Power BI is hired to do one job: turn company data into reports and dashboards that other people can open. It is often bought per user, so the bill follows who can see the reports, not how many are used. Below: the plans as published, an open-source alternative, and what to settle before changing it.
A report built once becomes a habit: the Monday revenue view, the board pack, the sales dashboard. Each is tied to a data model that someone built and may have left.
Per-user licences also drift. People who changed roles keep a seat, and the bill follows seats, not use. Counting who actually opens a report is often the first saving and needs no migration.
Only alternatives we have checked. An open-source project is listed with the license its repository reports, on the date shown; one whose license could not be read as a single standard id is not offered as open source. Read the license guide before running any of them.
| Alternative | Kind | License | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Superset | Open source | Apache-2.0 | Apache Superset repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
Each feature below is what the product's own page or README says, linked to where we read it on the date shown. Pros and cons are limited to what those pages state and to what the path itself changes. We do not rank products on quality.
| Plan | Price as published | Includes | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power BI Free account | Free | Build interactive reports; sharing requires upgrading to Pro or Premium | Power BI pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Power BI Pro | $14.00 per user per month, paid yearly | Publish and share reports; included with Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 | Power BI pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Power BI Premium Per User | $24.00 per user per month, paid yearly | Everything in Pro, plus larger model sizes and more frequent refreshes | Power BI pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
List prices as printed on Microsoft's Power BI pricing page on the checked date, per user per month and excluding tax. The page states that prices shown are for marketing purposes only and that checkout prices may differ. Embedded and Fabric capacity are priced variably and are not listed here.
A business intelligence tool is two jobs: modeling the data and drawing the charts. The charts are easy to rebuild. The modeling, the measures and the refresh schedule hold years of business rules, and that is where a switch gets expensive.
For most small companies the first question is not which tool but how many reports anyone actually uses. A short, current list often shows the answer is a handful of queries against the accounting system, not a platform.
Samples are made up and are not Power BI's prices. Type in the figures from your own invoice or order form.
The honest yearly cost of running open-source software yourself, set against the bill it replaces, with the seat count where it stops paying.
Paid seats against seats in use: what the idle ones cost a year, and what you save by right-sizing at renewal.
Arithmetic only, not tax, accounting or legal advice. Check the figures against your own order form.
Moving a BI tool is rebuilding reports, so the work is deciding which ones deserve it. In outline:
List every report and workspace, who opened each in the last quarter, what data source feeds it and what decision it supports.
Write the business definition of each measure in plain language (what counts as revenue, which accounts, which dates). This is the part the new tool needs.
Connect the new tool to the same database or warehouse and rebuild one report. Compare its numbers with the old report line by line and against the ledger.
Rebuild the reports that survive, set refresh schedules, and give each viewer the access they need and no more.
Run both side by side for a full reporting cycle, then remove licences inside the contract's notice window.
Run the vendor report for QuickBooks Online or Xero, then open the free audit.
General information, not legal advice. See cancelling without penalties. Last reviewed Oct 25, 2026. Product names belong to their owners and are used only to identify them.
Send us the export and see which lines are worth a second look. A connected version is planned. Power BI is one of the lines worth a look.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
| Self-hosting, per year | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hosting, backups, tooling | 720.00 |
| Admin and restore-test time | 2,640.00 |
| Total | 3,360.00 |
| One-off set-up (not in the yearly total) | 1,200.00 |
The saving holds only if the time is real. Price the admin hours at what that person's time costs the company, not at zero.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
“In use” is your call: last sign-in in the past 30 or 90 days from the vendor's admin report. A seat for someone on leave is not idle.