Azure Pricing Calculator

Q: What do LRS, ZRS, and GRS mean for storage?

LRS: keeps copies of your data in a single physical datacenter in one region. 6 Cheapest. ZRS: copies your data synchronously across three or more availability zones in one region. 6 GRS: also copies your data to a second region far away, so it costs more. RA-GRS: same as GRS, but you can also read the second copy, so it costs more again. More copies means more safety and a higher bill.

Introduction

The Azure Pricing Calculator estimates your monthly Microsoft Azure bill. Pick the services you plan to run, choose a region, and enter how much you will use them. The tool adds up the cost per hour, per month and per year.

It prices five common services: Virtual Machines, Managed Disks, Blob Storage, Bandwidth and Azure Functions. It uses Microsoft's published retail prices for 35 regions, and you can show them in 16 currencies.

Charts show where your money goes, a table lists every part of each price, and a comparison shows your whole estimate under each virtual machine pricing model. A step-by-step section shows the math behind every number, so you can check the work yourself.

How to use our Azure Pricing Calculator

Add the services you plan to run and fill in how much you will use them. The calculator shows your hourly, monthly and yearly cost, a cost breakdown, a pricing model comparison and ways to pay less.

Search services: Type a name, like "virtual machine" or "blob", to find a service in the catalog.

Category: Filter the catalog to Compute, Storage or Networking. Click a service to add it to your estimate.

Currency: Choose one of 16 currencies, such as USD, EUR, GBP, INR or JPY. Prices switch to Microsoft's list for that currency.

Region: Pick the Azure region where most of your services run. Each service can use a different region.

Virtual machine pricing model: Choose pay-as-you-go, a 1-year or 3-year reservation, a 1-year or 3-year savings plan, or Spot. Each virtual machine can use its own model.

Support plan: Add a paid support plan and its monthly fee goes into your total. Support plan prices are in US dollars, so this option works when the currency is USD.

Azure Hybrid Benefit: Turn this on if you own Windows Server licenses with Software Assurance. Windows virtual machines are then priced at the Linux rate.

Label, region and pricing model (per service): Name each service so your breakdown is easy to read, and change its region or pricing model if it differs from the global setting.

Virtual Machines: Choose Linux or Windows, a series and a size, how many machines, the hours they run each month, an OS disk and any data disks.

Managed Disks: Choose Premium SSD, Standard SSD or Standard HDD, a disk size and how many disks.

Blob Storage: Choose the access tier and redundancy, then enter the data you store and how many read and write operations you expect. For Cool, Cold and Archive, also enter the data you expect to read back.

Bandwidth: Enter the data you send out to the internet and to other Azure regions on the same continent, and choose how internet traffic is routed.

Azure Functions: Enter the runs per month, the average run time and the memory each run uses on the Consumption plan.

Calculate: Click to update your totals, charts, breakdown and step-by-step math. Click Reset to go back to the sample setup.

Azure Cloud Cost Estimating: What You Need to Know

Microsoft Azure is a cloud platform. Instead of buying servers, you rent computing power, storage and networking from Microsoft data centers. You pay for what you use, so the bill changes every month.

How Azure Pricing Works

Each service is billed by its own unit. Virtual machines are billed per hour. Managed disks have a price per disk per month. Blob Storage is billed per gigabyte stored each month, plus a charge for every 10,000 operations. Data sent out to the internet is billed per gigabyte, and the Data Transfer Calculator helps you size that volume. Azure Functions on the Consumption plan is billed for runs and for resource use in gigabyte-seconds.

Microsoft counts a month as 730 hours: 24 hours times 365 days, divided by 12 months.⁷ A machine that never turns off runs 730 hours a month.

Prices depend on the region. The same virtual machine can cost more in one region than in another, so compare regions before you choose. Rules about where your data must be stored may limit your choice.

