As of January 2025, Microsoft has officially retired Power BI Premium SKUs, marking a major shift to Microsoft Fabric. If your organisation previously relied on Power BI Premium, this change means your analytics environment is now part of the unified Fabric platform, bringing new features, pricing flexibility, and powerful AI capabilities.
Here’s what the transition means for your business and how to make the most of Fabric going forward.
Power BI Premium to Fabric: The Big Move
Organisations that previously used Power BI Premium have now been migrated (or are in the final stages of migration) to Microsoft Fabric capacities. Fabric unifies Power BI, Synapse, and Data Factory into a single SaaS platform, offering all the capabilities of Power BI Premium plus six additional workloads: Data Engineering, Data Science, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics, Data Activator, and Power BI.
Microsoft now provides the Fabric Capacity Metrics App and Fabric Admin Monitoring tools to help administrators manage performance, cost, and utilisation in the new Fabric environment.
Who’s Affected by the Change?
As of 2025, Power BI Premium capacities (P SKUs) and EM/A SKUs have been fully phased out. Existing customers on enterprise agreements can continue using Power BI Report Server through extended support, but new capacities are Fabric-based only. Here’s a quick breakdown of which customers need to make the switch and what it means for you:
Power BI Premium P: If you’re using Premium SKUs P1 to P5, your biggest change will be the loss of dual-use rights for Power BI Report Server Local.
Power BI Premium EM & Azure Power BI Embedded: If you’re using SKU EM or A, you’ll need to license your Power BI read-only users with Power BI Pro licenses. You’ll also need to upgrade to an F64 (or higher) SKU, which includes read-only rights.
No Enterprise Agreement (EA)? You can renew your Power BI Premium capacity subscription through January 1, 2025. After that, you’ll need to switch to Fabric.
Got an EA contract? No problem. You can continue renewing your Power BI Premium capacity until the end of your contract. Once your contract ends, you’ll need to transition to Fabric to keep enjoying Microsoft’s power-packed platform.
Sovereign Cloud Users: You’re safe! You won’t be affected by this change, as you don’t currently have access to Microsoft Fabric.
Sovereign cloud tenants (e.g., GCC, GCC High, DoD) remain on Power BI Premium SKUs for now, as Microsoft Fabric is still rolling out to those environments. A timeline for Fabric availability in sovereign clouds is expected later.
For any lingering questions, head to Microsoft’s FAQ page for more info on Power BI Premium and its transition to Fabric.
The Benefits of Microsoft Fabric!
Once you make the move to Fabric, you’ll unlock a whole new world of benefits. Here’s a sneak peek:
- MACC-Eligible & Pay-as-You-Go Flexibility: Fabric is MACC-eligible, so your spending can be applied to your MACC commitment. Plus, the pay-as-you-go model means you can scale up or down as needed. Perfect for businesses with fluctuating data needs.
- Azure-Exclusive Features: Think trusted workspaces for OneLake shortcuts and private hotspots for Spark, features exclusive to Azure and not available to Power BI Premium customers.
- Better Compute Options: Fabric lets you use smaller compute SKUs that are more affordable than the entry-level Power BI Premium SKU.
- Copilot in Fabric: Copilot is now available across Fabric workloads, including Power BI, Data Factory, and Data Science. This allows users to build dataflows, queries, and reports using natural language prompts.
- OneLake Integration: Fabric introduces OneLake – a single, unified data lake for your organisation. It centralises data across all workloads, improving governance and reducing duplication.
Beyond pricing and flexibility improvements, the move to Microsoft Fabric unlocks several new enterprise-grade capabilities. Here are the major benefits of migrating to Fabric:
- A Unified Data Ecosystem: Fabric integrates warehousing, data engineering, data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence in one sleek package. This means more consistency, less complexity, better data governance, and smoother workflows for everyone.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Fabric’s new pricing and licensing model offers way more flexibility compared to traditional Power BI Premium. The “pay-as-you-go” model is especially useful for organizations with fluctuating data workloads—scale your resources based on your needs!
- Advanced Analytics & AI Capabilities: With AI-powered real-time queries and next-level analytics, Fabric makes discovering trends and making smarter decisions faster and easier than ever.
- Better Collaboration & Governance: Teams can collaborate more effectively with features like version control, workflow management, and role-based access. Plus, Fabric’s unified governance framework ensures data security, compliance, and clear data lineage.
How to Optimise Your Fabric Environment After Migration
If your organisation has completed its transition from Power BI Premium to Fabric, now’s the time to ensure your setup is optimised for cost, performance, and governance.
- Review workspace assignments: Verify that all migrated workspaces are mapped to the correct Fabric capacities.
- Recreate scheduled jobs: Any refresh or automation scripts from Power BI Premium may need to be reconfigured within Fabric pipelines.
- Use the Fabric Capacity Metrics App: Monitor performance, utilisation, and cost in real time.
- Leverage Copilot: Explore AI-assisted dataflows and report generation to accelerate insights.
What If You Haven’t Migrated Yet?
If you’re still running on legacy Power BI Premium SKUs due to EA timelines or internal dependencies, start preparing now. Microsoft will fully discontinue support for Power BI Premium capacities in 2026. Begin testing Fabric capacities and use Microsoft’s migration assessment tool to ensure a smooth transition.
Ready to Make the Switch?
At Synapx, we help organisations optimise their Microsoft Fabric environments, from governance and cost management to AI integration and data automation. Whether you’ve already transitioned from Power BI Premium or are preparing to, our team can ensure your Fabric setup is secure, scalable, and future-ready.
Contact us today to book a consultation and unlock the full potential of Microsoft Fabric for your organisation.
