Power BI pricing starts at $14 per user per month for Power BI Pro, and Tableau pricing starts at $75 per user per month for a Creator licence, both billed annually. The number that surprises small teams is not the builder's licence. It is that the people who only view the dashboards usually need a paid licence too.
This guide breaks down Power BI pricing (Pro, Premium Per User and Fabric capacity), Tableau pricing (Creator, Explorer and Viewer), what a team of 5 and a team of 20 actually pays, the free options, and cheaper ways to share a dashboard. We make one of the cheaper options, the KissMySkills AI Dashboard. We say where it fits and where it does not, and for teams with real BI needs it is not a replacement.
Prices checked October 2026 on Microsoft's and Tableau's own pricing pages. All prices are in US dollars.
Power BI pricing (Pro, Premium per user, Fabric capacity)
Free: Power BI Desktop
Power BI Desktop and the free account cost nothing. You can connect to data, build a model and design reports on your own computer. What you cannot do is share them with colleagues in the Power BI service. Sharing needs Pro or Premium.
Power BI Pro: $14 per user per month
Power BI Pro cost is $14 per user per month on an annual commitment. Pro lets you publish reports, share them and collaborate in workspaces. Scheduled refresh is limited to 8 times a day. Power BI Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5, so if your company already pays for E5, you already have it.
Power BI Premium Per User: $24 per user per month
Premium Per User (PPU) is $24 per user per month, billed annually. It includes everything in Pro, plus larger data models (up to 100 GB) and up to 48 refreshes a day. Everyone who views PPU content also needs a PPU licence, so it is not a way to save on viewers.
Microsoft Fabric capacity: variable
Power BI Premium cost is now mostly expressed as Fabric capacity: you rent compute for the whole organisation, either reserved or pay as you go. Microsoft does not list one simple number because it depends on the capacity size. Two things matter for small teams:
- On a large enough capacity, people can view reports without a paid per-user licence. Builders still need Pro.
- Copilot in Power BI needs a paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Premium (P1 or higher). Pro or PPU alone does not unlock it.
For a team of 5 to 20, capacity is usually more than you need. Microsoft Power BI pricing for small teams in practice means Pro.
Tableau pricing (Creator, Explorer, Viewer)
Tableau sells three licence types. All are billed annually, and every deployment needs at least one Creator.
- Creator: builds data sources and dashboards, includes Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep. $75 per user per month on Standard, $115 on Enterprise.
- Explorer: edits and builds on existing data sources in the browser. $42 on Standard, $70 on Enterprise.
- Viewer: views and interacts with published dashboards. $15 on Standard, $35 on Enterprise.
Tableau Cloud pricing and Tableau Server pricing use the same per-user rates for these licences. Tableau's AI features, such as Tableau Agent, are part of Tableau Cloud+ Edition and the Tableau+ bundle, which sit above Enterprise and are not listed as a simple per-seat price. Expect to talk to sales.
All licences side by side
| Licence | Price/user/mo | Can create | Can share | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power BI Desktop (free) | $0 | Yes, locally | No | Good for learning and personal reports |
| Power BI Pro | $14 (annual) | Yes | Yes, with other Pro users | Included in Microsoft 365 E5 |
| Power BI Premium Per User | $24 (annual) | Yes | Yes, with other PPU users | Bigger models, 48 refreshes a day |
| Fabric capacity | Variable | Builders need Pro | Viewers free on large capacities | Needed for Copilot |
| Tableau Creator | $75 Standard / $115 Enterprise (annual) | Yes, full | Yes | At least one required |
| Tableau Explorer | $42 / $70 (annual) | Yes, on existing data | Yes | For business users who edit |
| Tableau Viewer | $15 / $35 (annual) | No | View only | Every viewer needs one |
| KissMySkills AI Dashboard | Free in browser; All-Access $15/mo or $129/yr per account | Yes, from CSV or Google Sheet | Read-only link, no viewer licence | One table, up to 5,000 rows; no live connections |
Prices checked October 2026.
Real cost for 5 and 20 users
Here is what the licences add up to for two typical small-business setups. We assume Tableau Standard edition and Power BI Pro.
Team of 5: one person builds, four people read
- Power BI: 5 Pro licences x $14 = $70 a month, or $840 a year.
- Tableau: 1 Creator ($75) + 4 Viewers (4 x $15 = $60) = $135 a month, or $1,620 a year.
