Power BI and Microsoft 365 are separate Microsoft products. Power BI is not included in a standard Microsoft 365 subscription, such as Business Standard or E3. It is licensed on its own. The main exception is the top E5 plans, which bundle a Power BI Pro licence for each user.
Power BI is a separate product
It is easy to assume Power BI comes with Microsoft 365. It is a Microsoft product, it shares the same sign-in and it works hand in glove with Excel. But it is licensed separately. A Microsoft 365 subscription does not, on its own, give you the paid Power BI service.
Power BI has its own set of per-user licences, set out in Microsoft's licensing documentation: a free tier, Power BI Pro and Premium Per User (PPU). None of those is bundled into a standard Microsoft 365 plan such as Business Standard or E3. One note on names: the suites once called Office 365 are now mostly called Microsoft 365, but the point holds under either name.
The exception: Microsoft 365 E5
There is one case where your subscription does include Power BI. Microsoft's licensing guide states it plainly: "Power BI Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5." Each E5 licence carries one Power BI Pro licence that the organisation can assign to a user.
E5 is the top enterprise plan, the one that bundles in almost everything, so this applies to a minority of organisations. The mid-tier and small-business plans, Microsoft 365 E3, Business Standard and Business Premium, do not include Power BI Pro. On those plans, Power BI is bought separately.
What you can use without paying extra
Not having Power BI in your Microsoft 365 plan matters less than it sounds, because the entry point to Power BI is free anyway. Power BI Desktop, the Windows application where reports are built, is a free download for anyone. It needs no Microsoft 365 subscription at all.
The paid part is sharing reports with colleagues, which needs a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User licence. Our Is Power BI free? entry covers what the free tier includes; Power BI Pro vs Premium compares the paid licences.
If you do need the paid service and you are not on an E5 plan, the fix is straightforward. Power BI Pro is sold as a standalone per-user licence and added to your existing Microsoft 365 account, with no need to change your underlying plan. An administrator buys and assigns the licences through the Microsoft 365 admin centre; individual users can also sign up themselves when self-service purchasing is switched on.
It is the same Power BI Pro licence whichever route it takes. Bundled inside an E5 subscription or bought on its own, the product a user gets is identical. For a small team, a handful of individual Pro licences is usually the simplest route; only larger organisations need to weigh up the capacity-based options.
Licensing sorted? Skills next Knowing what you are licensed for is step one. Turning Power BI into reports your team relies on is the real work. That is what our two-day, hands-on Power BI Masterclass is built to teach, and our Power BI training buyer's guide sets out how to weigh up the UK options.
