What is Power BI?
Power BI is a business intelligence platform by Microsoft that lets you collect, transform, visualize, and share data. It's designed so that everyone — from data analysts to managers — can gain insights from business data without programming.
With Power BI, you create interactive dashboards and reports that automatically update when your data changes. You can connect to hundreds of data sources: Excel files, SQL databases, cloud services like Salesforce, Google Analytics, and many more.
Since its launch in 2015, Power BI has grown into the market leader in business intelligence. According to Gartner, Microsoft has been in the top position in the Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms for years.
Power BI components
Power BI consists of multiple components that work together:
- Power BI Desktop — Free Windows application where you build reports. This is where the heavy lifting happens: importing data, transforming (with Power Query), building data models, and creating visualizations.
- Power BI Service — The online environment (app.powerbi.com) where you publish reports, share with colleagues, and set up dashboards. This is also where you configure automatic refresh and security.
- Power BI Mobile — Apps for iOS and Android to view your dashboards on the go.
- Power BI Report Server — An on-premises option for organizations that don't want to host reports in the cloud.
- Power BI Embedded — For developers who want to embed Power BI visuals into their own applications.
What can you do with it?
Power BI is used across virtually every industry:
- Finance — Monthly P&L reporting, cash flow dashboards, budget monitoring
- Retail — Revenue per location, inventory levels, customer behavior analysis
- Healthcare — Wait times, occupancy rates, quality indicators
- HR — Absence rates, employee turnover, diversity reporting
- Marketing — Campaign ROI, website traffic, social media KPIs
- Government — Open data dashboards, policy monitoring, budget overviews
Power BI vs. Excel — when to switch?
Many professionals start with Excel for reporting. That works fine for small datasets. But there comes a point where Excel falls short:
| Criterion | Excel | Power BI |
|---|---|---|
| Data volume | Up to ~1 million rows | Millions to billions of rows |
| Auto refresh | Manual or VBA | Automatic (scheduled) |
| Team sharing | Email or SharePoint | One-click publish |
| Interactivity | Limited (slicers) | Fully interactive |
| Row-level security | Not standard | Built-in (RLS) |
| Cost | Part of Microsoft 365 | Desktop free, Service from €9.40/mo |
Licensing and costs
Power BI offers several license types:
- Power BI Desktop — Completely free. Build reports locally and save .pbix files.
- Power BI Pro — €9.40 per user per month. Required to publish and share in the Power BI Service. Included in Microsoft 365 E5.
- Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) — €18.70 per user per month. Extra features like larger models, deployment pipelines, and AI.
- Microsoft Fabric — Capacity licenses (F2 to F2048). Adds data platform capabilities. Prices start at ~€250/month.
For more details, see our comprehensive licensing guide.
How to get started
Getting started with Power BI is free and simple:
- Download Power BI Desktop — Free via the Microsoft Store or powerbi.microsoft.com
- Connect your first data source — Start with an Excel file or CSV you already have
- Create your first visualization — Drag fields onto the canvas and pick a chart type
- Publish to the Service — Create a free account at app.powerbi.com
- Share with your team — Sharing requires a Pro license (60-day free trial available)