{"id":1361,"slug":"looker-studio-per-project-trap","title":"Looker Studio: free tier widely used; Looker Studio Pro $9/user/Google-Cloud-PROJECT/month (per-project detail materially inflates agency costs); separate Looker (Google Cloud core) $35K-60K+/yr","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["dashboards","bi-tools-landscape"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** **Looker Studio** — free tier widely used. **Looker Studio Pro $9 per user per Google Cloud *project* per month** — the *per-project* detail materially inflates agency costs (a 12-client agency at 5 users pays **~$6,480/yr**, not the headline ~$540). Separate enterprise **Looker (Google Cloud core)** runs **~$35,000-60,000+/year**. (As of ~2026.)\n\n**Source:** cloud.google.com/looker/pricing ; Looker Studio Pro docs.\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The per-project pricing detail is the trap. Worth surfacing explicitly to clients evaluating Looker Studio for agency / multi-client work — the headline price is misleading.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"power-bi-pricing-april-2025","title":"Power BI pricing (April 2025): Pro $14/user/mo, Premium Per User $24/user/mo (both raised from $10/$20); Fabric F2 ~$262/mo to F64 ~$5,000/mo (viewers no per-user); Embedded A1 ~$735/mo","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-dashboards-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: dashboards for SMBs — what's worth showing, and when an embedded one earns its keep (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-for-internal-default-cheapest-tool-that-fits-stack","title":"R2 — For internal dashboards, default to the cheapest tool that fits the existing stack: Power BI Pro for M365 shops, free Looker Studio for Google/marketing data, Metabase for SQL-comfortable / future-embedding","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-20T18:03:12.158Z","updated_at":"2026-06-20T18:03:12.158Z"}