Display Units

Hi powerbiexpert22​,

The Y-axis Range setting and Display units setting are two separate things.

Setting Minimum and Maximum to Auto only controls the numeric range of the axis. It does not control whether Power BI displays the labels as K, M, or B.

For Display units = Auto, Microsoft describes the unit as being selected dynamically based on the magnitude of the data, but it does not document a fixed rule such as:

below 1,000,000 -> Thousands
above 1,000,000 -> Millions

So Auto can choose Millions even when the individual points currently visible on the chart are below 1M.

You can see the available behaviour in the column chart formatting documentation.

If you always want this visual to show thousands, the deterministic option is:

Format visual -> Y-axis -> Display units -> Thousands

and do the same for the Secondary Y-axis if required.

If your actual requirement is conditional:

values below 1M -> K
otherwise -> M

then I would not rely on Display units = Auto. Instead, set Display units to None and use a dynamic format string on the measures.

Microsoft specifically notes in the dynamic format strings guidance

So the main point is:

Range = Auto
-> controls axis min/max

Display units = Auto
-> independently chooses K/M/B formatting

They are not linked.

AI-assisted drafting: AI was used to help structure and phrase this response. I reviewed and validated the technical content before posting.

Hi powerbiexpert22, adding one practical angle to the explanation above. Auto seems to pick the unit from the largest tick on the axis rather than from where most of your bars sit, and the axis here goes up to about 0.4M, so it lands on Millions even though every bar is small. I can't point to a documented cutoff for that, so treat it as observed behaviour. If you want 100K, 200K and so on, set Display units to Thousands on the Y axis, and the labels will follow. Hope that helps, and if it does please mark a reply as the solution.

Power BI shows Millions because the Y‑axis auto‑scaling is based on the maximum value range, not the individual bar values. Since totals or plan values cross 1,000,000, the axis rounds up and displays in M for readability.

If you want Thousands, go to Format → Y‑axis → Display units and set it manually to Thousands or None.

Use dynamic format strings and ensure that the display units of Y-Axis is set to None.

VAR _Value = ABS ( SELECTEDMEASURE () )
RETURN
    SWITCH (
        TRUE (),
        _Value >= 1000000000, "#,##0,,,.#B",
        _Value >= 1000000, "#,##0,,.##M",
        _Value >= 1000, "#,##0,.K",
        "#,##0.##"
    )