Data and analytics · Data and AI platforms
Microsoft Fabric and Power BI
Microsoft's unified analytics platform and the world's most used BI tool, with Copilot across both.
- Vendor
- Microsoft
- Pricing model
- Per-user Power BI licences plus Fabric capacity (F-SKUs) billed pay-as-you-go or reserved.
- Runs on
- Microsoft cloud, inside your tenant
- Agentic OS layer
- Context
- Industries
- Any industry
- Last reviewed
- November 2026
Our verdict
The natural choice for Microsoft shops: OneLake, pipelines, warehouse and Power BI under one capacity. Licensing has a cliff at F64, so size it carefully.
What it is
Fabric brings data engineering, data factory pipelines, a warehouse, real-time analytics and Power BI onto one lake, OneLake, billed by capacity. Copilot assists across notebooks, pipelines and reports, and data agents answer questions over governed data.
Power BI remains licensed per user for authors and, below F64 capacity, for viewers too.
Best for
Organisations on Microsoft 365 and Azure that want analytics and BI consolidated with Entra governance.
Not the right fit
Multi-cloud data teams that want open, engine-neutral platforms, or very small teams that only need a few reports.
Key capabilities
OneLake
One lake for all workloads, with shortcuts to other clouds.
Power BI
Reporting and dashboards with Copilot.
Data agents
Natural-language answers over governed data.
Real-time intelligence
Streaming data and alerts.
Strengths
- Deep fit with Microsoft 365 and Entra
- Power BI is familiar to most business users
- One capacity covers many workloads
Watch-outs
- Viewers need paid licences below F64
- Capacity throttling when workloads compete
- Fast release cadence means frequent changes
Pricing
Power BI Pro is $14 per user per month and Premium Per User $24, both annual; Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5. Fabric capacity starts at F2, about $263 a month pay-as-you-go, with F64 around $5,000 a month and lower with reservations. From F64 up, report viewers need no paid licence, but authors still need Pro.
Checked November 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm current pricing with Microsoft before you budget.
Security and governance
Entra ID, workspace roles, sensitivity labels, Purview governance and data loss prevention.
How we would roll it out
- Size capacity on real workloadsTest with a trial capacity before reserving.
- Count authors and viewersFind your break-even against F64.
- Govern with PurviewLabels and lineage from the start.
Compare with
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Choosing between Microsoft Fabric and Power BI and the alternatives?
Book a call. We look at your systems, data and governance together and tell you which platform fits, and what to build on it first.