Which Data Studio Pro features do you need?
Nine questions, one per feature Google reserves for Data Studio Pro, formerly Looker Studio Pro. Answer them and you get a verdict, and if it is Pro, what it costs per year from the licence price you enter.
The nine Data Studio Pro features, as nine questions
1. Should reports belong to your organization rather than to the person who created them?
In Pro, reports and data sources belong to your organization through a Google Cloud project.
2. Do several people need a shared workspace with roles?
Manager, Content Manager and Contributor roles on a shared space.
3. Do you need many delivery schedules per report, delivery to Google Chat, or an alert when a chart crosses a threshold?
Up to 200 delivery schedules per report, Google Chat delivery and chart-based alerting.
4. Do you need a private copy of a report for each person who opens the link?
5. Do you need customer-managed encryption keys, your own storage, or data residency controls?
Customer-managed encryption keys, customer-managed storage in your own Cloud Storage or BigQuery, and data residency.
6. Do you need to open reports in the Looker mobile app?
7. Do you need Google Cloud Customer Care support for your reports?
Requires a separate Google Cloud support plan.
8. Do you want Gemini inside the report editor, for questions about your data and calculated fields?
9. Do your Google Cloud administrators need to set report permissions with IAM at project level?
Before you decide
Is Data Studio free?
Yes. The self-service version of Data Studio is free and stays free. Data Studio Pro is a paid subscription that adds the nine features above on top of it, and a report built on the free version keeps working if you move to Pro.
Where does the $9 figure come from?
Google Cloud does not publish a list price on its pricing pages. The $9 per user per month, billed per project, is the figure documented in our pricing guide, which also covers who should upgrade and who should not. Google bills monthly for every licence in the subscription whether or not it is used, so enter the price your console shows and count every licence.
Do Kodalogic templates need Data Studio Pro?
No. They are Data Studio reports that you copy into your own account and connect to your own data, and that works on the free version. If you are on Pro, they work there too.
Read next
- Data Studio Pro pricing: $9 per user and the project catch
What it costs, who should upgrade and who should not.
- Data Studio free vs Pro: which one do you need?
The long-form version of this decision.
- Looker vs Data Studio: the difference
Looker is Google Cloud’s BI platform; Data Studio, formerly Looker Studio, is the free report builder. Not the same product.
Capabilities quoted from Google Cloud’s documentation, “About Looker Studio Pro” (the product is now Data Studio Pro), checked on 3 September 2026. If Google changes the list, this page is wrong until it is updated. Still choosing a report? Compare all six side by side.