Microsoft sets the price of every Azure service in US dollars, and the prices it lists in other currencies are for reference.¹³

Pricing Models for Virtual Machines

Pay-as-you-go: The full hourly price, only for the hours a machine runs. There is no promise to keep using it.
Reservations: You commit to a machine size in a region for one or three years. Microsoft says reservations can cut costs by up to 72% compared to pay-as-you-go pricing, with one-year or three-year terms.¹
Savings plans: You commit to spend a fixed amount each hour for one or three years, and eligible use is billed at lower prices until that amount is used up.
Spot: Unused Azure capacity at discounts of up to 90% compared to pay-as-you-go prices.² Azure evicts Spot machines when it no longer has spare capacity, so use Spot only for work that can stop and restart.²

Reservations and savings plans are paid for every hour of the term. A reservation hour with no matching machine is lost, and unused reserved hours cannot be carried forward.¹⁰ Unused savings plan commitment for an hour expires and does not roll over.¹¹ That is why the calculator prices them at 730 hours a month, whatever hours you enter.

Reservation discounts cover the machine itself, not its software. A Windows virtual machine without Azure Hybrid Benefit still pays the Windows license charge on top.¹²

Storage Tiers

Blob Storage has Hot, Cool, Cold and Archive tiers. Colder tiers cost less to store data but more to read it back. A blob moved to the Cool, Cold or Archive tier is charged for at least 30, 90 or 180 days, even if you delete it sooner.⁸

Blob Storage counts 1 TB as 1,024 GB.⁸ Hot storage gets cheaper per gigabyte after the first 50 TB and again after 500 TB each month.⁸

Data Transfer

Data coming into Azure is free.⁴ Data going out to the internet is not, although the first 100 GB each month is free.⁴ After that, the price per gigabyte drops in steps as your monthly total grows, and these steps count 1 TB as 1,000 GB.⁴

Moving data between Azure regions costs $0.02 per GB within North America or within Europe, and $0.16 per GB within South America.⁴

Azure Functions

On the Consumption plan, the first 1 million runs and 400,000 GB-seconds each month are free for each subscription.⁹ Memory is rounded up to the nearest 128 MB, up to 1,536 MB, and each run counts at least 100 ms.⁹

Ways to Pay Less

Commit to steady machines: Machines that run all month often cost less on a reservation or savings plan. The pricing model comparison shows the difference for your setup.
Use Spot for restartable work: Batch jobs and tests that can stop at any time can run on Spot.
Azure Hybrid Benefit: If you already own Windows Server or SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance, you drop the license part of the price.³
Pick the right disk: Standard SSD costs less than Premium SSD of the same size. Pay for Premium when you need its speed.
Move cold data: Put files you rarely open in the Cool, Cold or Archive tier.
Run machines only when needed: Pay-as-you-go machines are billed for the hours they run, so dev and test machines that run only in work hours cost less.

Extra Costs People Forget

A virtual machine is never just the machine. It needs an OS disk and often data disks, and it may add backups, a public IP address and outbound data. This calculator covers the machine, its disks, Blob Storage, data transfer and Azure Functions. Support plans are separate too: Developer is $29 a month, Standard $100 a month, and Professional Direct $1,000 a month.⁵

Formulas used

Hourly rate under a 1-year or 3-year reservation (total price spread over the term; Windows adds its license rate)

r_{\text{1yr}} = \frac{T_{\text{1yr}}}{8760} + L_{\text{win}}, \quad r_{\text{3yr}} = \frac{T_{\text{3yr}}}{26280} + L_{\text{win}}

Virtual machine monthly cost (compute + OS disks + data disks; reservations and savings plans use H = 730)

C_{\text{VM}} = r \times H \times N + P_{\text{os}} \times N + P_{\text{data}} \times D \times N

Blob Storage cost (tiered capacity + write and read operations + data retrieval)

C_{\text{blob}} = \sum_{k} G_k \times p_k + W \times p_{w} + R \times p_{r} + X \times p_{x}

Tiered internet data out (first 100 GB free; tiers count 1 TB as 1,000 GB)

C_{\text{egress}} = \sum_{k} \min\!\left(\max(0,\,G - b_{k-1}),\, b_k - b_{k-1}\right) \times p_k

