How to Reduce Power BI Licensing Costs after Price Increase

The Power BI price increase in April 2025 has had a significant impact on enterprise IT budgets.

The increase in fees is forcing business leaders and managers to rethink their licensing model and look for alternatives to save on Power BI licenses without giving up data analytics.

This article discusses how this change affects organizations and presents Power BI Viewer as an effective solution to reduce costs, scale Power BI usage and maximize Business Intelligence ROI.

Power BI License Price Increase 2025: What You Need to Know

As of April 1, 2025, Microsoft has increased the price of Power BI licenses:

• Power BI Pro: from USD 10 to USD 14 per user/month(+40%).
• Power BI Premium per User (PPU): from USD 20 to USD 24 per user/month(+20%).

This adjustment, the highest in almost a decade, can represent thousands of additional euros per month for organizations with a large number of users. A company with 100 Pro users, for example, goes from paying $1,000/month to $1,400/month.

In addition, the introduction of Microsoft Fabric has changed the licensing model, merging functionality and replacing traditional Power BI licenses with Fabric capabilities. This adds complexity and costs that companies have to deal with.

New Power BI Prices: How They Affect Your Business and the Best Alternatives to Consider

Faced with this new pricing, many companies must better justify the use of Power BI, review who really needs a full license, and look for more cost-effective models that maintain access to information without compromising budget.

One of the most effective emerging solutions is Power BI Viewer, a platform that allows companies to maintain the Power BI analytics experience without the need to purchase individual licenses for each user.

What Is Power BI Viewer and How Does It Work?

Power BI Viewer is a web-based Power BI report viewing platform, based on Power BI Embedded, that allows access to dashboards and reports without the need for individual licenses.

The solution has been specifically designed to enable companies to save costs on Power BI while optimizing the management of the platform.

Its architecture is based on two types of users:

• Reader users: they access a unified portal where they can consult reports organized by area, department or category, without the need for a Power BI license.
• Administrator users: they have a Back Office area to manage workspaces, permissions, exports, report categorization and more.

In short, Power BI Viewer turns a single Power BI Embedded license into a scalable and customized solution for the entire organization.

Want to Lower Your Power BI Costs? Here’s How Power BI Viewer Can Help

1. Significant savings on Power BI licensing

One of the key values of Power BI Viewer is its ability to dramatically reduce the costs associated with Power BI licensing. Instead of requiring a Power BI Pro license for each reader user, Power BI Viewer allows you to centralize report consumption through a single Power BI Embedded license, with a cost model based on capacity (hours of use) rather than number of users.

For example:

• A basic Embedded license (~600 €/month) can be configured to operate only during working hours (8 h/day, 5 days a week), which reduces the effective cost to ~200 €/month.
• Compared to 50 users with a Pro license (14 USD/month per user), the monthly savings can easily exceed 400 €, increasing exponentially as the number of user readers grows.

Want to drastically reduce your Power BI licensing costs?

Discover how Power BI Viewer can help you save up to 70% on licenses and improve your data strategy.

Get to know Power BI Viewer and request a demo.

Or schedule a personalized meeting to discuss the potential savings for your company.

2. Unlimited report sharing without additional licenses

Power BI Viewer allows you to share dashboards and reportswith an unlimited number of users, both internal and external (customers, suppliers, partners...), without them needing a Power BI license.

This is especially useful for:

• Customers or external collaborators who require occasional or recurring access to reports.
• Business departments that only consume information, without the need to edit or create reports.
• Large corporate teams where only a few users are content generators and most are data consumers.

All within a secure, controlled and customizable environment, compatible both in the cloud and on-premise environments.

3. Enterprise security and advanced governance

Power BI Viewer includes robust management and data governance capabilities for Power BI, giving organizations full control over who accesses, what they see and what each user can do. Features include:

• Granular permissions control by user, report, workspace, category and data.
• Export restrictions to protect sensitive information.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO) integration, enhancing security without compromising usability.
• Customized access lists to display only relevant reports by role, department or group.

These capabilities ensure compliance with internal security and privacy policies, even when sharing information with users outside the organization.

4. User experience and centralized environment

Power BI Viewer transforms the report consumption experience, offering a centralized and customizable web portal that makes it easy to organize, navigate and view reports.

Among its outstanding functionalities:

• Customized interface with corporate logo and colors.
• Thematic or departmental classification of reports and dashboards.
• Bookmarking and agile access from any device.
• Unified navigation from a single environment, eliminating dependence on multiple workspaces.

In addition, it integrates with other governance solutions such as Bismart Governance for Power BI, allowing unlimited user activity monitoring and automatic documentation of Power BI datasets.

Comparison: Traditional licensing vs Power BI Viewer

Power BI Viewer: Use Cases

Power BI Vieweraddresses the different business needs related to publishing and accessing reports in Power BI, offering a solution that adapts to multiple use cases.

1. Enterprises with multiple read-only users

For organizations with multipleusers who only need to view reports, Power BI Viewer represents a cost-effective solution.

By enabling report sharing without requiring individual Power BI licenses for each user, it optimizes costs and simplifies access management.

2. SMBs with tight budgets

Small and medium-sized businesses looking to maximize their investment in analytics tools can benefit from Power BI Viewer.

By limiting the use of resources to specific working hours, it is possible tosignificantly reduce the costs associated with the consumption of reports, adapting to the needs and capabilities of the company.

3. Organizations sharing reports with external users

For entities that need to share information with customers, suppliers or external stakeholders, Power BI Viewer offers a secure and controlled platform.

It allows access to specific reports without compromising data security or incurring additional external licensing costs.

4. Companies that need to centralize and govern their Power BI reporting

Power BI Viewer is ideal for organizations with multiple workspaces, teams or business units that require a unified view of all their reports.

The solution allows you to group resources (reports, users, etc.) by thematic categories or departments, customize the user experience and set advanced governance policies, all from a single portal.

➡️ Discover other potential use cases for Power BI Viewer.

Conclusion: How to Save On Power Bi Licenses in 2025

Power BI price increases and the changes introduced by Microsoft Fabric have changed the business intelligence landscape. Now more than ever, innovating your licensing strategy is key to maximizing ROI.

Power BI Viewer represents a scalable, secure and cost-effective alternative that allows you to extend access to reports throughout your organization, without increasing costs per user.