Standard, Enterprise, and Embed are quote-based annual-commitment platform editions. Each includes one production instance, 10 Standard users, and 2 Developer users. Additional Developer, Standard, and Viewer users are licensed separately at quote-based amounts. Annual subscriptions are available in one-, two-, and three-year terms. Conversational Analytics remains under an extended promotional fair-use period without quota limits or overage fees. Google says it will provide at least 90 days of advance notice through formal MSA communications before billing and quota enforcement start; the current page does not retain a fixed October 1, 2026 start date.
The US-localized Power BI page lists Pro at $14 per user/month, paid yearly, and Premium Per User at $24 per user/month, paid yearly. It also lists an ongoing free account. The page identifies Pro and Premium Per User entitlements in Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5. A Pro license is needed to publish to Fabric capacity; F64+ capacity can let free users view content, so per-user license cost is not the only organization-wide distribution cost. Actual checkout prices may vary by country and region. Power BI Embedded is a separate developer-oriented product with variable, capacity-based hourly billing.
Microsoft 365 E5 / Office 365 E5 entitlement: Microsoft lists Power BI Pro as included in Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5. These are separate suite subscriptions; their bundle prices are not Power BI plan prices.
Power BI content distribution on Fabric capacity: A separate Fabric F64-or-higher capacity can allow free-license viewers to consume Power BI content; publishers still need Power BI Pro. Capacity pricing is variable and not included in the Power BI per-user license rates here.
Power BI Embedded for customer-facing applications: A separate developer-oriented Azure service for embedding reports in customer applications. Capacity is selected by node and deployment count and is billed hourly; the captured price table did not expose numeric rates, so no Embedded price is stated as a Power BI plan price.
Analytics and BI teams that want a governed semantic layer, dashboards, self-service exploration, reporting, and APIs on Google Cloud.
Mid-market and enterprise organizations that need direct connectivity to modern cloud data platforms such as BigQuery, Snowflake, and Databricks.
Organizations that need enterprise security controls, regional hosting choices, and an Embed edition for external analytics.
Analytics and BI teams creating shared reports and dashboards.
Organizations standardizing governed metrics and semantic models across business teams.
Data professionals who need larger models and more frequent refreshes on Premium Per User.
Not for
Buyers that require the exact Looker (Google Cloud core) product to be deployed on customer-managed or on-premises infrastructure.
Buyers that require signed or cookieless embedding but intend to purchase only Standard or Enterprise.
Users who need free, unrestricted report sharing without qualifying capacity.
Developers seeking the separate customer-facing embedded-analytics product rather than the Power BI service.
Source check
97/100
92/100
Key features
LookML semantic layer for governed metrics, business definitions, and reusable data relationships.
Interactive dashboards, Looks, Explore, scheduling, filtering, drill-down, and data export.
Conversational Analytics and Gemini-assisted BI experiences.
Open SQL Interface for JDBC-capable third-party applications to query LookML models.
Google BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, Amazon Redshift, and other SQL-database connectivity.
Connects to data sources across cloud and on-premises environments.
Self-service authoring of interactive reports and dashboards.
Governed metrics and semantic models for reusable business logic.
Copilot-assisted natural-language exploration and report generation, subject to applicable service and licensing conditions.
Power BI Desktop report authoring is available as a free download.
Cons
Public numeric platform and user-license prices are not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page, so total cost requires a sales quote.
Looker (Google Cloud core) cannot be self-hosted
customer-hosted deployment belongs to Looker (original).
Free users are limited to personal use in shared capacity
sharing and collaboration depend on paid licenses or qualifying capacity.
Premium Per User sharing generally requires every user in the PPU workspace to have a PPU license.
Category buying score
84Joint highest score
84Joint highest score
Rank
#1
#2
Context
Data & Analytics / Business Intelligence (BI) Software
Data & Analytics / Business Intelligence (BI) Software
Dashboard and report authoring depth
84Dashboards, Looks, filtering, drill-down and scheduling cover recurring BI reporting; license roles and the chosen edition need to align with the authoring and API workflow.
90Interactive reports, dashboards and Desktop authoring support organizational reporting, while sharing the resulting content requires the appropriate service license or capacity.
Self-service exploration quality
82Explore and Conversational Analytics offer routes for follow-up analysis over governed business definitions; conversational usage remains subject to the applicable promotional and future quota terms.
84Self-service analysis and conditional Copilot-assisted natural-language exploration support follow-up questions, with AI availability subject to service and licensing conditions.
Semantic model and metric trust
90LookML centralizes reusable definitions, relationships and metrics, and the Open SQL Interface exposes that model to JDBC-capable applications; governance depends on maintaining the shared semantic definitions.
87Governed metrics and reusable semantic models support consistent business logic across reports, with model capacity depending on the selected license.
Data connectivity and preparation
84Direct connections to the named SQL data platforms and the Open SQL Interface support warehouse-oriented analysis and model reuse; the required source configuration and data workflow should be validated separately.
84Connectivity across cloud and on-premises sources supports combining organizational data, with scheduled refresh allowances differing between Pro and Premium Per User.
Query performance and concurrency
74Google-hosted instances provide a managed environment for dashboard and Explore workloads; buyers should validate their database, dashboard and concurrent-usage pattern rather than equating API allowances with measured query speed.
78Pro and Premium Per User provide different semantic-model memory and refresh limits, making the license and capacity choice relevant to the intended workload.
BI administration fit
85Regional hosting and the Enterprise or Embed networking, encryption-key and activity controls support defined administrative requirements; Standard does not include those named controls.
81Organizational analytics and license-based sharing let administrators control distribution, while publisher, viewer and capacity requirements must be managed together.
Governed sharing and distribution
87Scheduling, export and role-based licensing support distributed BI consumption; signed and cookieless external distribution requires the Embed edition.
77Pro collaboration and qualifying-capacity viewing provide distribution routes, but free shared-capacity users and PPU workspace users face distinct licensing boundaries.
These are the stored dimension rationales returned with each score. They explain the buyer conditions behind the gap without speculating about hidden model reasoning.
Governed sharing and distribution
10 pts
Looker · 87/100
Scheduling, export and role-based licensing support distributed BI consumption; signed and cookieless external distribution requires the Embed edition.
Power BI · 77/100
Pro collaboration and qualifying-capacity viewing provide distribution routes, but free shared-capacity users and PPU workspace users face distinct licensing boundaries.
Dashboard and report authoring depth
6 pts
Looker · 84/100
Dashboards, Looks, filtering, drill-down and scheduling cover recurring BI reporting; license roles and the chosen edition need to align with the authoring and API workflow.
Power BI · 90/100
Interactive reports, dashboards and Desktop authoring support organizational reporting, while sharing the resulting content requires the appropriate service license or capacity.
Query performance and concurrency
4 pts
Looker · 74/100
Google-hosted instances provide a managed environment for dashboard and Explore workloads; buyers should validate their database, dashboard and concurrent-usage pattern rather than equating API allowances with measured query speed.
Power BI · 78/100
Pro and Premium Per User provide different semantic-model memory and refresh limits, making the license and capacity choice relevant to the intended workload.
Research basis
Research basis
This page uses stored product facts, official evidence, and category scoring rationales. It is not an account-based hands-on test, and third-party user ratings are not folded into the category buying score.
Looker
Fact confidence: 97% · Fact checked: 2026-10-31
Power BI
Fact confidence: 92% · Fact checked: 2026-10-31
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78
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