Lesson 2: Capacities, SKUs, Trials and What Costs Money

Why this level matters

In Power BI Pro you paid per person, and the compute behind your reports came with the licence. Fabric changes how you pay, and that catches out a lot of analysts. In Fabric, compute is a pool you rent, storage is a separate meter, and per-user licences still exist next to both. Before we build anything for our sales solution, we'll start a trial, find the details that matter, and learn which costs keep running and which ones stop.

Pages read 20 October 2026: Microsoft Learn "Fabric trial capacity" (updated Aug 2026), "Understand Microsoft Fabric licenses and capacity", "Pause and resume your Fabric capacity", "OneLake consumption", plus the Power BI and Azure Fabric pricing pages. Prices and trial terms change, so check them again yourself.

Capacities and CUs: renting a power station

Think of a capacity as a power station that your workspaces plug into. Its size is measured in capacity units (CUs). Every refresh, Spark job, SQL query and report render uses some of those CUs.

You buy F SKUs through Azure. The number in the name is the number of CUs:

Current sizes run from F2 up to F8192. Azure bills per second with a one-minute minimum on pay-as-you-go. You can also buy a 1- or 3-year reservation, which Microsoft says saves roughly 41%. Microsoft is retiring Power BI Premium P SKUs, so F SKUs are the recommended route.

Here is a rough budgeting worksheet. Treat the rate as an assumption you must replace with your region's figure from the Azure pricing calculator:

# Assumed pay-as-you-go rate: $0.18 per CU-hour (often quoted for US East; CHECK YOURS)
# Month = 730 hours (Azure's usual convention)

F2  : 2 CU  x $0.18 = $0.36/hour  -> x 730 = ~$262.80/month if never paused
F64 : 64 CU x $0.18 = $11.52/hour -> x 730 = ~$8,409.60/month if never paused

# Run F2 only during office hours (10 h x 22 days = 220 h):
F2  : $0.36 x 220 = ~$79.20/month compute

Gotcha: the F64 line matters for more than speed. On F64 or larger, people with only a free Fabric licence and a Viewer role can view Power BI content. Below F64, every viewer still needs Pro, PPU or an individual trial.

Three meters, not one

Some details to remember:

• OneLake storage doesn't use CUs, but reading and writing OneLake data does.
• Soft-deleted data is billed at the same rate as live data.
• When you pause, any smoothed or overage usage that hasn't been billed yet is added to your Azure bill straight away.
• A reservation is a commitment: you pay for it whether or not you pause.
• PPU is not a capacity. It gives you Premium Power BI features per user. It does not let you create lakehouses, warehouses or notebooks. For those you need an F capacity or a trial.

Production lesson: teams pause the capacity overnight and are then surprised the bill isn't zero. Storage and licences keep billing. Pausing also makes the content unavailable, so scheduled refreshes and report viewers fail until you resume.

Walkthrough: start the trial for our sales solution

The Fabric trial is free for 60 days. Depending on eligibility it gives you F4 (4 CUs) or F64 (64 CUs), plus up to 1 TB of OneLake storage. If you don't already have PPU, you also get a Power BI individual trial.

1. Open app.fabric.microsoft.com and select your photo (top right) to open Account manager
2. Select "Start trial"          # missing? Your admin may have disabled trials
3. Choose the trial capacity region  # choose carefully: moving regions later means
                                     # deleting the Fabric items first
4. Agree to the terms and select "Activate"
   -> Because you started it, YOU are the Capacity administrator

Now record the facts. Go to OneLake catalog > Govern > Capacities > Trial:

Trial capacity log, Sales solution
Date read ............ 2026-10-20
Capacity size ........ 64 CUs   # if it shows 4, try "Change size" (eligibility varies)
Days left ............ 60       # changing size does NOT reset the countdown
Region ............... UK South
Capacity admin ....... me (I started the trial)

Gotcha: Copilot, Data agent, AI functions and Private Link are not available on the trial. The trial also has no autoscale. Microsoft limits how many trials a tenant can run, and a second trial after this one isn't guaranteed.

When the trial ends

At day 60, workspaces on the trial switch back to the Power BI Pro type. Your Power BI items keep working. Lakehouses, notebooks and pipelines become inactive. You have 7 days to assign those workspaces to a paid F (or P) capacity before those items may be deleted. Put that date in your calendar now.

Best practice: keep a pricing log

Whenever you quote a figure to your manager, note the URL and the date you read it. Microsoft changes these pages often.

Key takeaways

• F SKUs are pools of CUs. The number in the name is the CU count, and pay-as-you-go is billed per second.
• Pausing stops compute only. OneLake storage, reservations and Pro/PPU licences keep billing.
• Below F64, every viewer needs Pro, PPU or an individual trial. From F64 up, free-licence viewers can read reports.
• PPU doesn't give you Fabric items. For those you need an F capacity or a trial.
• The trial lasts 60 days at F4 or F64 with 1 TB of storage. Whoever starts it becomes Capacity administrator. Check the details under OneLake catalog > Govern > Capacities > Trial.
• Record the source and the date you read it for every price and licence rule.