Pricing & Support
Pricing Models
| Model | Discount | Commitment | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | None | None | Testing, unpredictable workloads |
| Reserved Instances | 30–72% | 1 or 3 years, upfront | Stable, long-running workloads |
| Spot VMs | Up to 90% | None (can be evicted) | Fault-tolerant batch jobs |
| Dev/Test pricing | 40–55% | Visual Studio subscription | Non-production only |
Exam: Spot VMs can be evicted at any time. Never use for production databases.
What Affects Cost
Compute: VM size × hours running (stop = no charge if deallocated)
Storage: GB stored + tier (hot/cool/archive) + operations
Networking: Ingress (IN) = FREE | Egress (OUT) = charged
Database: DTUs or vCores + storage
Key Rules
- Deallocated VM = no compute charge (still pays for storage)
- Data ingress = always free
- Data egress = costs money — minimise cross-region transfers
- Region matters — US East is generally cheapest; Australia / Brazil most expensive
- Windows VMs cost more than Linux (OS licensing)
Cost Management Tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Azure Pricing Calculator | Estimate cost before you deploy |
| TCO Calculator | Compare on-prem vs Azure total cost |
| Cost Management + Billing | Track real spending, set budgets, get alerts |
| Azure Advisor | Recommendations to reduce waste |
Exam: Pricing Calculator = estimate future cost. TCO Calculator = justify moving to cloud. Cost Management = track actual spend.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
An SLA is Microsoft’s uptime guarantee. If they miss it, you get service credits.
| SLA | Max downtime/month | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| 99.9% | ~43 minutes | Single instance VM |
| 99.95% | ~22 minutes | 2+ VMs in Availability Set |
| 99.99% | ~4 minutes | 2+ VMs across Availability Zones |
How to Improve Your SLA
- Use multiple instances (never single VM in production)
- Deploy across Availability Zones (not just Availability Sets)
- Use managed PaaS services (they handle HA for you)
- Use region pairs for geo-redundancy
Exam: A single VM has an SLA. Two VMs in an Availability Set have a better SLA. Two VMs across Zones have the best SLA.
Composite SLA
When services depend on each other, multiply their SLAs:
App Service (99.95%) × SQL Database (99.99%) = 99.94% composite
The weakest link reduces your overall availability.
Azure Support Plans
| Plan | Monthly Cost | Critical Response | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | Community only | Learning |
| Developer | ~$29 | < 8 hours | Dev/test |
| Standard | ~$100 | < 1 hour | Production |
| Professional Direct | ~$1,000 | < 15 minutes | Business-critical |
| Premier/Unified | Custom | < 15 minutes | Enterprise |
Exam: Production workloads = Standard minimum. Standard includes 24/7 support for critical issues.
Azure Free Account
| Offer | Details |
|---|---|
| Credit | $200 USD for first 30 days |
| Free 12 months | Select services (VM B1s, 5 GB storage, SQL DB, etc.) |
| Always free | 55+ services with monthly limits |
Always-free examples:
- Azure Functions: 1 million executions/month
- App Service: 10 apps (F1 tier)
- Cosmos DB: 1,000 RU/s + 25 GB
- Azure DevOps: 5 users
Factors in Total Cost
- Resource type — VMs cost more than storage
- Consumption — More use = more cost
- Region — Prices vary by region
- Bandwidth — Egress is expensive
- Reserved vs pay-as-you-go — Reservations save 30–72%
- Licensing — Azure Hybrid Benefit (use existing Windows/SQL licences)
Azure Hybrid Benefit
- Use your existing on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server licences in Azure
- Save up to 40% on VMs and 55% on SQL Database
- Requires Software Assurance
Exam Checklist
- Name the 3 main pricing models and tradeoffs
- Explain what affects egress cost (and that ingress is free)
- Calculate a composite SLA
- Match support plan to scenario (dev, prod, enterprise)
- Describe the Azure free account limits
- Explain Azure Hybrid Benefit