Sign up or purchase Power BI as an individual

This article explains how individuals within an organization can sign up for Power BI or purchase Power BI for themselves.

These self-service methods include upgrading to a paid license, starting individual trials, and getting free licenses if your organization allows self-service. If the term self-service is new to you, or if you're an administrator who manages self-service, visit these admin articles What is self-service? and Self-service for Microsoft 365 products and services..

If you're unable to sign up for Power BI or to purchase a Power BI individual license, it might be because your Microsoft 365 Billing administrator disabled self-service options. Ask them to enable self-service sign-up and self-service-purchase.

Look up your current license or trial

You might already have a Power BI license or trial. To look up your license type, see licenses and trials.

For example, your organization might provide you with Microsoft 365. Some versions of Office 365 include Power BI Pro licenses.

Sign up for a free license

Your organization purchased a Power BI subscription that includes licenses. Self-service is enabled. Sign up by:

  1. Opening Power BI in a browser (app.powerbi.com).

  2. Selecting a Try for free type of button.

  3. Selecting a Power BI link in an email. Colleagues share Power BI items in email. If you never opened Power BI before, selecting one of these links initiates signing up for a license.

    Screenshot of an email that contains a Power BI link.

All of these actions sign you up for a per-user license and open the Power BI service in a browser. The type of license assigned to you depends on your organization's subscription and self-service settings. To learn more about the types of licenses, see Power BI license types.

If the Power BI service doesn't open or if you receive an error message, it's possible that your organization doesn't have a Power BI subscription. See Email validation to learn what steps to take to get a per-user license.

Email validation

The first time you attempt to sign up for a license, Microsoft asks for your email address.

If your organization didn't purchase Power BI, you're redirected to a sign-up process. This alternate sign-up process creates an account and possibly even creates a new tenant.

Screenshot of the sign-up screen that appears if you don't already have a Power BI account.

For more information about creating a Microsoft account, see How to check if your email address is a Microsoft account