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Can I Share Power BI with Non-Pro Users?

Cody Schneider•

Trying to share a Power BI report with a colleague who doesn’t have a Pro license can feel surprisingly complicated. You’ve done the hard work of building a great dashboard, and now you just want your team to see it without hitting a paywall. This article covers exactly how to share your Power BI reports with non-Pro users, explaining the pros and cons of each method so you can choose the right one for your specific needs.

First, A Quick Look at Power BI Licenses

Understanding why sharing can be tricky boils down to how Microsoft structures Power BI licenses. There are three main types, and the differences between them dictate how content can be shared and viewed.

  • Power BI Free: This license is for personal use. You can connect to over 70 data sources, create reports, and perform analysis on your own machine. However, reports published with a Free license cannot be shared with or viewed by anyone else in the Power BI service. This is the root of the sharing problem.

  • Power BI Pro: This is the starting point for collaboration and costs around $10 per user per month. It allows users to build, publish, and, most importantly, view content shared by other Pro users. For User A to view User B's report in the Power BI service, both users must have a Pro license.

  • Power BI Premium: This is the enterprise-grade solution and comes in two flavors: Premium Per User (PPU) and Premium Per Capacity. PPU is like "Pro on steroids" with more advanced features. Premium Per Capacity is a subscription on the entire organization's capacity, changing how content is shared. It is the most expensive option which unlocks sharing dashboards with free users using the Power BI App. Reports and dashboards that are stored within this "Premium" workspace can be securely shared with Free license holders inside and outside your organization. Again, premium subscriptions can be pretty pricey with the pricing typically starting at around $5,000 per month so it won't be accessible to everyone.

The Core Problem: A Pro License is Usually Required for Viewing

Let’s be direct: if you published a report from your Power BI Pro account to your personal or a standard group workspace, your colleague will need a Power BI Pro (or PPU) license to view it. When they try to access the link with a Free license, Microsoft will block them and prompt them to start a Pro trial.

However, there are established methods for getting your insights to teammates who don’t have a Pro license. They each involve different trade-offs in terms of security, interactivity, and cost.

Method 1: “Publish to web” (Public Sharing)

The "Publish to web" feature is likely the first workaround you’ll find online. It generates a public link and an embed code that anyone can use to view your report without signing in or requiring a Power BI license. It's incredibly easy, but it comes with a massive security warning.

How it works:

  1. In your published Power BI report, go to File > Embed report > Publish to web (public).

  2. You'll see a prominent warning about the data becoming public. You must review it and click "Create embed code."

  3. In the next window, click "Publish."

  4. Power BI will generate a shareable link and HTML code that you can send to anyone or use to embed the report on a public website.

Who it's for:

This method is only suitable for data that is genuinely public and not sensitive in any way. Think an analytics report of census data, a visualization of public transportation stats, or a map showing store locations.

CRUCIAL Warning on Data Security

Anything you share via "Publish to web" is accessible to anyone on the internet with the link. Do not use this feature for company financial data, employee information, sales figures, customer lists, or anything remotely confidential. Search engines can find and index these reports, an action or event with potentially severe consequences and data privacy risks.

Method 2: Use an Enterprise backed Premium plan (Ideal Solution)

This is by far the most elegant, seamless, and secure way to share content with Free license holders. Unfortunately for budget watchers, this is also the most expensive one and one a lot of businesses may be struggling to implement due to the pricing.

How it works:

For organizations already being subscribed to Premium Per-capacity (P-Skus) or having any of the Fabric capacity-based subscriptions (F-Skus and above), reports and any dashboards that are part of Workspace and app are available to all members of staff regardless of having Free or Pro license. Those with a specific and verified business requirement for this are designated 'Viewers,' who can review content shared with them but don't require the license to edit or publish.

However, it is an extremely beneficial solution from various points especially when collaborating with an external team or organization on sensitive dashboards, because it gives a lot more control over permission settings. Users can be given roles or you can go to an extremely granular level by making row-based policies, without revealing an extensive overview with access to parts which may be confidential like customer lists with specific product details.

Method 3: Exporting to a Static File

The simplest and quickest way to share a snapshot of your report is by exporting it as a PDF or PowerPoint file. This completely removes the licensing issue from the equation, but it also removes all interactivity from your beautiful dashboard!

How it works:

  1. With your report open in the Power BI service, go to Export in the top menu.

  2. Choose either PDF or PowerPoint. You can also export the underpinning data by choosing 'Analyze in Excel.' This will pull the data directly but note: Excel might need to install some Add-Ins or updates required at first-time use.

  3. You’ll get an option to export the current view or include hidden pages and choose your preference on a filter or a slicer you might currently be displaying.

  4. A static file is generated, which you can easily email, share in Slack or attach to meeting invites.

When is this method appropriate?

This has its pros when interacting with very busy key executives who will only want clear and tangible next steps in a static format. Additionally, your clients and other stakeholders like investors for a monthly, recurring report where all discussions are action based and not drilling through data, in particular.

The huge disadvantage to using this way is its nature: the data becomes stale the moment it's exported and you completely lose all interactive aspects, such as the ability to hover, slice or dynamically filter a dataset.

Embedding into SharePoint Online or Teams - License still required (Clarification of a confusing point)?

One common area where things can get confusing regarding using Power BI are its integrations and connections to other Microsoft cloud apps such as SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Teams or Power pages because it can confuse and mislead users into thinking of bypassing BI Licensing. It is key to understand here those integrations are meant for ease of accessibility by embedding content at various places rather than solving the licensing or "non-pro use" user cases where there can be a licensing need.

For someone to securely see your embedded report at SharePoints, their Power BI account credentials would be automatically validated by Microsoft's systems, implying users attempting review must need at minimum a Pro level or higher subscription on record. While you may have a "Non-Pro" user accessing those particular locations, the access to an embedded report will ultimately be blocked until subscription upgrades happen which leads back to initial stage problems when sharing contents directly!

Final Thoughts

Sharing your Power BI work with users who don't have a Pro license comes down to balancing interactivity, security, and cost. While securely sharing live, interactive dashboards with non-Pro users really only works under a Premium subscription, you can still get insights to your team using a mixture of static exports and, for public information, through the "publish-to-web” workaround.

I build platforms to reduce these kinds of headaches because getting an answer from your data shouldn't be so complex. In my experience, the biggest blockers for reporting are friction related such as licensing gates or the difficult setup of pipelines when using Power BI. My vision has always been to provide our users with access and easy ways to collaborate. This ensures they don't give away a company's sensitive sales figures over the web when team sharing is vital. Graphed was created solely to focus on the secure and seamless sharing of information across our systems, connecting dozens of different platforms for one-place analysis, allowing my whole team to be in sync based on the latest performance data in real time.