Azure VM Pricing Calculator

As you continue to use Azure cloud management services, it gets increasingly difficult to analyze and optimize the cost of your overall package. Frequently, there is a need to use more managed services, add more virtual machines and begin allocating resources automatically. However, using the Azure VM pricing calculator, it becomes easier and more efficient to measure and predict the cost of Azure cloud services according to variations in your current workload or new Azure deployments. In this article, we’ll go through Azure’s pricing model and show the way to use Azure pricing calculator to predict and control your Azure services costs.

Azure Pricing Calculator and its Features

Azure pricing calculator is an excellent tool for gaining real-time estimates for the cost of Azure cloud computing services. It allows users to create estimates with personal configuration for higher precision and can even access and modify estimates using a central dashboard. The Azure pricing calculator can also be used in combination with other similar Azure tools, such as cost optimization and TCO calculator. The Azure cost calculator offers several significant features, including:
  • Listing all Azure services and products, along with a short description and link to the main product page on the official website. The pages contain details of specifications and cost estimates for every Azure service and product.
  • Customizing services that need to be included according to specified storage needs, performance expectations, resource consumption and allocated budget. Even if you browse through and choose Azure services, the Azure pricing calculator lists your selection and keeps your progress up to date.
  • Allowing users to flip between product screens and cost estimates as they keep selecting different Azure services. The calculator displays the breakdown of costs on the estimate page for each service.
  • Letting you edit your parameters when you do not need service any longer, using the Estimate screen.

How does Azure’s price structure work?

To get the most out of the Azure VM pricing calculator, you must first know about Azure’s pricing structure. Check out the main aspects of Azure pricing structure for making a sound decision when it comes to keeping Azure costs within your budget.

Types of Virtual Machines (VMs)

General Purpose, Compute Optimized and Memory Optimized are the three main types of virtual machines offered by Azure. These are mostly offered on a reserved basis or through the pay-as-you-go method.
  • VM RI (Reserved Instance) – Under this, you can sign a contract of use for 1 to 3 years and can exchange contract time for up to 72% off on the actual price.
  • Pay As You Go – Under this, you only need to pay for virtual machines that are in use. The price structure is dependent on the number of CPUs or GPUs and the volume of memory available in GB.

Storage

There are several storage services with different pricing models offered by Azure, including:
  • Azure Blob Storage – The first 50 TB is charged as the base rate. If you use over the limit, Microsoft offers incredible discounts, especially if you use over 500 TB of drives. You can even exchange higher latency retrieval and pay a discounted rate for less frequently used data.
  • Azure Files – The basic price is set at US$ 0.24 / GB / month and additional cost is charged according to the number of operations that need to be performed on the data, options of data redundancy and the selected storage tier.
  • Azure NetApp Files – It comes in 3 tiers, with the Standard tier costing US$ 0.000202 / GB / hour, the Premium tier starting at US$ 0.000403 / GB / hour and the Ultra tier costing US$ 0.000528 / GB / hour.
  • Azure Table Storage – The prices for this start from US$ 0.045 / GB / month, with improved redundancy and data options cost extra.

Rating Frequency

Most services are charged on an hourly use basis, while some, including Container instances and Windows VMs are charged according to the user per second.
Azure VM Pricing

Azure VM Pricing

Price Matching

Publicly available pricing is comparable to similar AWS services.

Conclusion

All you need to do to use the Azure VM pricing calculator is to access the Azure pricing page, select the featured products you need and simply check the estimate of total services on your screen. See Also Azure storage pricing calculator

AUTHOR

Steve is a product-marketer and Engineer at Cloudysave who works with Cloud Management and Adoption team. Over the past years, he has collaborated with multiple teams to provide a robust and cost-effective architecture patterns to influence business and engineering decisions. His key areas of interests include Cloud Costs Management, Security and DevOps Best-Practices.