Short answer: If your data already lives in Microsoft Fabric, you don't have to move it or give up Power BI to deliver dashboards more cheaply. DashboardFox connects directly to Fabric SQL databases, so customers, partners and occasional internal viewers can get secure, branded dashboards without a Power BI license each. Your analysts keep Power BI, your data stays in Fabric, and you stop paying per viewer on capacities below F64.
The per-viewer problem below F64
Fabric made Microsoft's data platform more capable, but it didn't change the basic Power BI licensing rule. On every Fabric capacity smaller than F64 (F2 through F32), each person who views a Power BI report needs a Pro license ($14/user/month) or Premium Per User ($24/user/month). Only at F64 can viewers with a free license open reports. F64 costs about $5,000/month with a one-year reservation, or about $8,400/month pay-as-you-go.
That leaves a wide gap. Most mid-sized organizations run Fabric on F2 to F16 because that's what their data workloads need. But the moment they share dashboards with a few dozen customers, franchisees, board members or field staff, the Pro licenses add up. External viewers make it harder still: each one typically needs a Microsoft Entra guest account in your tenant, which brings onboarding friction and often an IT or compliance review.
Microsoft's other route, Power BI Embedded (A SKUs, from about $735/month for A1), avoids per-viewer licenses, but you have to build the portal, authentication and embedding yourself. That's a development project, not a setting.
Many teams are reassessing this now for another reason. Microsoft is retiring Power BI Premium P SKUs. When each customer's agreement ends, they move to Fabric F capacity, and existing Premium discounts don't carry over automatically. If your renewal is coming up, it's a good moment to look at what you're paying for viewers. For the full picture, see our Power BI pricing breakdown.
The cost comparison
Here's what it costs each month to share dashboards from a Fabric-based setup with viewers who don't build reports. Analyst licenses are the same in every option, so they're left out.
| Viewers | F2 + Power BI Pro per viewer | F64, free viewers | F2 + DashboardFox |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | $506 | $5,003 | $405 (Growth) |
| 100 | $1,556 | $5,003 | $655 (Scale) |
| 500 | $7,156 | $5,003 | $1,655 (Enterprise) |
Assumptions: F2 and F64 at Microsoft's one-year reservation rates (about $156 and $5,003/month, US list price); Power BI Pro at $14/user/month; DashboardFox at monthly list prices (Growth $249 for 30 active users, Scale $499 for 100, Enterprise Dedicated Cloud from $1,499/month billed annually). Your Microsoft pricing depends on your agreement and region.
Two things make the DashboardFox column cheaper than it looks on paper:
- You pay for active users, not accounts. A monthly active user is anyone who logs in that month. Create accounts for every customer contact; the ones who don't log in don't count.
- Email recipients are free. Many viewers only need a scheduled PDF or Excel report. Recipients who never log in don't count as active users on any plan.
One caveat: F2 is Fabric's smallest capacity. DashboardFox queries run against your Fabric capacity (more on that below), so heavy dashboard traffic may mean a larger F SKU. Size the capacity to your query load, not your viewer count.
How DashboardFox connects to Fabric
Fabric SQL databases accept only Microsoft Entra ID authentication; SQL logins are disabled. DashboardFox connects using the SQL Server driver it already includes and an Entra service principal (an app registration with read access to the database). It's confirmed working on a live Fabric tenant, and setup takes a few minutes for someone with Azure admin access.
What that means in practice:
- Your data stays in Fabric. DashboardFox runs live queries against the database. Nothing is copied into DashboardFox, and results are discarded after each dashboard renders.
- One identity, read-only. The service principal needs only read access, and you control it in Entra like any other app registration.
- No per-viewer Microsoft accounts. Your customers sign in to DashboardFox under your brand, not to your Microsoft tenant.
Fabric Warehouses and Lakehouse SQL analytics endpoints use the same login method and connection protocol. If that's where your data lives, talk to an engineer and we'll confirm the setup with you. See all supported sources on our integrations page.
Delivering dashboards to customers
The per-viewer savings matter most when the viewers are outside your organization, which is also where Power BI is weakest out of the box:
- White-label on every plan. Your logo, colors, custom domain and branded login page. Customers never see DashboardFox or Microsoft branding.
