Forum Discussion
Premium vs Pro Workspaces - And Apps For Viewing By Free Users - Insight Appreciated
Hi pbix1,
Thank you for your detailed explanation. Your understanding is mostly accurate, and it's wise to be cautious before making changes.
In Power BI, Free users can only access content such as apps if hosted in a workspace with Premium Capacity. Removing Premium from your current publishing workspace will cause all users without a Pro license to lose access to the app, even if they’re just viewing or exporting data.
Premium Capacity can support multiple workspaces simultaneously, so there's no need to move it from one workspace to another. As long as the workspaces are assigned to the same capacity, they can both use Premium features without extra cost.
The issue you're experiencing, where the option is greyed out, is likely due to internal IT controls. Your IT department manages Premium workspace assignments, so you'll need to request them to assign your internal development workspace to the same Premium Capacity.
This will maintain app access for your large user base in the publishing workspace and enable Premium features like dataflows in your internal workspace. This setup avoids licensing issues and keeps both workspaces functional within your current subscription.
Please find the official Microsoft link below for your reference:Power BI service features by license type - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Workspaces in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Manage your Fabric capacity - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
Deploying and Managing Power BI Premium Capacities - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
If this solution worked for you, kindly mark it as Accept as Solution and feel free to give a Kudos, it would be much appreciated!
Hi pbix1
In your scenario, the key point is that Power BI Free users can only view content—such as apps—if that content is published in a workspace that is backed by Premium Capacity. If you remove the Premium Capacity from your main publishing workspace and move it to your internal development workspace, then any users without a Power BI Pro license will immediately lose access to the app published from the main workspace. This is because, without Premium, viewing shared content (even just viewing, let alone exporting) requires the user to have a Pro license themselves. Your understanding is correct: either everyone viewing an app must have Pro, or the workspace must be in Premium (or Premium per user—PPU—but that's not practical for 500+ users).
Regarding your observation of other apps within your company being widely available from Pro workspaces: those may appear to be in Pro workspaces, but in reality, their capacity might be Premium, or the users accessing them might unknowingly have Pro licenses provisioned by IT (especially if licensed via Microsoft 365 E5 or via individual assignment). Unfortunately, there's no native way in Power BI to allow Free users to view apps from Pro workspaces—Premium capacity is the requirement.
The best path forward is to retain Premium capacity for the workspace hosting the public-facing app, since that’s essential for your broader user base with free licenses. If you need Premium features (like dataflows) in your internal workspace, you can simply assign the same Premium Capacity to that internal workspace as well—you are not restricted to using Premium on only one workspace. Premium capacity can be shared across multiple workspaces as long as they're assigned to it, so there is no need to "transfer" or "repurpose" the licence—just go into the internal workspace's settings and switch its capacity to the same Premium one already being used.
In summary: keep the main publishing workspace under Premium to preserve free user access, and add the internal workspace to the same Premium capacity to use dataflows. This way, both needs are met using the existing licence.