If you’ve tried to compare Tableau and Power BI pricing, you’ve probably hit the same wall most people do. Outdated blog posts, confusing licensing charts, and fuzzy apples-to-oranges math.
The truth is, pricing has shifted in 2025, and the real answer isn’t as simple as “Power BI is cheap and Tableau is expensive.” The cost for licensing depends on your licensing model, your mix of authors vs. consumers, and whether your company already runs on Microsoft 365 E5.
This article breaks down current list prices as of September 2025 and a realistic team scenario for a small or medium enterprise. We used publicly available price lists to come up with our calculations below:
5 Creators: Users who build and publish dashboards from the desktop app
10 Explorers: Users who explore and save existing assets but cannot publish and add new data.
100 Viewers: Read-only users who can access and interact with pre-built dashboards and reports.
Power BI does not have equivalent tiers, so we consolidate it into 115 users.
Tableau Pricing (2025)
Tableau licenses users by role: Creator, Explorer, or Viewer.
- Tableau Standard (annual billing)
- Creator: $75/user/month
- Explorer: $42/user/month
- Viewer: $15/user/month
- Tableau Enterprise (annual billing)
- Creator: $115/user/month
- Explorer: $70/user/month
- Viewer: $35/user/month
- Optional Add-ons: Tableau Prep concurrency blocks ($250/block/month) available on Cloud Enterprise & Tableau+.
Scenario: 5 Creators, 10 Explorers, 100 Viewers
- Standard: $2,295/mo ($27,540/yr)
- Enterprise: $4,775/mo ($57,300/yr)
Tableau Standard vs. Enterprise
So why does Enterprise cost so much more?
- Standard: Core analytics—roles, dashboards, Tableau Prep, and basic sharing. Best for small-to-mid teams that just need to analyze and share.
- Enterprise: Adds the “big company” features:
- Data Management (catalog & Prep Conductor for lineage and automation)
- Advanced Management (multi-site, monitoring, enhanced security)
- eLearning for Creators and Explorers
- Pulse (personalized insights feeds)
- 1 Resource Block included (for concurrent Prep flows in Cloud)
💡 In short: Standard gives you analytics. Enterprise adds governance, automation, and scalability.
Power BI Pricing (2025)
Microsoft splits licensing into per-user and capacity.
- Power BI Pro: $14/user/month
- Power BI Premium Per User (PPU): $24/user/month
- Microsoft Fabric Capacity (F-SKUs): billed hourly per Capacity Unit (CU).
- F64 (≈P1-equivalent) is the lowest tier where viewers don’t need licenses—they can log in with a free Microsoft account.
- Authors still need Pro to publish.
- PAYG ≈ $8,410/mo (always on). Reserved 1-year ≈ $5,003/mo (~40% discount).
Scenario: 5 Creators, 10 Explorers, 100 Viewers = 115 Users
- All Pro: 115 × $14 = $1,610/mo ($19,320/yr)
- All PPU: 115 × $24 = $2,760/mo ($33,120/yr)
- Fabric F64 (reserved) + 15 Pro authors: $5,003 + (15 × $14) = $5,213/mo ($62,552/yr)
The Break-Even Point
- With smaller audiences, Pro-only is dramatically cheaper.
- With hundreds or thousands of viewers, Fabric F64+ flips the model, and capacity covers the load.
- Rule of thumb: Fabric becomes cost-effective at ~350+ viewers per 15 authors.
Using Power BI with Microsoft 365 E5: Costs Already Covered
Here’s a distinction that many enterprises understand, and is a key driver for accelerating adoption:
- If your org is on Microsoft 365 E5, every user already has Power BI Pro included.
- That means publishing, sharing, collaboration, and report consumption are all covered—no extra license spend.
- Fabric is optional, not required. You’d only add it if:
- You want to share with non-E5 users (partners, contractors, casual execs without E5).
- You need Fabric workloads (Lakehouse, Pipelines, Warehouses, Real-Time Analytics).
Translation: If your company already runs on E5, you can confidently use Power BI without extra costs.
Hidden/Variable Costs for BI Products
- Tableau:
- Governance and data management require an Enterprise license.
- Prep concurrency requires $250/block/month add-ons.
- Power BI:
- Free viewers only apply at F64+ capacity.
- Authors always need Pro.
- OneLake storage is billed separately (~$0.023/GB-mo).
Bottom Line for 5/10/100
- Power BI Pro-only: $1,610/mo
- Tableau Standard: $2,295/mo.
- Tableau Enterprise: $4,775/mo.
- Power BI Fabric F64 reserved: $5,213/mo (viable for 350+ viewers).
- Already on Microsoft 365 E5? Your Pro licenses are included—no extra spend.
- For small-to-mid teams, Power BI Pro (or E5) is a clear cost winner.
- For enterprise-scale governance, Tableau Enterprise bundles more out-of-the-box—but at a premium- BUT that same governance and cataloging requires additional services from Fabric.
- For large viewer bases or broader data workloads, Fabric capacity reshapes the math.
