Power BI Training Cost

Looking to learn Power BI? If so, the software is free if you want to use Power BI Desktop. Power BI Pro costs $9.99/user/month, and Power BI Premium is offered for licenses at $20/user/month. Beyond this, you’ll want to consider the cost of Power BI training. Because so many different types of Power BI instruction are available, the cost varies significantly depending on which version you choose. Some Power BI online classes, webinars, and tutorials are offered for free, whereas certificate study can cost $5,000 or more, depending on the duration of study and provider. Read on to learn more about how much you can expect to spend on learning Power BI.

What is Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI is a group of BI (business intelligence) services and products that converts data from various sources into reports, visualizations, and interactive dashboards. This allows users to share data insights with others who work at their organization or to embed them onto a website or application. Power BI offers effective business solutions with each of its individual elements and provides users with even more capabilities when these components work together.

One of the main benefits of working with Power BI is that it can integrate with other Microsoft services and products and third-party platforms. Users can connect Power BI to Excel, Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange, among others. Whether your data is stored in an on-premises data warehouse, a cloud-based warehouse, or an Excel spreadsheet, Power BI can easily connect to these data sources, provide visualizations based on the data they contain, and offer insights that you can then share with other stakeholders. There are several Power BI products, each of which has different uses; Power BI Desktop creates reports, Power BI Services publishes the reports, and the Power BI mobile app provides users with a way to view each dashboard or report.

Read more about what Power BI is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Power BI?

Power BI is a valuable tool for illustrating what’s happening within an organization in the present. It also has applications for helping to anticipate what may transpire in the future. Because it relies on machine learning capabilities, Power BI can locate patterns in data, then draw from these patterns to predict various “what-if” scenarios. Based on these predictions, Power BI users can create forecasts and work to prepare for different demand patterns that may emerge. They can then communicate this information through data visualizations, which impart key data findings to stakeholders to make more educated business predictions.

Power BI is a go-to for those who work with data because it can be used to input huge stores of data that would be a struggle for other platforms to process. Because this intelligence suite is cloud-based, it provides users with regularly updated algorithms and intelligence capabilities. Those who use Power BI can personalize their experience by creating dashboards that allow them to quickly and easily access necessary data. In addition, it’s possible to create alerts in Power BI, which provide users with up-to-date measurements. Best of all, because this platform can integrate with other business management tools, such as Office 365, SharePoint, SAP, Google Analytics, and Hadoop, it remains a hugely popular tool for those working with data across platforms. 

In-Depth Review of the Training Cost

If you’re interested in learning how to use Microsoft Power BI, a variety of training options are available for different costs. Deciding which is best for you will ultimately depend on factors such as your time availability, professional goals, ability to commute for study, and the duration of the instruction.

The most expensive learning option for studying Power BI is certificate study. These courses typically cost several thousand dollars and often span weeks or months. They provide intensive training in Power BI and fields closely related to this tool, such as data analytics or data visualization. In addition, bootcamps are also available in Power BI, which typically cost less than a certificate study (several hundred dollars instead of several thousand). Both bootcamps and certificate study are often available in the in-person or the live online environment. These learning environments give students access to an instructor in real-time who can answer questions and provide support.

In-person Power BI study also gives students access to a computer lab and the latest version of Power BI. However, in-person learning requires commuting to and from campus for regularly scheduled meetings and paying for the commute. It also may require taking off work to attend class.

If you want to balance your Power BI study around a full-time job or family commitments, another learning option you may consider is self-paced coursework. These classes tend to be cheaper than in-person or live online study. Many self-paced Power BI courses are available for less than $100, and some are offered for free. You can complete these courses at your own pace, making them a convenient learning alternative for busy individuals. However, self-paced Power BI study doesn’t provide you with access to an instructor, making it difficult for some learners to find answers to their questions. It can also make it challenging to learn more complex or advanced Power BI concepts, such as how to work with DAX. 

Free online resources are also available in Power BI. Pre-recorded webinars, blogs, community forums, and online tutorials are just some options you may consider. These resources typically provide an overview of Power BI and help learners become familiar with the basics of this software. While free online material is a good starting point for Power BI study, most learners will need paid training to master more advanced Power BI skills and retain the information they learn. 

Free Introductory Power BI Course Online 

If you’re not ready to invest in a lengthy course, you can still start learning how to work with data for free online. In Noble Desktop’s free Data Science Webinar, you’ll receive instruction on core data science concepts, such as how professionals can use data science in the business sector and the different tools Data Scientists use when handling data. This 80-minute webinar is a great way to familiarize yourself with the field of data science and learn more about how professionals manage and analyze large volumes of data.

In addition to Noble Desktop’s business intelligence and data science resources, other top educational providers also offer free Power BI instruction. Udemy’s Power BI Quick Start is a free, two-hour course containing helpful video content on creating your own interactive Power BI dashboard. Students also receive instruction on creating full reports and publishing them on the Power BI service. Udemy also has another free Power BI course, Learn Power BI Fast, in which users learn how to create a professional Power BI report in under two hours. Participants also receive instruction and both basic and advanced data visualization concepts.

In addition, Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Power BI is free from edX. This course teaches students how to use Microsoft Power BI in approximately four weeks. Certification is available for those who pay for the course, or students can elect to simply explore the free content. 

Read more about free Power BI videos and online tutorials. 

Learn Power BI with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop's Power BI Bootcamp is an excellent option if you want to learn more about using Power BI. This project-based course prepares students to use Power Query for data querying, Power BI’s data model for connecting to datasets, and its report view for designing interactive data visualizations and dashboards. Students work with different case studies to learn how to work with various Power BI capabilities and this tool’s DAX language for creating visualizations based on their data. All students have the option of a free retake for up to one year to revisit the material and gain additional practice.

Another excellent learning option for individuals who are interested in working with Power BI is Noble Desktop’s Data Analytics Certificate. This intensive course is offered in the in-person and live online format and provides participants with hands-on instruction with core data analytics and business intelligence tools and programs. Those enrolled complete real-world projects using Microsoft Excel, Python, SQL, and Tableau and have the option of also taking the Power BI Bootcamp free of charge. All students receive instruction from an expert instructor and one-on-one mentoring.