Who is a "user" in "per user" for licensing purposes?

[pborah]

Looking to understand if "user" refers to the analysts who will implement the visualizations in a report, or end users who will consume those said reports. Or whether this differs from one developer to another? Thank you.

[AlexisOlson]

It's both. You can't share content with a cheaper tier. For example, a premium per user workspace cannot be shared with pro users, only other PPU users. Pro and PPU can share regular Pro workspaces.

[pborah]

Thanks @AlexisOlson , but if that's the case, how am I able to share the reports I make in premium workspaces to our users who do not have pro licenses? We have an organizational license and barring the 25 odd people who work in IT and dev, licenses for the rest of them (1000+) were free (E3). Limitation being those poeple can only view the content we create and can't do anything else with it. We are able to add E3 users to a premium workspaces for testing (viewer) purposes before rolling something out to production. So does this mean, I only need to get licenses for my devs/analysts for custom visuals, i.e. the Pro users? Pardon me, getting into the weeds of licensing gets confusing.

[AlexisOlson]

If you want to share with users that do not have a Pro license, then you will need to pay for a premium *capacity*, which starts at about $5000/month. In this case, only the content creators need their own license.

For per user licensing, you need everyone to have a Pro license whether creating or viewing. If you need premium features, then everyone needs to have Premium Per User licenses.

The licensing definitely can be confusing, so I recommend reading some articles like this one for a fuller picture:
Power BI Licensing Ultimate Guide - RADACAD

[pborah]

Thanks @AlexisOlson we do have premium capacity as an organization with the analysts and dev and some bosses with E5 licenses to be able to create/edit content. Rest of the organization has E3. So I'm good to get custom visual license for just my devs then and still be able to disseminate content using those paid custom visuals organization wide?

[AlexisOlson]

Custom visual licensing can work differently than Power BI licensing. You'll have to read the license agreement for the specific custom visuals you are using. I don't think it's safe to assume Power BI Premium Capacity allows you to only license the custom visuals for your devs if they are intended to be broadly consumed.

[pborah]

@AlexisOlson Thank you. This is the answer I was looking for.