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EPC Group

Enterprise Microsoft consulting with 28+ years serving Fortune 500 companies.

(888) 381-9725
contact@epcgroup.net
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Power BI Premium - EPC Group enterprise consulting

Power BI Premium

Enterprise Analytics with Dedicated Capacity, AI Features & Unlimited Viewers

HomePower BI ConsultingPower BI Premium
400 GB
Max Dataset Size
Unlimited
Free Viewers
48M/hr
AI Evaluations (P5)
28+ Years
Microsoft Expertise
Quick Navigation:
What is Power BI Premium?Premium vs Pro vs PPU ComparisonPower BI Premium Pricing 2026Premium Capacity SKUs (P1-P5)Key Premium FeaturesMicrosoft Fabric IntegrationAI & Advanced AnalyticsEnterprise Deployment GuideFAQ

What is Power BI Premium?

Power BI Premium is Microsoft's enterprise-grade business intelligence platform that provides dedicated compute capacity for your organization's analytics workloads. Unlike Power BI Pro's per-user licensing, Premium delivers scalable, high-performance analytics with advanced features including AI capabilities, paginated reports, unlimited content distribution, and Microsoft Fabric integration.

With Power BI Premium, organizations gain dedicated resources that aren't shared with other tenants, enabling predictable performance for mission-critical analytics. Premium also unlocks the ability to share reports and dashboards with unlimited users—including those without Power BI licenses—making it ideal for broad organizational or external distribution.

Key Differentiators of Power BI Premium

  • Dedicated Capacity: Isolated compute resources not shared with other organizations
  • Unlimited Distribution: Share with users who don't have Power BI licenses
  • Enterprise Scale: Support datasets up to 400 GB with incremental refresh
  • Microsoft Fabric: Unified analytics platform with OneLake, Data Factory, and more

Power BI Premium vs Pro vs PPU

Understanding the differences between Power BI licensing options is critical for optimizing costs and capabilities.

Power BI Pro

$10per user/month

Individual licensing for content creation and sharing

Features

  • Create and publish reports
  • Share dashboards
  • Collaborate on workspaces
  • Mobile access
  • 10 GB storage per user
  • Export to Excel/PowerPoint

Limitations

  • •All viewers need Pro license
  • •Limited to 1 GB dataset refresh
  • •No paginated reports
  • •No AI features
Best for:

Small teams and individual analysts

Premium Per User (PPU)

$20per user/month

Premium features with per-user licensing

Features

  • All Pro features
  • Paginated reports
  • AI visuals and insights
  • Advanced dataflows
  • 100 GB dataset size
  • Unlimited content sharing
  • XMLA endpoint read/write

Limitations

  • •All viewers need PPU license
  • •No dedicated capacity
  • •Cannot embed externally
Best for:

Teams needing Premium features without capacity commitment

Premium Capacity

$4,995+per capacity/month

Dedicated capacity for enterprise deployments

Features

  • All PPU features
  • Dedicated compute resources
  • Unlimited viewers (free)
  • On-premises deployment option
  • Autoscale capabilities
  • Microsoft Fabric integration
  • BYOK encryption
  • Multi-geo deployment

Limitations

  • •Higher upfront cost
  • •Requires capacity planning
Best for:

Large enterprises, external sharing, embedded analytics

Power BI Premium Pricing 2026

Premium capacity pricing is based on the compute resources (v-cores) allocated to your organization.

Cost Optimization Tip

Power BI Premium becomes more cost-effective than Pro licensing when you have approximately 500+ content viewers. At $4,995/month for P1 vs. $10/user for Pro, the break-even point is around 500 users—and Premium includes features not available in Pro at any price.

Premium Capacity SKUs (P1-P5)

SKUv-CoresMemoryMax DatasetPrice/MonthAI EvaluationsBest For
P1825 GB25 GB$4,9953M/hourSmall departments, initial Premium adoption
P21650 GB50 GB$9,9956M/hourMid-size organizations, growing analytics needs
P332100 GB100 GB$19,99512M/hourLarge enterprises, heavy analytics workloads
P464200 GB200 GBContact Sales24M/hourEnterprise-scale analytics, massive datasets
P5128400 GB400 GBContact Sales48M/hourMission-critical workloads, maximum scale

* Pricing as of January 2026. Contact EPC Group for current enterprise pricing and volume discounts.

Key Power BI Premium Features

Premium unlocks advanced capabilities not available in Pro licensing.

Data & Storage

  • Large dataset support
    Up to 400 GB per dataset (vs 1 GB Pro)
  • Dataflows Gen2
    Advanced data transformation with compute engines
  • Incremental refresh
    Refresh only new/changed data
  • Composite models
    Combine Import and DirectQuery in same model

Reporting & Distribution

  • Paginated reports
    Pixel-perfect reports for printing and export
  • Unlimited viewers
    Share with non-licensed users for free
  • Deployment pipelines
    Dev/Test/Prod content lifecycle
  • On-premises reporting
    Power BI Report Server included

AI & Advanced Analytics

  • AutoML
    Build ML models without coding
  • Cognitive Services
    Text analytics, sentiment, image tagging
  • AI insights
    Anomaly detection, key influencers
  • Smart narratives
    Auto-generated text summaries

Enterprise & Security

  • XMLA endpoint
    Connect with SSMS, Tabular Editor, ALM Toolkit
  • BYOK encryption
    Bring your own encryption keys
  • Multi-geo
    Deploy to specific regions for compliance
  • Private links
    Access Power BI over private network

Microsoft Fabric Integration

Power BI Premium capacities (P1 and above) now include Microsoft Fabric—Microsoft's unified analytics platform that brings together data engineering, data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence in a single SaaS experience.

