I spent an hour on the phone with them yesterday, there are no viewer accounts. Basically I have Server, but it needs a named license to view. Named licenses are 1k down, $200 per year. To get a viewer account or to embed the content elsewhere for viewing I need a different kind of Tableau Server (core-based), of which there is no mention on the sales or pricing pages, but it starts at 72k/yr (non-profit pricing).
My completely misguided understanding was that I would pay for Desktop for the analysts, and Server was where folks could view the stuff. I was wrong. So everyone is now double-licensed, Desktop to do their work, Server to publish their work, and no-one but the very same analysts can actually look at the dashboards unless I add $1k licenses for everyone who needs to see data.
I feel your pain. We're running into that issue and it just absolutely blows my mind why they have this pricing model in place especially when all people care about is data - be it on Tableau Server or through email.
My completely misguided understanding was that I would pay for Desktop for the analysts, and Server was where folks could view the stuff. I was wrong. So everyone is now double-licensed, Desktop to do their work, Server to publish their work, and no-one but the very same analysts can actually look at the dashboards unless I add $1k licenses for everyone who needs to see data.