what Power BI subscription plans for our website to publish reports that our subscribers can access

[amitesh_data]

We are working on a website with a subscription-based plan to display analytical reports to our subscribers only.

I wanted to understand the best Power BI subscription path for this.

On one hand, I was advised to purchase a PPU license with embedded capacity where I can create and deploy my reports. PPU license is because datasets are bulky in size ( +10GB )  and then embed these reports in our website. every website subscriber would need a PPU subscription additionally to access those reports.

What I understand about, why our every website-subscriber need PPU, is because, per my understanding, only PPU or premium capacity users can access PPU workspace and not the Pro user. 

On the other hand, I am thinking to purchase a Power BI Pro license with the embedded capacity to store large datasets and then embed reports (developed using a prod license in the workspace) on our website. All our website subscribers should be able to access reports through our website. 

Please also advise:

- What is the role of Power BI Embedded here, I am not very clear.

- When we publish the PBI report on the web then It means it is available for everyone to access. In this case, do we really need a PPU license for all our website-susbcribers to view those reports that we have deployed on PPU workspace and embedded on our website?

Your valuable Inputs would really help in a great manner, so please advise.     

[djurecicK2]

@Daryl-Lynch-Bzy @Thanks for your reply- I've edited my post accordingly.

[Daryl-Lynch-Bzy]

Hi @amitesh_data - the answer to your question is "it depends".  Please use the following advice to discuss with Microsoft Sales Rep.   

Power BI Embedded is a feature that allows you to insert a Power BI report within your application/website within an iFrame or with a SharePoint site.  Essentially, the user can access the report without visiting "app.powerbi.com".

When you publish to web, you need to either "Licence the app" and "Licence the user or Capacity".  This is descibed in the "Sharing capabilities" in the following blog post.  Understanding the Power BI Capacity Based SKUs – The White Pages (tygraph.com)

If you "License the App", you are buying premium capacity through an A SKU.  This SKU is pay by the hour.  So if you are running the app 24/7 365 days the costs will rack up.  But there is an advantage if your users only need access for 8 hours for 5 days a week.  You can pause and start the service so it only on when required.

If you "Licence the Users or Capacity", there are two options.  Premium Per User (PPU) and Premium Per Capacity (PPC).  If you use this approach please note that you cannot use the "EM" SKU (FYI @djurecicK2).  The EM SKU are designed for sharing within your organisation when everyone has Power BI Pro licence.  So, to share with your subscription users, they will need (1) a Microsoft Guest account and (2) a Power BI Pro licence.  I am not sure if you going to be using Microsoft account for your subscription service. 

Okay you need Premium Capacity, so it is PPU or PPC.  This is where you need to get the calculator out.  Large organisation will opt for PPC.  The reason is that annual cost of the incurred once for all users, and there is the option to switch report consumers from Power BI Pro to Power BI Free licences.  If you are in a smaller organisation, say between 1 - 250 ish employees, there is an arguement to buy PPU for everyone.  Why?  The annual cost for 250 users is much less than annual cost of P1, and you actually get access P3 resources.

The caveat to the above is that paying for EM3 and Power BI Pro licences could be more cost effective.

So it depends on

• If you organisation already has P1 or above, just assign app to the existing capacity and monitor performance
• If it does not have PPC and the number of users in your subscription service if it thousands go for P1 - user will need Free licence, but then they need Microsoft guest account.
• We don't want users to have Microsoft Guest User accounts go for A3/A4.  Haggle on the cost with Microsoft find out if you need it 24/7 and hope your subscription user base dilutes the cost per user. 

I hope this helps.

[djurecicK2 · Accepted solution]

[Edited]
Hi @amitesh_data ,

 For the user access situation that you are describing, it seems like embedded is the way to go. You will also need a Pro license to publish the report, but users will not need a license to view the report.

However, 10GB datasets will not work well with embedded. Any chance you can use Direct Query mode?

Here is some additional information on user access with embedded.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/embedded/embedded-analytics-power-bi

Here is additional information on performance and max dataset sizes for embedded and premium:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/service-premium-gen2-what-is#capacities-and-sk...

Please consideraccepting as solution if this has answered your question.