- Row-level security on every plan. Data Tags filter every query on the server by customer, location or any field you choose. Build one dashboard and each customer sees only their own rows, including in scheduled emails and exports. See our row-level security guide.
- Self-service without risk. Customers can filter, drill down and build their own reports inside the security you've set. They can't remove the filter.
- Security reviews. DashboardFox has passed full customer security reviews, and our security review kit is public. A HIPAA BAA is available on any plan with the Compliance Tier.
What still runs on Fabric
Adding DashboardFox doesn't take Fabric out of the picture, and we'd rather you know the trade-offs up front:
- Queries use Fabric capacity. Every dashboard query is a T-SQL query against your Fabric database, and Fabric bills it in capacity units like any other workload. Monitor it in the Fabric Capacity Metrics app.
- A paused capacity means no dashboards. If you pause your F SKU overnight to save money, DashboardFox dashboards that query Fabric won't load until it resumes.
- Fabric stays your data platform. Pipelines, data modeling, governance and storage all remain in Fabric. DashboardFox is the delivery layer, not a replacement for any of that.
- Check your licensing. Microsoft's documentation supports service principal access to Fabric SQL databases. If you have questions about how your Microsoft agreement treats data shown through a third-party tool, confirm with your Microsoft licensing contact.
Where Power BI stays the better tool
This isn't a case for ripping out Power BI. Keep it for:
- Analysts who live in Power BI Desktop. DAX, complex semantic models and Power Query are Power BI's strengths. DashboardFox is intentionally simpler.
- Copilot and Microsoft AI features. If you're paying for Fabric capacity partly for Copilot, those features stay in Power BI.
- Deep Microsoft 365 integration. Reports in Teams and SharePoint for internal users who already have Pro licenses.
- Associative cross-filtering. Clicking one chart to filter every other visual on the page is a Power BI strength. In DashboardFox, filters sit at the top of the dashboard and clicks drill into detail.
The common pattern is both tools: Power BI for the internal analysts who already have licenses, DashboardFox for customers, partners and the long tail of occasional viewers. For a full side-by-side, see DashboardFox vs Power BI. If you're weighing a full move away from Microsoft, see our Power BI alternatives.
The bottom line
Fabric is a strong data platform, and nothing here asks you to leave it. But below F64, Power BI charges for every viewer, and customer-facing delivery needs guest accounts or a development project. If your viewers mostly need to see their own numbers, branded and secure, a dashboard layer that connects to Fabric and charges by active user can cost a fraction of the per-viewer route. You can try it on your own Fabric data during a free trial.
Frequently asked questions
Can DashboardFox connect to Microsoft Fabric?
Yes. DashboardFox connects to Fabric SQL databases using its built-in SQL Server driver and a Microsoft Entra service principal, and this is confirmed working on a live Fabric tenant. Fabric Warehouses and Lakehouse SQL analytics endpoints use the same authentication and protocol; contact us to confirm your setup.
Do Power BI report viewers need a Pro license on Fabric?
On Fabric capacities below F64 (F2 through F32), yes. Each viewer of Power BI content needs a Pro or Premium Per User license. From F64 up, users with a free license can view reports. Report creators need Pro or PPU on every capacity size.
Do DashboardFox viewers need a Microsoft license?
No Power BI license is needed to view DashboardFox dashboards, which DashboardFox serves itself and bills by monthly active user. DashboardFox reads data from Fabric through a single service principal. If you have questions about how your Microsoft agreement treats this, confirm with your Microsoft licensing contact.
Do DashboardFox queries use Fabric capacity?
Yes. Queries against a Fabric database consume capacity units like any other T-SQL workload, and dashboards can't load while the capacity is paused. Size your capacity to query load and monitor it with the Fabric Capacity Metrics app.
Do we have to stop using Power BI?
No. Most teams that add DashboardFox keep Power BI for internal analysts and use DashboardFox for customer-facing and occasional viewers, both reading from the same Fabric data.
Microsoft pricing reflects US list rates published for 2026 and can vary by agreement, region and currency. DashboardFox is our product.