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

Rule: For internal dashboards:

• Microsoft shops: Power BI Pro $14/user/mo, or free if already on M365 E5 (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).
• Google / marketing data: free Looker Studio (avoid the per-project Pro trap — 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).
• Mixed / SQL-comfortable / may want embedding later: Metabase open-source free, or Cloud Starter $100/mo (Metabase pricing (2026): Open Source free (AGPL v3 self-host); Cloud Starter $100/mo (5 users included, +$6/user); Pro $575/mo (10 users, +$12/user; white-label + embedded + RLS + SSO); Enterprise from ~$20K/yr).
• Avoid per-seat tools where most users are view-only and counts are large — Tableau Viewer economics, Looker Studio per-project trap.
• Escalate when you outgrow spreadsheets and the same numbers are manually rebuilt every week.

Why: Default-cheapest minimises commitment before adoption is proven. The big four BI tools differ in ecosystem fit, not in core capability for SMB needs.

How to apply:

• Match tool to the data warehouse / SaaS the client already runs.
• For internal use, do not buy Tableau Creator licenses to "future-proof" — buy them when there is a named user who will create dashboards weekly.
• Reserve embedded-analytics platforms (Embedded-analytics platforms (2026): Luzmo $995-3,100/mo embedded plans; Explo $795/Growth, $2,195/Pro; Cube Core open-source + Cube Cloud consumption; Embeddable still in beta) for customer-facing use.