Azure Cost Calculator
Estimate your monthly Microsoft Azure infrastructure cost for common services.
About the Azure Cost Calculator
Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud platform globally, serving enterprise customers across every industry. Understanding Azure pricing is essential for architects, DevOps engineers, and finance teams managing cloud budgets. This tool provides a quick ballpark estimate — for precise quotes, use the official Azure Pricing Calculator.
Azure VM Pricing
Azure Virtual Machines are priced per compute hour. Rates vary by VM series, region, and OS. Rough estimates using East US pricing (2024): General purpose (D-series) VMs run approximately $0.05–0.20/hour per vCPU, depending on configuration. Memory-optimized (E-series) costs more per vCPU but less per GB RAM. Always evaluate Reserved Instances (1-year or 3-year commitment) for up to 72% savings over pay-as-you-go pricing.
Azure Storage Pricing
Azure Blob Storage: ~$0.018/GB/month (hot tier) | Azure Managed Disk (SSD): ~$0.10–0.15/GB/month | Azure Files: ~$0.06/GB/month | Premium SSD: ~$0.17/GB/month. Tiered storage (hot, cool, archive) lets you significantly reduce costs for infrequently accessed data.
Bandwidth Costs
Inbound data to Azure: Free. Outbound (egress) from Azure: First 100 GB/month free, then ~$0.087/GB up to 10 TB/month. High-egress workloads (video streaming, large file downloads) can make bandwidth the dominant cost — consider Azure CDN to reduce egress charges.
Cost Optimization Tips
Azure Reserved Instances: Commit to 1 or 3 years for up to 72% savings. Azure Spot Instances: Use for fault-tolerant, batch workloads at up to 90% discount. Azure Hybrid Benefit: Use existing Windows Server or SQL Server licenses to save up to 49%. Auto-shutdown: Stop dev/test VMs outside working hours. Right-sizing: Azure Advisor continuously analyzes your usage and flags oversized resources.
Azure vs. AWS vs. GCP
Azure is typically competitive with AWS for Windows workloads (Hybrid Benefit helps greatly) and dominates enterprise Microsoft shop integrations (Active Directory, Office 365). For Linux and open-source stacks, compare all three platforms using this calculator family.