For the first time in a decade, users of Microsoft’s business intelligence tool Power BI will face higher license fees. Starting April 1, 2025, the license fees for Power BI Pro and Premium Per User (PPU) licenses will increase.
Microsoft further indicates that the cost for a Power BI license will increase to 14 dollars per user per month and for the Power BI PPU version to 24 dollars per user per month. Costs in other currencies will remain the same.
Both new users and renewals affected
The updated license fees will apply to all new users of the BI software starting next April. Existing customers who need to renew their subscriptions will also start paying the new license fees from then on. Until that point, which could also be later than April 2025, depending on their contract, they will continue to pay the current license fees.
Power BI users who purchase the tool through an annual Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft O365 subscription will be spared a license price increase for now.
Price increase ‘justified’
The tech giant does not give a specific reason for the price increase for either Power BI version. According to Microsoft experts, the tech giant may simply be raising its license prices because the BI tool has proven to be important and useful since the first release of the Pro version in 2015, thereby providing value.
More than 350,000 companies and 6.5 million developers currently use the BI tool.
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