  • OneLake

    Unified data lake for all analytics workloads

  • Data Factory

    Next-gen data integration and ETL

  • Synapse Analytics

    Data engineering and data science workloads

  • Real-Time Analytics

    Stream processing and real-time insights

Fabric Capacity Included

Every Power BI Premium capacity includes Fabric capabilities at no additional cost. Your P1-P5 capacity units can be used across all Fabric workloads.

Learn About Fabric

AI & Advanced Analytics

Power BI Premium includes powerful AI capabilities that transform how organizations analyze data.

AutoML

Build machine learning models without code. Train classification, regression, and forecasting models directly in Power BI using your data.

  • • Binary classification
  • • Regression models
  • • Time series forecasting

Cognitive Services

Integrate Azure Cognitive Services for advanced text and image analysis without managing separate AI infrastructure.

  • • Sentiment analysis
  • • Key phrase extraction
  • • Language detection
  • • Image tagging

AI Visuals

Built-in AI-powered visualizations that automatically surface insights from your data.

  • • Key Influencers
  • • Decomposition Tree
  • • Anomaly Detection
  • • Smart Narratives

Enterprise Deployment Guide

EPC Group's proven methodology for Power BI Premium deployment.

1

Assessment

Analyze current state, data sources, user requirements, and capacity needs

2

Design

Architecture design, workspace strategy, security model, and governance framework

3

Implementation

Capacity provisioning, workspace migration, dataflow setup, and report deployment

4

Optimization

Performance tuning, capacity monitoring, cost optimization, and user training

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Power BI Premium licensing and deployment.

What is the difference between Power BI Premium and Power BI Pro?

Power BI Pro ($10/user/month) is individual licensing where every viewer needs a Pro license. Power BI Premium ($4,995+/month) provides dedicated capacity allowing unlimited free viewers, plus advanced features like paginated reports, AI capabilities, larger datasets (up to 400 GB vs 1 GB), and Microsoft Fabric integration. Premium is typically more cost-effective when you have over 500 content viewers.

How much does Power BI Premium cost in 2026?

Power BI Premium capacity pricing starts at $4,995/month for P1 (8 v-cores), $9,995/month for P2 (16 v-cores), and $19,995/month for P3 (32 v-cores). P4 and P5 capacities are available through enterprise agreements. Premium Per User (PPU) is available at $20/user/month for organizations that want Premium features without capacity commitment.

Should I choose Premium Per User or Premium Capacity?

Choose Premium Per User (PPU) if: you have fewer than ~250 Premium users, you do not need to share with external users, and you do not require embedded analytics. Choose Premium Capacity if: you have many content viewers (especially non-licensed users), need to embed analytics in applications, require on-premises deployment, or need Microsoft Fabric integration.

Can Power BI Premium integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

Yes, Power BI Premium capacities (P1 and above) include Microsoft Fabric capabilities. Fabric extends Power BI with OneLake (unified data lake), Data Factory, Synapse Data Engineering, Data Science, and Real-Time Analytics. This allows organizations to build complete analytics solutions from data ingestion through visualization in a single platform.

What is the difference between Power BI Embedded and Premium?

Power BI Embedded (A SKUs) is designed for ISVs embedding analytics in customer-facing applications with pay-per-use billing. Power BI Premium (P SKUs) is for internal enterprise analytics with monthly subscription pricing. Both support embedding, but Premium includes more features like paginated reports, deployment pipelines, and Microsoft Fabric. Premium is better for internal use; Embedded is better for SaaS applications.

Does Power BI Premium include AI features?

Yes, Power BI Premium includes extensive AI capabilities: AutoML for building machine learning models without coding, Cognitive Services integration (text analytics, sentiment analysis, image tagging), AI visuals (key influencers, decomposition tree, anomaly detection), smart narratives for auto-generated insights, and Q&A natural language queries. These features are not available in Power BI Pro.

How do I determine the right Premium capacity size?

Capacity sizing depends on: number of concurrent users, dataset sizes, refresh frequency, and query complexity. Start with P1 for small departments (<100 users, <25 GB datasets). Use P2 for mid-size organizations (100-500 users, moderate refresh needs). P3+ for large enterprises with heavy workloads. EPC Group provides capacity assessments to right-size your deployment.

Can I mix Premium Per User and Premium Capacity?

Yes, you can use both licensing models in the same organization. PPU users can access PPU workspaces with Premium features, while Premium Capacity workspaces can serve unlimited free viewers. Many organizations start with PPU for development teams and use Premium Capacity for production deployments with broad distribution.

Ready to Deploy Power BI Premium?

EPC Group has 28+ years of Microsoft consulting expertise. We'll help you right-size your capacity, optimize costs, and maximize your Premium investment.

Request Consultation(888) 381-9725

Free 30-minute consultation • No obligation • Same-day response

Related Power BI Resources

Premium vs PPU Guide

Detailed comparison of Premium Capacity vs Premium Per User licensing

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Complete Licensing Guide

Full breakdown of all Power BI licensing options and costs

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Power BI Consulting Services

Enterprise Power BI implementation, training, and support

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