Azure Pricing Questions — Direct Answers

Azure Log Analytics pricing in UK South has two models: **Pay-As-You-Go (no commitment):** £2.12 per GB ingested - First 5GB per workspace per day is FREE - Billed per GB actually ingested - Best for: Variable or unpredictable workloads **Commitment Tiers (discounted rates):** - 100 GB/day: £196.73/month (£1.97/GB effective) - 200 GB/day: £368.20/month (£1.84/GB effective) - 300 GB/day: £539.67/month (£1.80/GB effective) - 400 GB/day: £687.97/month (£1.72/GB effective) - 500 GB/day: £812.21/month (£1.62/GB effective) **Additional costs:** - Interactive retention beyond 31 days: £0.10/GB/month - Archive retention: £0.02/GB/month - Search Jobs: £0.005/GB scanned - Restore: £4.90 per 2TB (minimum charge) **Azure Sentinel add-on:** Additional £1.95/GB for Sentinel features on top of Log Analytics costs.

**Storage Pricing Comparison (UK regions, per GB/month):** | Tier/Class | Azure Blob Storage | AWS S3 | Difference | |------------|-------------------|---------|------------| | Hot/Standard | £0.0184 | ~£0.020 | Azure 8% cheaper | | Cool/Infrequent | £0.0101 | ~£0.0125 | Azure 19% cheaper | | Archive | £0.00184 | ~£0.0024 | Azure 23% cheaper | **Operations Pricing (per 10,000 operations):** | Operation Type | Azure | AWS | Notes | |---------------|-------|-----|-------| | Write (Hot) | £0.0046 | ~£0.0047 | Similar | | Read (Hot) | £0.00037 | ~£0.00035 | Similar | | Write (Cool) | £0.0092 | ~£0.0125 | Azure 26% cheaper | | Archive Read | £0.00037 + £0.0157 retrieval | ~£0.00035 + £0.0025 retrieval | AWS cheaper retrieval | **Data Transfer (Egress):** - First 100GB/month: Both free - Beyond 100GB: Azure £0.07-£0.12/GB, AWS ~£0.09/GB **Key differences:** 1. Azure has 30-day minimum for Cool tier, 180-day for Archive 2. AWS Glacier Instant Retrieval has no minimum but higher retrieval cost 3. Azure offers soft-delete (free), AWS requires versioning (charged) **Recommendation:** For typical UK workloads under 10TB with moderate access, Azure is 5-15% cheaper overall. Use our calculator to model your exact scenario.

**Top 7 Azure Billing Traps causing unexpectedly high bills:** 1. **NAT Gateway Always-On** — £33.12/month even with zero traffic - Fix: Delete when not needed or use cheaper alternatives 2. **Log Analytics PAYG at Scale** — £2.12/GB adds up fast - 100GB/day = £6,360/month on PAYG - Same volume on Commitment = £2,361/month (62% savings) - Fix: Switch to commitment tier 3. **Archive Storage Rehydration** — £0.0157/GB to retrieve - Retrieving 1TB = £16.07 one-time fee - Frequent access makes Archive more expensive than Hot - Fix: Use Cool tier for data accessed >1x/month 4. **Blob Early Deletion Penalties** - Cool tier: 30-day minimum (£0.30/GB if deleted early) - Archive: 180-day minimum (£0.33/GB if deleted early) - Fix: Plan retention before selecting tier 5. **Log Analytics Restore Minimum** — £4,334.64 flat fee - Any restore operation charges for full 2TB - Restoring 1GB costs same as 2TB - Fix: Use Search Jobs for large historical queries 6. **Inter-Region Data Transfer** - Same region: FREE - Different regions: £0.07-£0.12/GB - Fix: Keep resources in same region (UK South) 7. **Azure Firewall or Application Gateway** - Firewall: ~£0.30/hour + £0.015/GB processed - App Gateway: ~£0.08/hour + capacity units - Fix: Use NSG rules when possible **Immediate actions to check:** - Review Cost Management for top 5 cost drivers - Check for idle NAT Gateways and Public IPs - Verify Log Analytics tier selection - Look for resources in unexpected regions Use our Invoice Reconciliation guide to verify estimates against your actual bill.

