License and account type overview

Sigma’s licensing model includes three tiers that define the usage terms of your organization members: Lite, Essential, and Pro. Each license tier establishes a different set of available permissions that enable access to Sigma’s features and capabilities. These permissions are managed at a granular level using account types. For information about using account types, see Create and manage account types.

License tiers

The three license tiers provide different levels of service to accommodate your organization’s diverse user requirements and access control policies.

Lite license

The Lite license is suitable for report consumers who require access to prepared data and insights. This license tier allows members to view shared datasets, explorations, and workbooks. Lite-licensed members also have access to baseline interactions in explorations and workbooks, including the ability to update control values, sort column data, view aggregated underlying data, and create bookmarks.

Essential license

The Essential license is ideal for decision-making data consumers who require more deep-dive capabilities in published workbooks but don’t need to build workbooks themselves. This license tier includes all Lite license capabilities while also allowing members to drill into unaggregated underlying data, contribute to input tables, download workbook content, and schedule exports and alerts.

Pro license

The Pro license is designed for data architects, BI analysts, and report builders who model, transform, and analyze data. This license tier offers the full range of Sigma features and capabilities, including the ability to create and manage datasets, data models, and workbooks. The Pro license also supports system administrators who manage organization settings and members.

Account types

While license tiers establish the maximum range of available permissions that enable access to features and capabilities, account types determine the actual permissions and access your organization members are granted. Sigma provides four default account types (Admin, Pro, Essential, and Lite) and supports custom account types that enable or disable any combination of permissions within the constraints of the license tiers.

Sigma’s customizable account types add flexibility and scalability to the access control model by enabling your organization to manage license permissions at a granular level. This allows your organization to easily modify member access and adapt to the changes in your licensed user base and user requirements.

Account type permission availability matrix

The following table compares available account type permissions by license tier.

 LiteEssentialPro
Data warehouse
Connections

View connections

Browse connections, schemas, and database tables

nonoyes

Manage connections1

Create new connections and manage existing ones

(Automatically enables the View connections permission)

nonoyes
Tables

Annotate tables1

Annotate database tables (edit column details, metrics, and links)

nonoyes
Writeback
Input tables

Create input tables2

Create and edit input tables in workbooks

nonoyes
Materialization

Schedule materializations2

Create and edit materialization schedules

nonoyes
CSV

Upload CSV

Upload and analyze CSV data

nonoyes
Warehouse views

Create warehouse views2

Create warehouse views based on datasets and workbook elements

nonoyes
Data modeling
Datasets

View datasets2

View existing datasets and data models

yesyesyes

Create, edit, and publish datasets2

Create and manage datasets and data models

(Automatically enables the View datasets permission)

nonoyes
Features

Write SQL

Query a connected CDW or DBMS directly with SQL

nonoyes
Documents
Workbooks

View workbooks2

View and interact with explorations and published workbooks

yesyesyes

Can comment on workbooks4

View and add comments on workbooks

yesyesyes

Basic explore2,3

View and interact with explorations and published workbooks with added ability to drill into data, filter columns, enter input table data, and more

(Automatically enables the View workbooks permission)

noyesyes

Full explore2,3

Modify workbook elements to create custom views of published workbooks

(Automatically enables the Basic explore and View workbooks permissions)

nonoyes

Create, edit, and publish workbooks2

Create new workbooks and manage existing ones

(Automatically enables the Full explore, Basic explore, and View workbooks permissions)

nonoyes
Version tags

Apply tag2

Apply version tags to workbooks or data models

nonoyes
AI

Use AI features

Enables access to Explain Viz and other AI features.

nonoyes
Org management
Usage dashboard

View usage dashboard

View the organization dashboard

nonoyes

View SQL in usage dashboard

View raw SQL in the organization usage dashboard

(Automatically enables the View usage dashboard permission)

nonoyes
Customization

Manage all workbook themes and fonts

Create, edit, and delete workbook themes and custom fonts

nonoyes
Admin

Manage branding settings

Manage organization branding settings, including workbook themes, custom fonts, and system emails

nonoyes
Plugins

Manage plugins

Access plugin development features and manage custom plugins

nonoyes
Badges

Manage all badges

Add, change, and remove workbook badges (Endorsed, Warning, or Deprecated)

nonoyes
Sharing / folders
Sharing and exports

Download2

Immediately download entire workbooks, specific pages, and individual elements

noyesyes

Export to email2

Export entire workbooks, specific pages, and individual elements by email

(Automatically enables the Download permission)

noyesyes

Run exports as recipient2

Choose to run exports as the recipients.

(Automatically enables the Download and Export to Email permissions)

noyesyes

Export to Google Sheet2

Export data to Google Sheets spreadsheets

(Automatically enables the Download permission)

noyesyes

Export to Google Drive2

Export data to Google Drive folders

(Automatically enables the Download permission)

noyesyes

Export to Slack2

Export data to Slack channels

(Automatically enables the Download permission)

noyesyes

Schedule export2

Create, edit, and delete scheduled exports and alerts to send entire workbooks, specific pages, and individual elements

(Automatically enables the Download and Export to Email permissions)

noyesyes

Share documents2

Share folders and documents with organization members

nonoyes

Export to cloud2

Export data to Google Cloud Storage (GCS) or Amazon S3

(Automatically enables the Download permission)

nonoyes

Export to webhook2

Export data to webhook endpoints

(Automatically enables the Download permission)

nonoyes
Folders

Create new folders2

Create new personal, workspace, and shared folders

noyesyes

Contribute to shared folders2

Create new documents in workspaces and shared folders

nonoyes

Create new workspace

Create new organization workspaces

(Automatically enables the Contribute to shared folders and Share documents permissions)

nonoyes

1 Access to individual connections are determined by data permissions.

2 Access to individual datasets, data models, and workbooks are determined by folder and document permissions.

3 For a comprehensive comparison of user capabilities, see Basic explore vs. Full explore.

4 Enables the ability to add and view comments for all license tiers. Also enables screenshot capture and annotation in comments for Essential and Pro licenses only.