Microsoft Fabric Planning
Pricing & Capacity
One Fabric capacity subscription. Covers Planning, Intelligence, and Data Management (PowerTable) for every user.
Activity Based Pricing
A fundamentally different pricing model.
Fabric Planning is priced on user activity, and not named user count.
Flexible Licensing
Benefit from activity-based licensing to deliver organizational agility and cost efficiency. Avoid license commitment and administration.
Pay for Active Use
Session is billed only when a user engages with a Plan artifact. Unused capacity can be consumed by other Microsoft Fabric workloads.
Include Ad-hoc Users
Seasonal contributors, budget reviewers, and one-time approvers can participate without driving up annual license costs.
Use MACC Credits
Fabric Planning runs on Microsoft Fabric capacity, eligible for Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) credits where applicable.
Activity Based Pricing
Fabric Planning vs. Other Products
Save 55% to 90% on your costs, and more.
Fabric Planning delivers enterprise planning at a fraction of the cost, with minimal dependency on IT.
Cost per user / year →
Specialist-led
Self-service
Business User Autonomy →
Pricing data sourced from multiple industry surveys. Fabric Planning pricing reflects
reserved capacity rates for blended use by Planners, Stakeholders and Viewers, and
includes a 30% overhead towards other Fabric resource
consumption. The Business User Autonomy axis reflects the degree to which finance and
operations users can build, configure and change planning models themselves, without
depending on specialists — IT staff, certified consultants, model builders, or platform
architects.
- The pricing information presented is based on publicly available data and industry research as of the date of publication.
- Pricing for Fabric Planning assumes 1 Planner : 5 Stakeholders in reserved capacity.
- Vendor pricing is estimated and may vary by year, industry, country, client size, license count, license term, bundling discounts, negotiated agreements, or product configurations.
- This comparison reflects Lumel's interpretation and should not be relied upon as definitive. You are encouraged to verify pricing directly with each vendor.
Pricing Landscape
User Personas
What can each user do?
Three distinct user personas, each designed around how that user engages with planning, intelligence and data management.
Viewer
Consumer with read-only access.
Fabric Workspace Role
Viewer
(reading view)
Capabilities
View data in reading view
Sort, filter and bookmark reports
Stakeholder
Data entry, approval and collaboration.
Fabric Workspace Role
Viewer
(reading view)
Capabilities
Includes all Viewer capabilities
Enter data and collaborate
Create scenarios and simulations
Provide approvals and comments
Save and write back data
Trigger audit change capture
Planner
Author, modeler and admin.
Fabric Workspace Role
Admin, Member or Contributor
(edit mode)
Capabilities
Includes all Stakeholder capabilities
Create, author and edit artifact items
Build and manage data models
Configure planning logic and rules
Customize app security settings and user permissions
Full admin permissions
User Personas
Capacity Estimator
Size Your Fabric Capacity
Fabric capacity prices vary by region, so we estimate consumption in Capacity Units (CU) - the underlying billing metric. Use the CU total to size the Fabric SKU you need, then refer to Microsoft's regional price list for the dollar cost.
Capacity Estimator
User Type
Active Users
Average CU (Sustained)
CU-hours per session (730 hrs)
Planner Author, modeler and admin
1.16 CU
847 CU
Stakeholder Enter data, approve, comment & writeback
0.23 CU
168 CU
Viewer View and interact locally
0.05 CU
37 CU
Subtotal
100
1.4 CU
1,051 CU
1.9 CU
1,367 CU
Your workload fits in an F2 Fabric capacity (2 CU)
Based on total CU including Fabric resource overhead.
- Microsoft meters Fabric Planning as 30-day sessions (730 hours). Once a session is triggered for a user, the meter runs for the full 730 hours regardless of usage.
- Consumption of Fabric SQL, OneLake, Power BI XMLA API, and other native Fabric items are additional CU meters. Budget an additional 30% of estimated CU towards this, as indicated above. Actual consumption will vary based on data volume, query patterns and active usage.
- Automation jobs (optional) for advanced use cases like connected planning and automated cascading updates are metered separately and not included above. Each automation job consumes 2 Capacity Units.
