Excel, Power BI and Power Automate licensing plans, prices & key differences (as of Aug 2025)
- MirVel
- Aug 3
- 8 min read
1 Excel licensing (stand‑alone vs Microsoft 365/Office 2024) (German pricing comparison beneath every table)
Plan/version | Price (USD, annual/one‑time) | Included applications/rights | Key points |
Excel stand‑alone app | One‑time purchase of $179.99 per PC/Mac (or around €165; price may vary by region) | Microsoft’s standalone Excel app with no subscription. Includes OneDrive and real‑time collaboration; licence is valid for one device. | Suitable if you only need Excel; you miss out on other Office apps and cloud services. |
Microsoft 365 Personal | Subscription – $99.99 /yr or $9.99 /mo | Gives one user access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and more across multiple devices plus 1 TB of cloud storage. | Good for individuals needing the full Office suite and cloud services; includes Excel for desktop, web and mobile. |
Microsoft 365 Family | $129.99 /yr or $12.99 /mo for up to six users | Each user gets the same apps and 1 TB cloud storage. | Cost‑effective for households; every user gets their own licence. |
Microsoft 365 Apps for business | $8.25 per user / month (annual commitment) | Desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook with 1 TB storage; no email hosting or advanced security. | For small businesses needing the core apps without Teams/SharePoint. |
Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $6.00 per user / month (annual) | Web/mobile versions of Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, 1 TB cloud storage and business‑class email. | Entry‑level plan; desktop Excel not included; good for teams that work mostly online. |
Microsoft 365 Business Standard | $12.50 per user / month (annual) | Adds desktop apps (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook), Teams meetings/webinars and basic cyber‑security features. | Balanced option for SMEs needing desktop Excel and collaboration tools. |
Microsoft 365 Business Premium | $22 per user / month (annual) | All Business Standard apps plus advanced security (Microsoft Defender, Intune device management). | Best for businesses needing strong security and device management. |
Office Home 2024 (one‑time licence) | $149.99 one‑time purchase | Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote for non‑commercial use; runs on Windows 10/11 and recent macOS. | A perpetual licence; no updates beyond security patches; no Outlook or Microsoft Teams. |
Office Home & Business 2024 | $249.99 one‑time purchase | Adds Outlook and commercial use rights. | One‑time alternative to subscription; includes desktop Excel but no cloud collaboration tools. |
What versions of Excel can or can’t do
· Excel desktop (subscription or one‑time purchase) – full functionality including Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), macros, and What‑If Analysis tools (Goal Seek, Solver, data tables). It can connect to on‑premises databases and large data models.
· Excel for the web – included in all Microsoft 365 plans and free with a Microsoft account. It is great for quick editing and collaboration but has limitations: it cannot create VBA macros (though it can open macro‑enabled files without corrupting them) and doesn’t include the What‑If analysis tools; you can view results but must open the workbook in the desktop app to run them.
Choosing an Excel licence
· Casual users who only need Excel may prefer the stand‑alone version or the one‑time Office Home 2024 licence. However, these versions don’t get the continuous feature updates that Microsoft 365 subscribers receive.
· Individuals who need the latest features and access across devices should choose Microsoft 365 Personal; families can share the cost with Microsoft 365 Family.
· Businesses should evaluate the Microsoft 365 Business plans. Business Basic is web‑only, while Business Standard and Business Premium include desktop Excel and additional services. Premium adds advanced security, which is important for regulated industries.
2 Power BI licensing – Free, Pro and Premium
Power BI licensing changed in 2025, with Microsoft announcing price increases effective 1 April 2025. The table below summarizes the current plans.
