🔄 Power BI Premium vs Fabric SKU Mapping

This article aim to provide a high level summary of your current Power BI Premium licences and map it with a corresponding Fabric SKU. It also highlights key migration benefits.

Current SKU	vCores / Capacity	Approx. Fabric Equivalent (F-SKU)	Notes / Considerations
Premium Per User (PPU)	1 user with Premium features	⚠️ No direct equivalent – requires Fabric capacity (minimum F64)	PPU features (AI, paginated, large models) are included in Fabric, but per-user licensing is not supported. Migration requires moving to shared Fabric capacity.
Premium P1	8 vCores	F64	Closest baseline for migration. Offers comparable performance and feature set. Fabric allows elastic scaling, unlike fixed P1.
Premium P2	16 vCores	F128	Equivalent scale. Better concurrency and refresh throughput under Fabric.
Premium P3	32 vCores	F256	High-capacity workloads (large semantic models, high refresh). Fabric provides additional workloads (Data Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics).
Premium EM SKUs (EM1/EM2/EM3)	Embedded workloads only	Fabric F-SKU required (starting F64)	Fabric unifies embedded and enterprise workloads—no EM equivalent. Use Fabric for embedding scenarios.

🌟 Migration Benefits (SKU Perspective)

• Elastic Scaling: Fabric SKUs (F-series) scale up/down easily; Premium was fixed.

• Unified Workloads: One SKU covers BI, Lakehouse, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics, AI.

• Simplified Licensing: No split between Premium Capacity vs PPU.

• Performance Gains: DirectLake storage mode bypasses dataset import limits for very large models.

⚠️ Migration Limitations / Gotchas

• No PPU Equivalent: Users on PPU must be migrated to Fabric capacity, potentially increasing cost if only a few users need Premium features.

• Capacity Learning Curve: Fabric admins must monitor and prioritize workloads (BI, Dataflows, AI jobs).

• Minimum Entry Point: Fabric starts at F64, which is a bigger jump than individual PPU licenses.

• Embedded Workloads: No direct EM SKU; embedded scenarios require Fabric F-capacity.

Refer to Microsoft documentation here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/details/microsoft-fabric/