**Overall Cost Comparison (UK South vs London regions):** **Compute (VMs):** | Instance Type | Azure (UK South) | AWS (London) | Winner | |--------------|------------------|--------------|--------| | 2 vCPU, 8GB | ~£48/month | ~£52/month | Azure 8% | | 4 vCPU, 16GB | ~£95/month | ~£103/month | Azure 8% | | 8 vCPU, 32GB | ~£190/month | ~£205/month | Azure 7% | **Storage:** - Block storage: Azure 5-15% cheaper - Object storage: Azure 8-23% cheaper (see detailed comparison) **Licensing (Major Azure Advantage):** - **Azure Hybrid Benefit:** Save up to 85% on Windows Server, SQL Server - **AWS doesn't have equivalent** for Microsoft workloads - If you have existing MS licenses, Azure is significantly cheaper **Networking:** - Data transfer: Similar pricing (£0.07-0.12/GB) - Load balancer: Azure ~20% cheaper - VPN Gateway: Similar pricing **Where AWS Wins:** - Spot instances: More mature, deeper discounts - Reserved Instances: More flexible term options - Free tier: More generous for first year - Granular billing: Per-second vs Azure per-minute **Where Azure Wins:** - Microsoft workloads (SQL, Windows, Office 365 integration) - UK government/public sector (Crown Commercial Service agreements) - Enterprise agreements: Often better UK enterprise discounts **Recommendation:** - For Microsoft-centric workloads: Azure is 20-40% cheaper with Hybrid Benefit - For Linux/open-source workloads: Within 10%, choose based on features - For startups: AWS free tier more generous initially - For enterprises: Negotiate EA pricing on both, Azure often more flexible in UK

**Azure App Service Pricing (UK South, per month):** **Development/Testing:** | Tier | Cost | Specs | Best For | |------|------|-------|----------| | Free | £0 | 1GB RAM, 1h CPU/day | Dev/testing only | | Shared | £8.04 | 1GB RAM, 3h CPU/day | Small hobby projects | **Production (Dedicated):** | Tier | Cost | Specs | Best For | |------|------|-------|----------| | Basic B1 | £11.37 | 1.75GB RAM, 1 core | Small production apps | | Basic B2 | £22.74 | 3.5GB RAM, 2 cores | Medium workloads | | Basic B3 | £45.48 | 7GB RAM, 4 cores | CPU-intensive apps | | Standard S1 | £68.22 | 1.75GB RAM, 1 core | Load balancing, staging | | Standard S2 | £136.44 | 3.5GB RAM, 2 cores | Multi-instance apps | | Premium P1v4 | £48.88 | 3.5GB RAM, 2 cores | Better value than Basic | | Premium P2v4 | £97.76 | 7GB RAM, 4 cores | High traffic apps | | Premium P3v4 | £195.52 | 14GB RAM, 8 cores | Enterprise workloads | **Key Features by Tier:** - **Basic:** Custom domains, SSL, manual scale (up to 3 instances) - **Standard:** Auto-scale, staging slots, daily backups - **Premium:** VNet integration, faster scale-out, zone redundancy **Additional Costs:** - Custom domain SSL: FREE (managed certs) - IP-based SSL: £52.28/month (dedicated IP) - Bandwidth: First 100GB free, then £0.08/GB - Backup storage: £0.0184/GB/month (prorated) **Cost Optimization Tips:** 1. Premium v4 offers better price/performance than Basic 2. Use Reserved Instances: 1-year = ~40% off, 3-year = ~60% off 3. Dev/Test pricing: 50%+ discount with Visual Studio subscription 4. Auto-scale Standard/Premium: Scale to 1 instance during low traffic **Example scenarios:** - Small business website: Basic B1 (£11.37/mo) or Free tier - E-commerce app: Premium P1v4 (£48.88/mo) with auto-scale - Enterprise API: Premium P2v4 (£97.76/mo) with 2-3 instances