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Sign up or purchase the Power BI service as an individual

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Power BI can serve as the analytics, visualization, and decision engine behind group projects, divisions, or entire corporations. But it can also be your personal data analysis and visualization tool.

Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one analytics solution for enterprises that covers everything from data movement to data science, Real-Time Analytics, and business intelligence. It offers a comprehensive suite of services all in one place.

The Power BI service is available as a standalone service and as one of the services that's integrated with Microsoft Fabric. Administration and licensing of the Power BI service is now integrated with Microsoft Fabric.

This article explains the options you have to sign up or purchase Power BI and Fabric as an individual.

There are two ways for individuals to get a license. They can sign up for or purchase a license for themselves. This includes getting a free or paid license that an admin makes available for users in an organization. The other method is for an admin to assign you a license. This article explains the first option, which is called self-service.

For an overview of self-service, see Self-service for Microsoft 365 products and services.

To skip ahead to using self-service, see How to use self-service sign-up and self-service purchase.

Self-service sign-up versus self-service purchase

The self-service sign-up feature is used by individuals who sign themselves up for free and trial licenses and subscriptions. Self-service purchase is the feature used by individuals to buy a license or subscription for themselves.

Self-service for Power BI and Fabric

This article describes the self-service process for the Power BI service and Fabric. If you're looking for help with downloading Power BI Desktop or with installing the mobile apps, refer to these articles:

Get an individual user license

There are different ways to get a per-user license. These methods include:

  • Assign yourself a license if your organization already has a subscription for Power BI or Fabric and self-service is turned on. The types of licenses available depend on what type of subscriptions your organization purchased and how your admin configured Power BI.
  • Open app.powerbi.com and click a "Try free" or "Buy now" link. Then, follow the prompts to complete the sign-up or purchase.
  • Opt in for a trial. If you already have a license and try to use an advanced feature, Power BI and Fabric might prompt you to upgrade or try a free trial. If you have a Fabric (free) license, you can upgrade your account to Power BI Pro while using the service and to a full Fabric trial. If you already hold a Power BI Pro license, you might be prompted to upgrade to a Power BI Premium Per User license.

If you don't have a work or school email account, you can get an onmicrosoft account by signing up for Power BI with a free Microsoft 365 trial.

For step-by-step instructions on using self-service sign-up and self-service purchase, go to How to sign up for Power BI as an individual.

Power BI license types

Before you sign up or purchase, determine which per-user license type you need. Power BI and Fabric offer several per-user licenses: Fabric (free), Pro, and PPU. Power BI also offers a free trial upgrade for Pro and for Premium Per User. When an individual signs up or purchases Power BI, they're assigned a Power BI license automatically. Some versions of Microsoft 365 include a Pro license. Not sure what type of license you need?

  • With a free license, you can explore Power BI for personal data analysis and visualization using My Workspace, but you can't share with other users. A Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium Per User license is required to share content.
  • With a free license, you can open Fabric and do some viewing of experiences other than Power BI. But to work with the other experiences and to see and share content, you need a Fabric capacity. A capacity is included in the Fabric free trial.
  • With a Pro license, you can collaborate with Premium Per User and Pro users in Power BI by creating and sharing content. If that content is in Power BI Premium capacity or Fabric F64 or greater capacity, a Pro user can collaborate in Power BI with free, Premium per user, and Pro users by creating and sharing content. A Pro license does not give you access to other experiences in Fabric -- only to the Power BI experience and content.
  • With a Premium Per User license, you can access Premium features of Power BI for yourself and other users who also have a Premium Per User license. A Power BI Premium subscription unlocks access to a variety of features, capabilities, and types of content that are only available through Premium. Power BI Premium is available as an add-on to Power BI Pro. A PPU license does not give you access to other experiences in Fabric -- only to the Power BI experience and content. For more information about Premium subscriptions, see What is Power BI Premium?.

Note

Direct purchase or an upgrade to Pro or Premium Per User isn't available to educational organizations or organizations deployed to Azure Government or Azure China 21Vianet clouds. For more information about licenses and subscriptions, see Licensing in Power BI.

Look up your current license

Check to see if you can already sign in. Open the Power BI service with this URL: app.powerbi.com. If Power BI opens, from the upper right corner, select the Me icon to see your current licenses.

Screenshot of the Account drop down showing your license type

Check to see if you can sign in. Open the Power BI service at app.powerbi.com. If Power BI opens, from the upper right corner, select the Me icon to see your current licenses.

Screenshot of the Account drop down showing your license type.

If you can't sign in to the Power BI service, or you want an alternate way to look up your Power BI licenses, open your Microsoft account at myaccount.microsoft.com.

  1. Sign in with the same work or school account you use with other Microsoft products.

  2. From the menu on the left, select Subscriptions.

    Screenshot of myaccount.microsoft.com home page.

  3. Scroll through your subscriptions and look for Power BI. In this example, the individual has both a free license and a Pro license. The Pro license is included with their Office 365 E5.

    Screenshot of Office 365 E5 list of licenses.

    Screenshot of Office Free license.

Information about Power BI trials

One of the ways to get an individual license is to sign up for a free trial of the paid version of Power BI Premium Per user. Typically, trials last for one or two months. If you don’t purchase the upgrade at the end of the trial period, your license reverts to free or Pro, depending on which you had before starting the trial.

To cancel a trial, select Cancel trial from the Me icon.

Screenshot of the Account drop down showing the Cancel trial option.

Unable to sign up or purchase Power BI

If you're unable to use self-service to get your own Power BI license, check to see if your administrator disabled this option. The admins who manage the domain can disable self-service sign-ups, self-service purchases, upgrades, and free trials. For help when you can't use self-service, go to Self-service sign up and purchase help.

If you're an admin, learn how to enable and disable self-service.

Considerations and troubleshooting

  • If you're part of an organization and used self-service to purchase Power BI, the global or billing admin for your organization can takeover ownership of your subscription, and then assign or unassign licenses.
  • If you don’t purchase Premium Per User at the end of a trial period, you still have your previous licenses, either a Pro or free. Also, you still have access to your workspaces, but content that requires the Premium Per User license is unavailable.

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