Power BI Pro vs PPU vs Fabric
Pro and Premium Per User are official per-user catalog SKUs. Microsoft Fabric is framed as an Azure F-series capacity — not the same kind of SKU, and not folded into the Microsoft 365 modeller. Controls above the cards change which documented facts apply. They are not a calculator.
This is not a ranking and not a “best plan” recommendation.
checked 2026-08-29 · Source
Three licensing lanes
The lanes are not equivalent products. Fabric F-series capacities are Azure SKUs; Power BI Pro and Premium Per User are per-user Entra licenses. This is not licensing advice.
Price not yet verified
- Official catalog SKU POWER_BI_PRO — from the dated Microsoft Learn licensing identifier list.
- Price not yet verified. No dated public CHF figure is published for this lane on ClearSource.
- A Pro licence lets you share Power BI content with other users. In Pro workspaces, people who view that content also need Pro, PPU, or an individual trial.
- Pause and reservation apply to Fabric F capacities in Azure — not to a Pro or PPU per-user licence.
- Creating or sharing Power BI items outside My workspace still needs Pro or PPU, including on Fabric capacity.
Price not yet verified
- Official catalog SKU PBI_PREMIUM_PER_USER — from the dated Microsoft Learn licensing identifier list.
- Price not yet verified. No dated public CHF figure is published for this lane on ClearSource.
- Access to a Premium Per User workspace needs a PPU licence or an individual trial — not a Pro or Free licence.
- PPU does not provision a Fabric capacity. It does not enable lakehouses, warehouses, or notebooks.
- Microsoft documents most Power BI Premium features on a per-user basis, including 48 refreshes per day, semantic models over 1 GB, and the XMLA endpoint.
- Microsoft’s public guidance: PPU is more cost-effective when Power BI Premium features are needed for fewer than 250 users. No CHF comparison is shown here.
- Pause and reservation apply to Fabric F capacities in Azure — not to a Pro or PPU per-user licence.
- Creating or sharing Power BI items outside My workspace still needs Pro or PPU, including on Fabric capacity.
Price not yet verified
Not a per-user Entra SKU. F capacities are bought in Azure. Comparable as a licensing model, not as a third catalog column.
- Price not yet verified. No dated public CHF figure is published for this lane on ClearSource.
- PPU does not provision a Fabric capacity. It does not enable lakehouses, warehouses, or notebooks.
- Creating or sharing Power BI items outside My workspace still needs Pro or PPU, including on Fabric capacity.
- F-series capacities are Azure SKUs. They are not rows in the Entra licensing-service-plan-reference used for Pro and PPU.
- F capacities are purchased through Azure. Microsoft bills per second with no commitment, or with an optional reservation.
- Azure Fabric list prices are regional. A dated public CHF figure for the selected region is not yet verified.
- Switzerland North / Switzerland West is selected for framing. Whether a given F size is available in that Azure region is not verified on this page.
- On F64 (F64 or larger), users with only a Free licence and a workspace viewer role can view Power BI content.
- Pay-as-you-go F capacities can be paused in Azure. Pausing can make Fabric content unavailable; resuming resumes billing.
- Microsoft lists F64 next to Power BI P1 for compute comparison — not as licensing equivalence. F64 is also the documented Free-viewer threshold.
The official catalog includes a free per-user Fabric/Power BI licence. That row is not an F capacity. Microsoft Fabric (Free)POWER_BI_STANDARD
CHF web-direct prices are omitted unless they appear on a public Microsoft page with source and date. We do not publish NDA CSP lists.
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- Interactive comparison tool
- Swiss Microsoft 365 providersReported directory — not yet verified. Not a “best provider” ranking.