- CU rates are set by Microsoft and apply uniformly across regions. Dollar cost of each CU varies by region – see the latest Fabric billing and metering documentation.
Capacity Estimator
Microsoft Fabric Planning
What Can Your Fabric Capacity Support?
A quick reference mapping each Fabric capacity SKU to a sample active mix of Planners, Stakeholders, and Viewers it can support.
| Capacity | CU | Planners 1.16 CU | Stakeholders 0.23 CU | Viewers 0.05 CU | EST. CU 30% Fabric overhead incl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1.9 |
| F4 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 3.7 |
| F8 | 8 | 2 | 8 | 40 | 8.0 |
| F16 | 16 | 3 | 15 | 60 | 12.9 |
| F32 | 32 | 7 | 35 | 140 | 30.1 |
| F64 | 64 | 15 | 75 | 290 | 63.9 |
| F128 | 128 | 30 | 150 | 580 | 127.8 |
| F256 | 256 | 60 | 300 | 1,150 | 254.9 |
| F512 | 512 | 120 | 600 | 2,300 | 510.0 |
- Based on an approximate 1:5:20 mix of Planners, Stakeholders, and Viewers, with all users active concurrently. Some capacities such as F2, F4 and F8 use a reduced mix as the standard ratio exceeds their capacity.
- A 30% CU allowance is reserved for other Fabric resources. Actual capacity required will vary by user activity and workload mix.
- The estimates above assume all listed users have active concurrent sessions. If not all users trigger a session in a given month, actual CU consumption will be lower, meaning you may be able to (a) support more users within the same capacity, (b) redirect unused capacity towards other Fabric workloads, or (c) consider a lower capacity SKU.
Capacity Planner
Microsoft Fabric Planning
Common questions about session billing
A session starts when (a) a user opens or engages with an existing Plan item (in edit mode or reading view), or (b) creates a new Plan item, assigns data and saves it.
Each session runs for 730 hours - equivalent to a 30-day month. Once triggered, the session meter runs for the full duration (on an hourly basis) regardless of usage.
No. Once a session starts, there is no way for the user to terminate it early. It runs to completion.
When the 730-hour period expires, a new session is triggered the next time the user engages with a planning item, as per the new role.
Users can upgrade (e.g., Viewer to Stakeholder, Stakeholder to Planner) but cannot downgrade within an active session. When upgraded, the earlier session is closed and prorated, and billing continues at the higher tier rate.
Each unique combination of tenant, user, and capacity creates a separate session, billed independently. A user working across two capacities will have two active sessions.
If the same capacity is assigned to multiple workspaces, the user is billed at the highest role tier active across all workspaces under that capacity.
Yes. Automation jobs are billed at a fixed amount per completed job, regardless of whether the job was run by a Planner, Stakeholder, or Viewer. Only successful jobs are billed - failed jobs are not charged.
If a capacity is paused or deleted, the billing record for the full session period is written for each active session under that capacity.
Active sessions continue to run and are billed through to the end of the 730-hour period even if the planning item is deleted.
Sessions continue to be recorded even if the capacity is exhausted through other workloads. There are no credits reserved exclusively for Fabric Planning - billing continues on a periodic basis.
If the number of active sessions exceeds what the SKU can support, the SKU is effectively overcommitted. This is particularly relevant for smaller SKUs like F2 and F4, and for capacities shared with other Fabric workloads. The number of users assigned to a capacity may need to be dynamically controlled to avoid overcommitting the SKU.
FAQ
About this page
Lumel is a strategic ISV of Microsoft and the development partner behind Microsoft Fabric Planning.
This page is an overview of Microsoft's Fabric Planning capability. It should not be relied upon for decision-making without verifying with Microsoft and is subject to your license agreement or any other agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft's strategy and possible future developments for Fabric Planning are subject to change by Microsoft at any time for any reason without notice.
This document is provided without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Lumel assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document, except in cases of intentional misconduct or gross negligence by Lumel.
Microsoft and Microsoft Fabric are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
