Quick Answer: Looker Studio is free and shares by simple link, which suits lightweight client dashboards. Power BI handles heavier data modelling but needs paid licences to share with clients. Neither is built for white-labeled, scheduled agency reports, so decide what you actually need first.
Agencies often end up comparing Looker Studio and Power BI because both are well known and neither costs much to start.
This comparison sticks to facts from Google's and Microsoft's own documentation, and says where we could not confirm something.
At a glance
- Price to start: Looker Studio is free. Power BI Desktop is free to download
- Price to share: Looker Studio link sharing is free. Power BI sharing needs a paid licence
- Strength: Looker Studio is quick to build and share. Power BI is stronger for complex models
- Weakness for agencies: neither is a client-delivery product, so branding, scheduling and engagement tracking are limited
Price
Looker Studio is free to use. Looker Studio Pro is priced at $9 per user per project per month, billed for every license whether used or not, per Google's documentation.
Power BI Desktop is free for authoring. Sharing needs a paid licence: Pro is $14 per user per month paid yearly and Premium Per User is $24, per Microsoft's pricing page.
Both can need a connector or other add-ons, which we cover below.
Sharing reports with clients
Looker Studio is simple. Google says link sharing lets anyone view the report even without a Google account, and a Google account is always required to edit. Sharing with specific people or embedding a restricted report requires viewers to log in with Google.
Power BI is stricter. Microsoft's guidance says external guests need a Pro or Premium Per User licence to view shared content, unless it sits in Premium capacity, where a free Fabric licence is enough. To invite guests you also need a Pro or PPU licence, and trial users cannot invite guests.
For a handful of stakeholders this is fine. For many small clients it adds licensing work.
Scheduled email delivery
Looker Studio can email a PDF with a preview and a link. Without Pro, each report has one schedule at most daily, with up to 50 recipients and quotas of 200 emails a day and 800 a month on a personal account (500 and 3,000 on Workspace). Pro raises these. Details in why scheduled emails fail.
Power BI emails a snapshot on a schedule. You need a Pro or PPU licence, or a workspace on paid Premium capacity, to subscribe. Each report or dashboard allows 24 subscriptions, and Microsoft notes emails are not delivered to external recipients from trial-capacity or PPU workspaces.
Branding
Looker Studio lets you set your own colors and theme, but embedded reports always carry the watermark. See how to white-label Looker Studio reports.
Power BI: we did not verify its options for branding reports for external audiences, so check Microsoft's documentation for your licence type before you promise a client a branded experience.
Data and connectors
Looker Studio has Google connectors built in. Platforms such as Meta Ads usually need a paid partner connector. See Looker Studio connectors: free vs paid.
Power BI has a large connector library through Power Query. Microsoft Learn lists Supermetrics as a Power Query connector for marketing data. We could not confirm from the sources we checked which ad platforms Power BI connects to natively, so check the connector index for the exact platforms you need.
Which to choose
- Light dashboards, shared by link, mostly Google data: Looker Studio
- Complex data models, a Microsoft environment and a few internal viewers: Power BI
- Many small clients who each need a branded, scheduled report: neither is ideal, and a purpose-built tool is worth a look
How LedgeSpace compares
LedgeSpace is built for the last case. Every plan includes white label with your logo and colors, scheduled PDF and web-link delivery from your own email server, all 23 live integrations and Client Pulse engagement tracking, with no per-viewer licences. Plans start at $39/mo billed annually for up to 5 clients.
It is not a data-modelling tool or a free-form dashboard builder, and it has fewer integrations than the large ecosystems around either tool. See LedgeSpace vs Looker Studio and LedgeSpace vs Power BI, or start a 14-day free trial with no credit card.
