Licensing Assessment

[CodyWalker]

Hi There - 

I'm trying to figure out exactly which license would best fit my scenario, and I can't fully wrap my head around the parameters on the licence types available vs. what I'm trying to do.  I've mostly just used Power BI to this point to view data myself, typically ad-hoc and now I'm being tasked with getting that out there for others, so I'm a little lost.

Using my data sources (which would be coming from Sharepoint or Excel), I'd like to publish a few Power BI reports for users to be able to view, either via Sharepoint or web link.  I'd not want them to manipulate the formatting / available charts / remove or add data / etc., but I would like them to be able to choose filters to get the relevant data they need, so to speak.  So if the report was to show, say, IT tickets submitted, I'd want them to be able to filter by only their department or only open tickets (both would be included in the data set and added as a filter) but I'd not want them to be able to add the user that made the request for example (which would also be in the data set for a different report) or similar.

The end users would have the free license.  Would I need the Power BI Premium license to do this?  or would the BI Pro license fulfill the need?  And if I have the Premium, do I just need the 'per user' license?  Or do I need both the capacity license and a per user license?

[djurecicK2]

Hi @CodyWalker ,

 Approximately how many users will be viewing reports and how many will be creating reports? The main scenarios you will have are:

1) all users have Pro license ($10)/user/month

2) Organization has a Premium Capacity (starting at $5,000/month) which allows for free read-only users. Report creators still need Pro licenses.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@CodyWalker 
If an end user is viewing a report shared with them, they either need a Pro license, or be covered under a Premium license.
All report authors, need a Pro license regardless of whether you have premium or not.
There is also the PPU license or Premium Per User - which is slightly more expensive, but if you go that route all end users need PPU licenses as well.
Premium offers a lot more capabilities and simplifies the end user sharing, however its not required to make that big leap. Pro or PPU are viable options if all you need to do is share.
You can also change licensing pretty easily if you need to scale up at some point.