Power BI Embedded lets you build Power BI reports straight into your own software or website, so users see insights without ever opening Power BI itself. It is ideal for companies that want to share reporting with many users at once, for example inside SaaS platforms or customer portals.
Power BI Embedded is a Microsoft technology that lets you build interactive Power BI reports and dashboards into your own software, website or portal. Instead of sending users off to Power BI itself, you show the reports inside your own environment. Everything stays in your own look and feel, and under your own control. If you want to add data visualisation to your own application without building a full reporting layer from scratch, Power BI Embedded is the obvious choice.
Think of it as the engine of Power BI, dropped into your own application. You get the same powerful visuals, but your end users do not need a Power BI account or licence of their own.
The Power BI Service does let you share reports with people outside your organisation, but only on a small scale. You can invite guests to view a report as long as they have a Power BI licence themselves. Power BI Embedded is built for situations where you want to do that at much larger scale, with hundreds or thousands of users, for example in a customer portal or a software platform.
When you use Power BI inside your organisation, everything goes through the Power BI Service. You publish reports, share them with colleagues, and anyone who needs access has a Power BI licence. The service is mostly intended for internal use, but you can also share reports with external people through guest access (Azure AD B2B). Those external users still need their own Power BI licence.
Power BI Embedded works differently. Reports run on an Azure Embedded capacity. End users do not need a Power BI account. They get access through your app or your website, using your own login or security system. That makes it suitable for use at scale, for example in commercial SaaS products or customer portals.
In short:
Power BI Service: ideal for internal use or limited external collaboration, with Power BI licences per user.
Power BI Embedded: built for embedding into external applications or portals at scale, without individual licences per end user.
Power BI Embedded is mostly worth it when you operate at scale, with thousands of customers or users in a SaaS app. For a small number of external users, simply sharing through the Power BI Service often works better.
Companies show reports to their customers through a portal. Think sales statistics, stock levels or service performance. Customers see their own data without ever touching Power BI itself.
Software vendors build Power BI visuals directly into their application. Reporting becomes part of the product, with no extra login and no Power BI licence needed.
You can give suppliers access to dashboards with information about deliveries, stock levels or order behaviour, in a controlled way.
Some companies use Power BI Embedded internally too, for example to surface reports inside their own intranet or dashboard platform, fully styled in the company brand.
Consultants and agencies use Power BI Embedded to deliver reports under their own brand. The end client never realises the visuals are coming from Power BI.
So Power BI Embedded comes into play when you want to share reporting at scale, or offer reporting as part of your own product.
Power BI Embedded runs on Azure, the Microsoft cloud platform. You buy a capacity (such as A1, A2, A3 and so on) which sets how much compute is available. Your reports are hosted on that capacity.
You integrate the reports using APIs or a JavaScript SDK. From there you can show, filter, hide or personalise reports straight from your app.
The data stays in your own Power BI environment (your tenant). Access is controlled with embed tokens and Row-Level Security (RLS), so each user only sees the data that is meant for them.
Security is a big part of Power BI Embedded. You decide entirely:
Who is allowed to see which report.
Which data each user can see.
When access expires.
You use embed tokens to grant temporary access to reports. Combined with Row-Level Security, you make sure users only ever see their own numbers, even when they are looking at the same report.
With Power BI Embedded you do not pay per user, you pay for the capacity you use. That is convenient when you have a lot of users who only open reports occasionally.
The smallest capacity (A1) costs a few euros per day. Larger capacities (A3, A4, A5 and up) are more expensive, but offer more compute and better performance.
You can also pause your capacity in Azure outside office hours or at the weekend. You only pay for the time it is actually running.
If you search for "Power BI" and "capacity", you will also come across Power BI Premium Capacity. The licensing structure is similar to Power BI Embedded. With Premium Capacity you also pay a fixed price for a given amount of compute, but Premium Capacity is built for internal use through the Power BI Service, while Power BI Embedded is aimed first and foremost at external use.
The right capacity depends on three factors:
Number of concurrent users: the more people opening reports at the same time, the larger the capacity you need.
Complexity of the reports: heavy calculations and lots of visuals demand more compute.
Data volume and refresh frequency: large datasets or frequent refreshes need extra memory.
Start small with an A1 or A2 and monitor usage with the Power BI Premium Metrics App. It shows CPU usage, queue times and memory pressure. From there you can scale up in a targeted way.
Although Power BI Embedded is mostly meant for external scenarios, it can be useful internally too:
For companies that build their own portals or dashboards in their own brand style.
When you do not want to give every internal user a Power BI licence, but still need to give them access to reports. This is especially relevant when you have a large group of users who only consult a report now and then, and licensing everyone is overkill. In that case Microsoft Fabric capacity may also be a better fit.
When you want more control over navigation, layout and branding than the standard Power BI Service allows.
So it is not just a solution for software companies. It is also a fit for organisations that want more freedom and more headroom in how they share reporting.
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