Omni Pricing: What Omni Costs Compared to Other BI Tools

Omni pricing is one of the most asked questions in BI right now, usually phrased as: what does Omni cost relative to other BI tools? The short answer from the migrations we run: teams moving from Looker to Omni typically cut their BI licensing cost by around half.

The longer answer is more useful, because Omni does not publish a price list and neither do most of its competitors. This guide explains how Omni prices, how that compares to Looker, Sigma, Tableau, Power BI and Strategy, and what actually drives the total cost of a BI tool. I will not quote contract figures. Those belong to our clients. I will tell you where the money goes.

How Omni pricing works

Omni sells annual contracts quoted by its sales team. There is no public pricing page with per-seat rates. What you pay depends on how many people use Omni and what they do with it: building models and content, exploring, or only viewing dashboards. Embedded analytics for your own customers is scoped separately.

You can start with a free trial before talking numbers, which makes it easy to test Omni on your own warehouse and your own data model first.

Third-party price lists for Omni circulate online. Treat them with caution: they are often outdated, and they never include the discounts and contract terms that decide what you actually pay.

Omni cost relative to other BI tools

BI pricing falls into three groups: tools with a published per-user price, tools quoted per contract, and tools where the platform fee matters more than the seats. Here is where Omni sits.

Tool	Pricing model	Public prices?	Relative to Omni
Omni	Annual contract, based on users and use	No, quoted	Baseline
Looker	Platform edition plus licenses per Developer, Standard and Viewer user; AI usage in tokens	No, quoted by Google	Roughly twice as expensive in the migrations we have done
Sigma	Annual contract, based on users and use	No, quoted	Comparable model; compare on the same user mix
Tableau	Per user by role (Creator, Explorer, Viewer)	Yes, list prices	Depends on how many creators you need
Power BI	Per user (Pro, Premium Per User) or capacity (Fabric)	Yes, list prices	Lowest per seat, especially inside Microsoft 365
Strategy	Per user; Standard plan from $13 per user per month for 50 to 300 users	Starting price only	Low entry price; enterprise plans quoted

Two patterns stand out. First, the tools with the strongest semantic layers (Looker, Omni, Strategy) are mostly quoted per contract, so a price list comparison tells you little. Second, the cheapest seat is not the cheapest tool. Power BI wins on list price per user and often loses on what it costs to build and maintain logic in DAX across hundreds of reports.

Omni vs Looker pricing

This is the comparison most people are really asking about. Omni was founded by former Looker people, works with a code-based semantic model close to LookML, and is the most common destination for teams leaving Looker.

Looker's pricing has two parts: a platform edition (Standard, Enterprise or Embed) and user licenses per Developer, Standard and Viewer user. Every edition is quoted by Google sales, on one to three year terms. From 1 October 2026, conversational analytics in Looker is billed in data tokens above an included monthly allowance. That makes AI usage a new line on the invoice.

In the Looker to Omni migrations we have implemented, BI licensing costs dropped by around 50%. ParkBee, a parking technology company, is the public example: a 50% decrease in BI licensing costs after moving from Looker to Omni in under four weeks, with all its dashboards.

The savings come from three places:

• Lower cost per user. For the same number of people, Omni's quote has consistently come in well below the Looker renewal.
• No paying for shelfware. Looker contracts tend to grow by seat tier and rarely shrink. A migration is the moment to count who actually logs in.
• Less duplicate modeling. Omni syncs with dbt in both directions, so teams stop maintaining the same business logic in LookML and in dbt. That is engineering time, not license cost, but it shows up in the budget all the same.

Looker stays competitive in one situation: large Google Cloud customers who get Looker bundled into a wider commitment. If that is you, compare the effective price, not the list.

Omni vs Sigma pricing

Sigma and Omni are often on the same shortlist and both quote per contract, so there is no honest list price comparison. What differs is what you pay for.

Sigma is built around a spreadsheet interface on the warehouse, with models built mostly in the interface. Omni combines a spreadsheet-style exploration layer with a code-based semantic model synced to dbt. If your cost problem is maintaining metrics in several places, Omni's model-first approach saves more over time. If your users live in spreadsheets and your definitions already live in dbt, Sigma can fit well.

Ask both vendors to quote the same user mix: the same number of creators, explorers and viewers, the same embedded scope and the same AI usage. Otherwise you are comparing two different contracts.

Omni vs Tableau and Power BI pricing

Tableau and Power BI publish their prices, which makes them look easier to budget. The catch is in what the license does not include.

Tableau charges per user by role. Organizations with many creators pay considerably more than those with mostly viewers. Tableau has no central semantic layer in the way Omni or Looker do, so calculated fields multiply across workbooks. The license is predictable. The maintenance is not.

Power BI has the lowest seat price, and many organizations already pay for part of it through Microsoft 365. Larger deployments move to Fabric capacity, which changes the cost model from seats to compute. The hidden cost is DAX: business logic spread over many semantic models that only Power BI can run.

Moving from Tableau or Power BI to Omni rarely saves money on licenses alone. Teams make that move for governance: one semantic model, one set of definitions, and self-service that does not create new versions of the truth.

What really drives BI cost

License cost is the visible part. In the BI estates we unwind, it is rarely the biggest part.

• Duplicate business logic. The same revenue definition in the BI tool, in dbt and in three spreadsheets. Every change is made three times, and one of them is always missed.
• Dead content. In most migrations a large share of dashboards and explores has not been opened in months. You pay to maintain it, test it and migrate it.
• Request queues. When business users cannot answer their own questions, the data team becomes a ticket desk. ParkBee saw an 80% reduction in ad-hoc data requests after moving to Omni.
• AI usage. Conversational analytics is moving from free preview to metered billing. Budget for it now.
• The next migration. Logic locked in a proprietary format will have to be rebuilt again. That is a deferred cost you can avoid.

How to get a fair Omni quote

1. Count real users. Pull usage data from your current tool. Split them into people who build, people who explore and people who only view.
2. Know your renewal date. Start the conversation three to six months before your current contract renews. That is when you have the most room.
3. Scope embedded and AI explicitly. Both can change the price materially.
4. Trial on your own model. Use Omni's free trial on your real warehouse and your hardest metric, not a demo dataset.
5. Price the migration, not just the license. A cheaper tool that takes a year to adopt is not cheaper.

Omni pricing questions

What is Omni's cost relative to other BI tools?

Lower than Looker, by around half in the Looker migrations we have done. In the same range as Sigma, which also quotes per contract. Higher per seat than Power BI, but without the cost of maintaining business logic across many separate DAX models.

Does Omni publish its pricing?

No. Omni quotes annual contracts based on your users and use, and offers a free trial. Any per-seat number you find online is a third-party estimate.

Is Omni cheaper than Looker?

In our experience, yes. ParkBee cut its BI licensing cost by 50% when it moved from Looker to Omni. The exception is a large Google Cloud agreement where Looker is bundled at a discount.

How long does it take to move from Looker to Omni?

Usually four to seven weeks, because Omni's model is close to LookML. ParkBee completed its migration in under four weeks with all its dashboards.

Is Omni worth the switch?

For mid-sized teams on Looker, almost always: similar modeling, lower cost, faster self-service, and a short migration because the semantic model translates closely. For large enterprises with Looker bundled into a Google Cloud deal, run the numbers carefully. For teams on Tableau or Power BI, the case is governance first and cost second.

Whatever you choose, make the business logic portable before you move it. At Unwind Data we start with a Logic Scan: in five working days we extract the logic from your current BI tool, show what is still used and give you a fixed price for the migration. Then you negotiate with Omni, or anyone else, knowing exactly what you need.