Another Power BI licencing question

[Si_7777]

Apologies asking this but having looked at it several times the information I get seems to conflict, why is it so complicated. 

I am on a Power BI trial;  I am the only one developing a report in desktop to share in the Power BI service with other colleagues.  The trial keeps rolling not sure why. 

What is the minimum I need to do this?

Why do I need Fabric capacity, we are not yet doing anything in Fabric although we are planning to move our onsite DW to Fabric at a later time.

We are in the confusing situation of having our own company tenant and a parent company (which bought us out) who also as their own tenant.

[Si_7777]

Thank you to all who replied really helpful community

[dataflip · Accepted solution]

I understand your frustration Power BI licensing and setup can indeed seem complex, especially when dealing with multiple tenants and evolving services like Microsoft Fabric. To answer your core question: if you're the only developer creating reports in Power BI Desktop and want to share them via Power BI Service, each user (including you and any colleagues viewing the report) needs a Power BI Pro license this is the minimum requirement for sharing content within the same tenant. You do not need Fabric capacity unless you're using Fabric-specific features like Data Warehousing or Real-Time Analytics; your Power BI content will work fine without it for now. The reason your trial keeps rolling might be because you're on a Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) or Fabric trial, which includes extended capabilities but once it ends, you’ll need to purchase either Pro or PPU licenses depending on your needs. Lastly, having two tenants (your company and the parent company) adds complexity because Power BI content is tenant-specific, and sharing across tenants requires external sharing setups or workspace access permissions, which must be carefully managed with IT. I recommend consolidating reporting into one tenant if possible to simplify access and governance.

[HarishKM]

@Si_7777 Hey,
You can refer below.

Power BI Licensing Essentials:

1. Power BI Desktop: It's free and can be used to develop reports locally.

2. Power BI Service (Pro License): If you want to share reports with colleagues in your own company, you'll need at least a Power BI Pro license for both yourself and your colleagues who will view the reports.

3. Power BI Premium: This is necessary if you want additional capacity and features, or if your audience is larger and you need to share reports without each person having a Pro license.

Fabric Capacity:

• You don’t need Fabric capacity unless you're specifically deploying solutions using Fabric-related components. Since this is in future plans, you might just keep it in mind for later stages of development.

Regarding Tenant:

• Having separate tenants (your company and the parent company) can impact how data and reports are shared. Coordination for shared access between tenants usually requires administrative setup—so it’s vital to clarify permissions and access with IT.

Resources and Links:

• Power BI Licensing Overview: Power BI Licensing
• Getting Started with Power BI Service: Power BI Service Guide

Thanks

Harish KM

If these steps help resolve your issue, your acknowledgment would be greatly appreciated.

[v-echaithra]

Hi @Si_7777 ,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Community.

Thank you @Cookistador , @rohit1991 , @Royel  for your valuable insights.

We’d like to follow up regarding the recent concern. Kindly confirm whether the issue has been resolved, or if further assistance is still required. We are available to support you and are committed to helping you reach a resolution.

Thank you for your patience and look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards,
Chaithra E.

[Royel]

I agree with @Cookistador 

Since you have only 20 users and you're not using any Fabric components, there's no need for a Fabric license. A Power BI Pro license will be enough. 
Happy Development. 

[rohit1991]

Hi @Si_7777 

If you want to share Power BI reports with colleagues (who are all in the same tenant as you), everyone who wants to view or build reports needs a Power BI Pro license, including you. Each Pro license is currently about $10/user/month. 

You don’t need Fabric or Premium unless you plan to share with a large number of users (hundreds or more) or need advanced features (like bigger data capacity, paginated reports, or AI workloads).

You only need Fabric Capacity if, You want to share reports with free users (people who don’t have a Pro license) Or you want to use advanced “Fabric” features (Data Warehousing, Data Science, etc. 

If you’re in your own tenant and need to share reports with people in a parent company (separate tenant), you can invite them as guest users (Azure B2B), but they still need a Pro license to view shared reports unless you have Premium.

[Cookistador]

To put it simply: if your company has 20 users who need to either build or view reports, you will need 20 licenses, each costing $14 per month.

To clarify, if you don’t require fabric items like Warehouse, Lakehouse, or Dataflow Gen2, you do not need a fabric license.

The only scenario where purchasing a fabric license (F64), which costs $5,000 per month with a reservation subscription, makes sense is if you have more than 357 users who need to view reports. This is because with an F64 license, end users can view reports without needing their own licenses—only the report builders need licenses.