Your nonprofit is ready to escape spreadsheet chaos and move into Power BI. Then you open the licensing page. Pro? Premium Per User? Fabric capacity? F2, F64, F-what?! If you’re a nonprofit trying to make every dollar count, figuring out what to buy can feel like reading a spellbook in a language you don’t speak. We get this question a lot, so here’s our plain-language guide.
Prices below are in USD and current as of October 2026. Microsoft changes licensing pretty often, so always double-check the official nonprofit offers page before you buy.
Good news first: Power BI Desktop is free
Anyone can download Power BI Desktop and build reports for free. It’s perfect for learning, prototyping and getting a feel for what your data can do. The catch? To share reports with your colleagues in the Power BI service, you’ll need paid licenses (or a capacity, more on that below).
Power BI Pro: the workhorse for most nonprofits
For most small and mid-sized nonprofits, Power BI Pro is the answer. And here’s the best part: eligible nonprofits pay $4.20 per user per month, compared to the regular $14. That’s 70% off!
- Everyone who creates shared content needs Pro.
- Everyone who views shared content needs Pro too (unless you’re on a large Fabric capacity).
- Example: a team of 10 people building and viewing reports costs about $42 a month, or roughly $504 a year.
For a lot of organizations, all-Pro is the simplest and cheapest way to go.
Premium Per User: when you need more power
Premium Per User (PPU) adds features like much larger semantic models (up to 100 GB vs 1 GB with Pro), up to 48 scheduled refreshes a day instead of 8, and deployment pipelines. Eligible nonprofits pay $9.60 per user per month, compared to the regular $24 (60% off).
One important catch: everyone who views content in a PPU workspace also needs PPU. That makes it a great fit for a small analytics team, but expensive if you want to share widely.
Fabric capacity: when it makes sense
Microsoft Fabric capacity (the F SKUs) is billed by size, and pay-as-you-go capacity can be paused when you’re not using it. A small F2 runs about $263 a month if it’s on 24/7 (or about $156 a month with a one-year reservation, roughly 41% off). Capacity is where you get the rest of Fabric: lakehouses, warehouses, pipelines, notebooks and more.
- Below F64, report viewers still need Pro licenses.
- At F64 and above (about $8,400 a month pay-as-you-go, or about $5,000 with a one-year reservation), viewers can use free licenses. That’s usually only worth it if you have a lot of viewers.
For many nonprofits, the sweet spot is a small F SKU for data engineering, plus Pro licenses for the people who build and view reports.
Wait, what happened to the free Business Premium grant?
Until July 2025, many nonprofits received free Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses through a Microsoft grant. That grant has been retired. Nonprofits now get up to 75% off Business Premium instead, plus up to 300 free Business Basic licenses. Either way, note that Business Premium doesn’t include Power BI Pro. That’s always been a separate license.
So what should you buy?
- Just exploring? Start with Power BI Desktop. It’s free!
- A small team sharing reports? Power BI Pro for everyone who builds or views them.
- Big models or frequent refreshes for a small group? Take a look at Premium Per User.
- Lots of viewers, or ready for data engineering? It’s time to talk about Fabric capacity.
Try the calculator
Want to plug in your own numbers? Our free Power BI Licensing Calculator compares Pro, Premium Per User and Fabric capacity based on how many people build and view reports.
Still not sure? Licensing is one of our favorite things to talk about (we’ve given whole conference sessions on it!). We work with nonprofits all the time, and nonprofit discounts are available. Contact us or email hello@data-witches.com, and we’ll help you figure out exactly what you need, and nothing you don’t.
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