Plan | Price (USD, paid annually) | Key features / limitations | Who it suits |
Power BI Free (Fabric free account) | Free | Allows creation of reports in Power BI Desktop and publishing to the user’s own workspace; cannot share reports with others; limited to 1 GB dataset size and 10 GB overall storage; refresh limit of 8 times per day. | Learning and personal projects; trial use before purchasing Pro. |
Power BI Pro | $14 per user/month from 1 Apr 2025 (up from $10) | Adds ability to publish and share reports and dashboards with other Pro users. Includes 10 GB per user storage, 1 GB model memory limit and up to 8 scheduled refreshes per dataset per day. Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 subscriptions. | Small teams and departments that need to collaborate on BI content; cost‑effective but limited refresh and model size. |
Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) | $24 per user/month from 1 Apr 2025 | Includes all Pro capabilities plus access to large model sizes (up to 100 GB per semantic model), increased refresh frequency (up to 48 refreshes per day) and premium features such as XMLA endpoint connectivity, advanced AI (AutoML, impact analysis), deployment pipelines and incremental refresh. Users can create paginated reports and use advanced dataflows. Does not provide multi‑geo storage or unlimited distribution—that requires Premium capacity. | Teams that need premium features but don’t require dedicated capacity; easier entry to premium capabilities. |
Power BI Premium (Capacity) | Starts around $4,995 per month for P1 capacity (price depends on capacity tier; not covered by the April 2025 price change). | Offers dedicated capacity for an organisation. Supports very large models (25–400 GB depending on SKU), up to 48 refreshes per day, 100 TB of shared storage and unlimited distribution (free users can view reports). Enables on‑premises Power BI Report Server and multi‑geo storage. Requires at least one Pro licence for content creators; viewers need no per‑user licence. | Large enterprises with many viewers or heavy workloads that need dedicated resources and ability to share content with free users. |
Power BI Embedded/Fabric | Variable, capacity‑based pricing | Enables embedding of Power BI visuals into your own apps. Billed by capacity usage. | Independent software vendors needing embedded analytics. |
Summary of Power BI plan differences
· Storage & model sizes: Pro includes 10 GB per user and a 1 GB model memory limit. Premium Per User raises the per‑model limit to 100 GB and gives access to up to 100 TB of storage in Premium capacity. Dedicated Premium capacity can handle even larger models (up to 400 GB per semantic model depending on SKU).
· Refresh rates: Pro allows 8 scheduled refreshes per day; PPU and Premium increase this to 48 refreshes per day. Additional concurrency and performance improvements in capacity tiers.
· Collaboration & sharing: Pro users can publish and share reports only with other licensed users. Premium capacity allows sharing with free users, making it ideal for company‑wide reporting.
· Advanced features: Premium Per User unlocks advanced AI (AutoML, Impact Analysis), XMLA endpoint read/write and deployment pipelines. Dedicated Premium capacity also enables on‑premises Power BI Report Server, multi‑geo support and unlimited distribution.
· Price changes (2025): Microsoft announced that Power BI Pro will cost $14 per user/month and PPU $24 per user/month starting 1 April 2025. Customers with E5 suites on annual billing aren’t affected.
3 Power Automate licensing plans
Microsoft re‑branded its automation plans in 2024/2025. Power Automate currently offers a Premium per user plan, a Process plan, a Hosted Process plan, plus add‑ons.
Plan | Price (USD, annual subscription) | Included features / entitlements | Suitable for |
Power Automate Premium (Per User) | $15 per user / month | Lets an individual create unlimited cloud flows (DPA) and attended desktop flows (RPA) and perform process mining. Includes 50 MB of process mining data, 5,000 AI Builder credits, and Microsoft Dataverse entitlements (250 MB database + 2 GB file capacity). | Individuals or small teams automating their own tasks. Provides attended robotic process automation (desktop automation that requires a user session). |
Power Automate Process (Per Bot) | $150 per bot / month | Designed for unattended desktop flows: includes cloud flows and unlimited unattended RPA. Each bot licence provides Dataverse entitlements (50 MB database + 200 MB file storage) and 5,000 AI Builder credits. | When you need to automate core processes or run RPA without human interaction; suitable for production workloads. |
Power Automate Hosted Process | $215 per bot / month | Provides all Process plan capabilities plus a Microsoft‑hosted virtual machine on Azure for running unattended RPA. | Organisations that don’t want to manage their own infrastructure for desktop automation. |
Free trial | Free for 30 days | Experiment with cloud flows using standard connectors and attended RPA for free. | Evaluation or learning. |
Process Mining add‑on | $5,000 per tenant / month | Adds 100 GB process mining data storage and 2 GB database/1 TB file capacity. Only available for Premium users. | Detailed process analytics for enterprise automation. |
AI Builder Capacity add‑on (T1) | $500 per unit / month | Provides additional AI Builder credits for using pre‑built AI models in flows. | When you run out of the 5,000 credits included in Premium/Process plans. |
Microsoft Copilot Studio | $200 per 25 000 messages / month | Low‑code environment for building conversational copilots and automations; includes generative AI tools and analytics. | Building custom conversational bots integrated with Power Automate. |
Understanding Power Automate licensing models
1. Per‑user (Premium) plan: Licences an individual to run unlimited cloud flows and attended desktop flows. It is best for personal productivity or small‑scale automation because each user needs their own licence.