Team of 20: two builders, three editors, fifteen readers
- Power BI: 20 Pro licences x $14 = $280 a month, or $3,360 a year.
- Tableau: 2 Creators ($150) + 3 Explorers ($126) + 15 Viewers ($225) = $501 a month, or $6,012 a year.
Neither number includes the hidden cost: the hours it takes someone to build and maintain the reports. For a small team, that time is often worth more than the licences.
The sharing/viewer licence trap
This is the part people miss when they read "Power BI is $14". Building a report on your own is free. The moment you want your sales manager, your accountant and two team leads to see it, each of them needs a licence. With Tableau, each needs at least a Viewer seat.
The usual workarounds all have a catch:
- Exporting to PDF or PowerPoint. Works, but the dashboard is no longer interactive and is out of date the next day.
- Sharing one login. Breaks the licence terms and your audit trail.
- Publishing to the web. Power BI's "publish to web" and Tableau Public make the report public. Never do this with company data.
- Buying capacity. Removes viewer licences but costs far more than a small team needs.
If most of your audience only reads, look hard at tools that share by link without per-viewer pricing.
Free options: Power BI Desktop, Looker Studio, Tableau Public
- Power BI Desktop: free and powerful, but sharing needs paid licences.
- Tableau Public: free, but everything you save is public. Good for learning, not for company data.
- Looker Studio: Google's free dashboard tool (Google has renamed it Data Studio). Shares like a Google Doc, with no viewer licences. Strongest with Google data such as GA4, Google Ads and Sheets. A paid Pro version adds team management.
- KissMySkills AI Dashboard: free in your browser for a CSV, pasted rows or a public Google Sheet. Saving and share links need All-Access.
If you are working in spreadsheets today, our guide to AI in Google Sheets covers what the add-ons can and cannot do.
When paying is worth it
Paying for Power BI or Tableau is the right call when:
- Your data comes from several live systems that need joining (accounting, CRM, ecommerce, a database).
- Reports must refresh automatically every day or every hour.
- Different people must see different slices of data (row-level security).
- You have, or plan to hire, someone whose job includes building reports.
Power BI Pro is especially good value if you are already on Microsoft 365 E5, because it is already paid for. Tableau's higher price pays off for analyst-heavy teams that spend their week in the tool and need its visual flexibility. Both are far more capable than a CSV dashboard tool, and we would not suggest otherwise.
Cheaper ways to share a dashboard
If your data is a few exports a month and most of your audience only reads, you have cheaper options:
- Looker Studio, if your data is already in Google.
- A shared Google Sheet or Excel workbook with charts. Free, familiar, and fine for a handful of KPIs.
- An AI dashboard from a CSV. The KissMySkills AI Dashboard builds KPIs, trends and breakdowns from one table. With the All-Access subscription at $15 a month or $129 a year you can save dashboards, share them by read-only link with as many people as you like, and refresh from a Google Sheet. Your Claude or ChatGPT can also build them through the KissMySkills connector. All-Access also includes our other AI tools, such as AI CRM and AI Contract Review.
Where our tool does not fit: live database connections, joins across tables, scheduled refresh from your systems and permission roles. For those, pay for BI.
If you are also budgeting for AI assistants, see how much it costs to run Claude and ChatGPT for work and how to use AI agents for data analysis.
FAQ
How much does Power BI cost?
Power BI Desktop is free. Power BI Pro costs $14 per user per month and Premium Per User costs $24 per user per month, both billed annually. Fabric capacity is priced by size. Prices checked October 2026.
How much is a Tableau licence?
On Tableau Standard, a Creator licence is $75, Explorer $42 and Viewer $15 per user per month, billed annually. Enterprise is $115, $70 and $35. Every deployment needs at least one Creator.
How is Power BI better than Excel?
Power BI is better than Excel for reporting: it connects to many data sources, joins tables in a data model, refreshes automatically and shares interactive dashboards with permissions. Excel is better for ad-hoc calculation, editing data and one-off analysis.
How is Power BI different from Excel?
Excel is a spreadsheet where you enter, calculate and edit data. Power BI is a reporting and dashboard tool that reads data from other sources, models it and shares it. Many teams prepare data in Excel and publish it with Power BI.
Share dashboards without per-viewer licences
If you are paying for viewer seats just so people can look at a few charts, try the cheaper route first. Share dashboards without per-viewer licences: try AI Dashboard, free in your browser, with saving and share links on All-Access.
