Free Microsoft Fabric governance for one tenant
Fabric Control's governance tier is free forever for your own Azure tenant, with no credit card, and it is the full product rather than a demo: one live view of every workspace in a Microsoft Fabric estate, with health, capacity, refresh outcomes, configuration drift, and who has access. It reads only operational metadata, using credentials you create and can revoke, so your data never leaves your tenant. Signups are open now, and installs run in October. This post covers what the free tier shows, what it needs from your tenant, and how to get it.
What does the free governance tier show?
One view of the estate. Workspace health and capacity, what is running and what is under pressure, refresh outcomes and configuration, across every workspace, current state and live. It is the view you would otherwise assemble by hand from several admin screens, on one screen instead of a dozen.
Configuration drift. A capacity setting flipped, a permission granted, a workspace reconfigured: usually discovered after it breaks a refresh or a review. The free tier takes a daily snapshot of configuration and access and keeps them for a year, so you can see what existed and who had access on any day in that year, instead of having to reconstruct it after something breaks.
Who has access to what. Fabric sets access per workspace and per item, so a thorough access review means going through each workspace in turn, and a grant made for a one-off task sits there until someone stumbles on it. The entitlement view lists who has access to every workspace, in one place. When an auditor asks who can reach what, that is the review, on demand.
Who is it for?
The people who are accountable when Fabric breaks: the platform owner, the Fabric administrator, and the data platform architect. If you have had a silent refresh failure, throttling nobody could explain, an audit question you could not answer quickly, or a homegrown PowerShell or KQL monitor that has become its own maintenance burden, this is the tier built for that afternoon.
What does "free forever" mean here?
The complete governance product for your own organization's Azure tenant, indefinitely, with no card and no time limit. It is the same engine that runs underneath the paid tiers. It is free for estates up to 30 workspaces, 300 items, and one capacity, counted across the tenant, and it keeps one year of operational history. Larger estates pay a flat monthly fee for governance, and the pricing page clearly shows where the line is drawn. Running Fabric for clients or across multiple tenants? The free tier covers your own tenant, and every other tenant needs a paid plan; a single view across tenants is in development.
What does it need from your tenant?
Credentials you create, control, and can revoke at any time, and read access to operational metadata. It never reads the rows in your tables, the files in your lakehouse, or the contents of a report.
How do you get it?
- Join the beta. Fill out the form on the product site: name, work email, organization and your role. No card, no commitment.
- You set up your tenant with our scripts. We provide the scripts that set up your tenant, and you run them with credentials you create and control. We never touch your environment. When a problem comes up, you get direct support from us, still without us touching your environment. This is a specialized tool for the person who runs Fabric, and the install is skilled work. There is no thirty-second version, and that is the honest trade for a tool that sits next to a production estate.
- Governance goes live, free forever. Your control plane lights up with current-state visibility: health, capacity, drift and entitlements, with a year of history kept.
We are onboarding a small number of estates in October. What we ask in return is that you run it on a real estate and tell us honestly what works and what breaks.
Join the Fabric Control beta →
Frequently asked questions
Is Fabric Control's governance tier really free?
Yes. It is free forever for your own Azure tenant, up to 30 workspaces, 300 items, and one capacity, with no credit card and one year of operational history, and it is the full governance product: workspace health, capacity, refresh outcomes, configuration drift, and entitlement visibility. Backup and operations are separate paid tiers you add only if and when you want them.
Does Fabric Control read my data?
No. It reads operational metadata only. It never reads the rows in your tables, the files in your lakehouse, or the contents of a report, and your data never leaves your tenant. Access runs through credentials you create, control, and can revoke at any time.
Who runs the install?
You do, with our scripts. We provide the scripts that set up your tenant; you run them with credentials you create and control, and we never touch your environment. When a problem comes up, you get direct support from us. It is skilled work, and it is done once.
Can I use the free tier on more than one tenant?
No. The free tier covers one Azure tenant that belongs to your own organization. Every other tenant, including any you run on a client's behalf, needs a paid plan. A single view across tenants is in development as the multi-tenant plan; until it ships, talk to us.
Do I have to join the beta to get the free tier?
Right now the beta is the way in. Signups are open, installs are scheduled for October, and governance stays free forever whether or not you ever add a paid tier.
