Microsoft Fabric Licensing and Pricing Guide
Learn about Microsoft Fabric's licensing & pricing, including capacity and user licenses, to optimize your budget & maximize business value.
In this blog, we’ll delve into essential details about how Microsoft Fabric is licensed and its cost implications. Understanding the licensing and pricing structure is crucial for planning and budgeting purposes.
Microsoft Fabric Structure
How Microsoft Fabric Is Structured To fully grasp the licensing and deployment aspects of Microsoft Fabric, understanding its structure is pivotal. The platform is built around three main components: Tenants, Capacities, and Workspaces, analogous to elements of a city in the digital landscape.
- Tenant – Your City’s Foundation: A Tenant acts as the digital foundation for an organization within Microsoft Fabric, linked to a specific domain. Typically, organizations manage a single tenant, but conglomerates may require multiple tenants to accommodate diverse entities, each with its resources and policies.
- Capacities – The Power Plants: Capacities are pools of resources that provide the computational power necessary for your operations, similar to power plants in a city. You will choose from various capacity options and SKUs, tailoring your resources to match your operational needs as you scale.
- Workspace – The Districts and Neighborhoods: Workspaces function like districts and neighborhoods within your city, serving as collaborative environments where projects are executed and innovation thrives. Each individual, such as a Power BI user, maintains a personal workspace, and teams may share or have dedicated workspaces for specialized tasks.
Microsoft Fabric Licensing Options
To utilize Microsoft Fabric, your organization must acquire a capacity license, and each user needs an individual user license:
- Capacity Licenses: These licenses allocate a dedicated set of resources, ensuring consistent and reliable performance. Capacities vary by SKU, each offering different levels of memory and computational power, suitable for various needs. Capacity licenses enable you to access all features within the scope of the license, generate and manage Microsoft Fabric items, and store these items in a workspace for shared use.
- Per User Licenses: These are allocated per individual, providing flexibility and potential cost savings. The licensing tiers include:
- Free: Basic access with limited features.
- Power BI Pro: Enhanced capabilities for professional use.
- Power BI Premium Per User: Advanced features for intensive data tasks.
Note: If your organization holds an F64 SKU capacity license or higher, individual Power BI licenses are not required for every user—this is an included benefit.
Microsoft Fabric Pricing
Cost Structure of Microsoft Fabric The costs associated with Microsoft Fabric are influenced by several factors:
- Capacity Unit Pricing: Fabric is priced by capacity units (CUs), which represent the compute power needed for operations. Prices start at $262.80 monthly for an F2 capacity license and can reach up to $269,107.20 monthly for an F2048 license. Opting for a capacity reservation for a year can offer cost savings.
- User License Pricing: If your chosen capacity license is below F64, additional individual Power BI user licenses may be necessary, priced at $10 per user per month, with premium options at $20 per month.
- OneLake Storage Fees: While OneLake, the unified data lake, is included with Microsoft Fabric, you will incur fees based on storage usage, ranging from $0.023 to $0.246 per GB/month.
Example Costs for a Typical Company: A “typical” small to mid-sized business with about 50 users might expect to spend approximately $700 monthly on Microsoft Fabric. Precise costs can vary, and consulting with Velosio can provide clarity and potential cost optimization.
Navigating Microsoft Fabric’s licensing and pricing structures is crucial for maximizing the platform’s benefits while managing costs effectively. Velosio is ready to assist you in understanding these complexities, ensuring your investment in Microsoft Fabric translates into tangible business value and supports your data management and analytics needs efficiently.
Want to dive deeper into the world of Microsoft Fabric and unlock actionable insights for your business? Download the full guide, Introducing Microsoft Fabric: A Modern Data Analytics Solution for Actionable Insights, and discover everything you need to know.
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Trey Johnson
Data Analytics Solution Specialist