Azure Functions Consumption plan cost (d = run time rounded up, at least 100 ms; M = memory rounded up to 128 MB steps, 128 to 1,536 MB)

C_{\text{fn}} = \max\!\left(0,\, E \times \frac{d}{1000} \times \frac{M}{1024} - 400000\right) \times p_{g} + \max\!\left(0,\, \frac{E - 10^6}{10}\right) \times p_{e}

Managed disk monthly cost (price per disk per month times number of disks)

C_{\text{disk}} = P_{\text{tier}} \times N

Grand totals (monthly, hourly, yearly) ⁷

C_{\text{month}} = \sum_j C_{j} + C_{\text{support}}, \quad C_{\text{hour}} = \frac{C_{\text{month}}}{730}, \quad C_{\text{year}} = 12\,C_{\text{month}}

Frequently asked questions

Does the estimate include tax or VAT?

No. The totals are before tax. Add your local tax rate on top of the monthly figure to see what you will really pay.

Can I add the same service more than once?

Yes. Click the service in the catalog again, or press the copy button on a service card. This is useful when you run two groups of virtual machines with different sizes.

Give each one a short label so your cost breakdown is easy to read.

How many hours should I enter if my VM only runs in work hours?

Count the hours you keep it on. 8 hours a day for 5 days a week is about 173 hours a month. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week is about 365 hours.

A full month that never stops is 730 hours. Reservations and savings plans are paid for all 730 hours, whatever hours you enter.

What do LRS, ZRS, and GRS mean for storage?

LRS: keeps copies of your data in a single physical datacenter in one region.⁶ Cheapest.
ZRS: copies your data synchronously across three or more availability zones in one region.⁶
GRS: also copies your data to a second region far away, so it costs more.
RA-GRS: same as GRS, but you can also read the second copy, so it costs more again.

More copies means more safety and a higher bill.

Does Azure Hybrid Benefit help a Linux VM?

No. Hybrid Benefit removes the Windows Server or SQL Server licence charge. Linux VMs have no Windows licence, so the price does not change.

Are free monthly amounts included?

Yes. The first 100 GB of internet data out each month is free.⁴ For Azure Functions, the first 1 million runs and 400,000 GB-seconds each month are free for each subscription.⁹ The tool shares that free amount across all the Azure Functions entries in your estimate.

My service is not in the catalog. What do I do?

This calculator covers Virtual Machines, Managed Disks, Blob Storage, Bandwidth and Azure Functions. Other Azure services have their own prices on Microsoft's pricing pages.

Do I need a support plan in my estimate?

Only if you want a paid Microsoft support plan. The plan fee is added to your monthly total. Set it to No paid support plan if you do not need one. Support plan prices are in US dollars, so the option works when the currency is USD.

Why is Archive storage cheap but risky for cost?

Archive holds data for very little each month, but reading it back costs more. Setting a blob from Archive to Hot or Cool typically takes up to 15 hours to complete.⁸ Use Archive for records you almost never open, not for files your app needs today.

Sources

Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances. Microsoft. Cost savings. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Azure Spot Virtual Machines. Microsoft. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Azure Hybrid Benefit. Microsoft. FAQ. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Bandwidth pricing. Microsoft. Data transfer; Internet egress. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Compare support plans. Microsoft. Price. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Azure Storage redundancy. Microsoft. Redundancy in the primary region. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Managed Disks pricing. Microsoft. Ultra Disk pricing note on 730 hours per month. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Azure Blob Storage pricing. Microsoft. Data storage prices; Early deletion penalty. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Azure Functions pricing. Microsoft. Consumption plan. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Understand Azure Reserved VM Instances discount. Microsoft. How reservation discount is applied. Accessed September 29, 2026.

What are savings plans? Microsoft. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Software costs not included with Azure Reserved VM Instances. Microsoft. Accessed September 29, 2026.

Azure Retail Prices REST API overview. Microsoft. Accessed September 29, 2026.

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