licenses.

What Copilot needs

Copilot in Power BI does not come with Pro or PPU. Microsoft's requirements (Copilot for Power BI overview):

  • A paid capacity. A Fabric capacity of F2 or higher, or Power BI Premium P1 or higher. Trial capacities and free SKUs aren't supported.
  • Pro or PPU alone isn't enough. In Microsoft's words, Copilot "requires organizational capacity". An F2 or larger can be set up as a Fabric Copilot capacity: the users assigned to it can use Copilot in Power BI Desktop and in Pro and PPU workspaces, and their Copilot usage is billed to that capacity.
  • Copilot uses the capacity. Its usage is billed in capacity units, by the tokens it uses, on top of the load of your reports. Size the capacity with Copilot in mind.
  • In the UAE, an admin setting. The Azure OpenAI service behind Copilot runs in US and EU data centers. For a capacity in the UAE, Copilot stays off until your Fabric admin allows data to be processed outside the capacity's region (Microsoft Learn).

Then prepare the model before your users start asking it questions: Microsoft says that without preparation, Copilot can return generic or inaccurate results. Our 7-point check lists what to fix, and the Copilot readiness audit checks your own model and writes the exact fixes.

Power BI price in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

How much does Power BI cost in the UAE and Saudi Arabia?

Microsoft publishes Power BI prices in US dollars: Pro $14 and Premium Per User $24 per user per month, paid yearly (Power BI pricing). It shows no dirham or riyal price, and its page notes that prices "may not be reflective of actual list price due to currency, country, and regional variant factors". At the fixed pegs of 3.6725 dirhams (Central Bank of the UAE) and 3.75 riyals (SAMA) to the dollar, that is about AED 51.42 or SAR 52.50 for Pro, and AED 88.14 or SAR 90.00 for PPU, before VAT. These are conversions, not local prices: the price you pay is your Microsoft reseller's quote.

Does Fabric capacity cost more in the UAE?

Yes, in Azure's public price list (Fabric pricing). A capacity unit costs $0.22 an hour pay-as-you-go in UAE North against $0.18 in East US, so an F64 there is about $10,278 a month pay-as-you-go, or about $6,112 with a one-year reservation (US: about $8,410 and $5,004). That moves the reserved F64 break-even from about 358 to about 437 viewers. Microsoft's Fabric region list has no region in Saudi Arabia; in the Gulf it lists UAE North with all Fabric workloads, and UAE Central and Qatar Central for Power BI only.

Which license do we need for Copilot?

A paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Power BI Premium (P1 or higher). Pro or PPU on its own isn't enough: see "What Copilot needs" above. To get the model ready first, see the Copilot readiness audit.

Prices change, and your mix of creators and viewers will too. The free Power BI Licensing Cost Calculator runs this comparison for your own numbers, in USD, AED or SAR, and its prices are checked against Microsoft every week.

Microsoft list prices, checked 3 October 2026 on the Power BI pricing page and Azure's Fabric price list. US regions unless stated. Enterprise agreements and local currency pricing can differ.