2. Per‑bot (Process and Hosted Process) plans: The licence is assigned to a robotic bot rather than a user. Bots execute unattended desktop flows, enabling automation of business‑critical processes. Pricing is higher but a single bot can handle multiple processes, which reduces the per‑process cost when automating at scale.
3. Add‑ons: Additional AI Builder capacity or process mining can be purchased as needed. These extend the capabilities of the core licence.
4 Considerations when choosing a plan
Excel / Office plans
· Subscription vs one‑time purchase – Office 2024 and stand‑alone Excel have lower long‑term costs if you don’t need updates or other apps. Microsoft 365 subscriptions provide continuous feature updates, 1 TB cloud storage and multi‑device support but require ongoing fees.
· Number of users – Individuals may choose Personal; families can share Family; businesses should use Business plans or E5/E3 enterprise bundles. Note that Business Basic is web‑only and lacks desktop Excel.
· Commercial use rights – Office Home 2024 prohibits commercial use; to use Excel for business you need Office Home & Business 2024 or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Power BI plans.
· Team size and distribution needs – Pro is cost‑effective for small teams where everyone creating or consuming reports has a licence; content cannot be shared with unlicensed users. Premium capacity is cost‑effective when many people just consume reports, because free users can view content.
· Dataset size and refresh requirements – For large data models, frequent refreshes or advanced AI features, Premium Per User or Premium capacity is necessary. PPU is affordable for small groups needing premium features; capacity licensing is best for large enterprise workloads.
· Upcoming price increase – Ensure budgets account for the April 2025 price hike for Pro and PPU.
Power Automate plans
· Individual tasks vs enterprise workflows – The Premium per‑user plan covers unlimited cloud flows and attended RPA, making it ideal for individual or departmental automation. Process/Hosted Process plans suit enterprise processes requiring unattended bots.
· Infrastructure management – Hosted Process includes a Microsoft‑managed VM; Process requires you to manage the infrastructure for your bot. Choose based on your IT capacity.
· Add‑on costs – AI Builder and process mining add‑ons can significantly increase costs but may be necessary for AI‑driven automation or enterprise‑scale analytics.
5 Final thoughts
Microsoft’s productivity and analytics ecosystem offers flexible licensing tailored to individuals, small businesses and large enterprises. Excel is available as a standalone application or as part of various Microsoft 365 and Office suites; subscription plans include continuous updates and cloud services, whereas one‑time purchases are static but may be cheaper in the long run. Power BI licensing now has a clearer progression from Free to Pro, Premium Per User and Premium capacity, with April 2025 bringing a price increase for Pro/PPU. Understanding differences in dataset size, refresh frequency and sharing capabilities is key to selecting the right BI plan. Power Automate licensing offers per‑user and per‑bot options; determine whether you need attended or unattended automation and consider add‑on costs for AI and process mining. Always verify local pricing (e.g., euro equivalents) and review renewal dates, as Microsoft’s subscription prices can vary by currency and may be subject to regional 5 % increases for monthly billing plans from April 2025.
All in all, it is a bit confusing by so many options and packs in some of the programs. Stay informed about them and understand your needs for better decision-making.