Skip to main content

Azure Backup pricing

Simplify data protection with built-in backup management at scale

Azure Backup is an Azure-based service you can use to back up (or protect) and restore your data in the Microsoft cloud.

Explore pricing options

Apply filters to customize pricing options to your needs.

Prices are estimates only and are not intended as actual price quotes. Actual pricing may vary depending on the type of agreement entered with Microsoft, date of purchase, and the currency exchange rate. Prices are calculated based on US dollars and converted using London closing spot rates that are captured in the two business days prior to the last business day of the previous month end. If the two business days prior to the end of the month fall on a bank holiday in major markets, the rate setting day is generally the day immediately preceding the two business days. This rate applies to all transactions during the upcoming month. Sign in to the Azure pricing calculator to see pricing based on your current program/offer with Microsoft. Contact an Azure sales specialist for more information on pricing or to request a price quote. See frequently asked questions about Azure pricing.

Backup for Azure VMs

Prices listed below are applicable when backing up your IaaS VMs.

The size of the backed-up data determines the pricing for Azure Backup in each protected instance before compression and encryption.

  • For virtual machines (VM), the size calculation is based on actual (used) size of VM. This is the sum of all data in the VM, excluding temporary storage.
  • When backing-up files and folders, the size of the files and folders configured for backup determine the data size.
  • When backing-up SQL Server, the size of the databases configured for backup determine the data size.
Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month
Instance < or = 50 GB $- + storage consumed
Instance is > 50 GB but < or = 500 GB $- + storage consumed
Instance is > 500 GB $- for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed

Example: If you have 1.2 TB of data in one instance, then the cost would be $- plus storage consumed. You would be charged $- for each of the two 500 GB increments and $- for the remaining 200 GB data.

Backup Storage

Backup Storage is an auto-scaling, reliable set of storage accounts managed by Azure Backup and isolated from customer tenants to provide additional security. Charges for storage are separate from the cost of Azure Backup Protected Instances.

By default, all backup data protected by Azure Backup go into the Standard tier. For backups with long term retention (monthly and yearly backups with retention longer than 6 months), you have the option to move them to the Archive tier. Learn more.

In Standard tier, you have the flexibility to choose between locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS) or geo-redundant storage (GRS) for your backups. If you enable cross-region-restore, we upgrade your backup storage from GRS to read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS).

Your backup data can be moved to Archive tier via policy or by running specific PowerShell commands on chosen backups.

Instant Restore option creates snapshots that are present in Disks and are charged as Disk snapshots. Learn more.

Standard Tier Archive Tier
LRS $- per GB $- per GB
ZRS $- per GB N/A
GRS $- per GB $- per GB
RA-GRS $- per GB $- per GB

Azure Backup Storage Reserved Capacity

Backup Storage Reserved Capacity helps you lower your backup data storage cost by committing to one-year or three-years of Azure Backup Storage. Reserved capacity can be purchased in increments of 100 TB and 1 PB sizes for 1-year and 3-year commitment duration. All prices are for the entire term of reservation. For more information, please see documentation.

1-year reserved 3-year reserved
Standard Tier Standard Tier
100 TB / month 1 PB / month 100 TB / month 1 PB / month
LRS $- $- $- $-
GRS $- $- $- $-
RA-GRS $- $- $- $-

Early deletion

In addition to the per-GB, per-month charge, any backup data that is moved to the Archive tier is subject to an Archive early deletion period of 180 days. This charge is prorated. For example, if a backup is moved to the Archive tier and then a “Stop Protection and Delete data” is performed on the associated datasource, you will be charged an early deletion fee for 135 (180 minus 45) days of Backup Storage in Archive tier.

Rehydration

Restoring from the Standard tier of Backup Storage is free of charge and does not incur any transaction or egress charges. However, when you restore data from the Archive tier, a one-time data retrieval fee is charged. The charges are same as the data retrieval charges for Azure Blob storage. Learn more.

On-premises servers

Prices listed below are applicable when using any of the following backup solutions – Azure Backup (MARS) agent, System Center DPM or Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) to backup your servers, files and folders or SQL servers.

The size of the backed-up data determines the pricing for Azure Backup in each protected instance before compression and encryption.

  • For virtual machines (VM), the size calculation is based on actual (used) size of VM. This is the sum of all data in the VM, excluding temporary storage.
  • When backing-up files and folders, the size of the files and folders configured for backup determine the data size.
  • When backing-up SQL Server, the size of the databases configured for backup determine the data size.
Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month
Instance < or = 50 GB $- + storage consumed
Instance is > 50 GB but < or = 500 GB $- + storage consumed
Instance is > 500 GB $- for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed

Example: If you have 1.2 TB of data in one instance, then the cost would be $- plus storage consumed. You would be charged $- for each of the two 500 GB increments and $- for the remaining 200 GB data.

Backup Storage

Backup Storage is an auto-scaling, reliable set of storage accounts managed by Azure Backup and isolated from customer tenants to provide additional security You have the flexibility to choose between locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS) or geo-redundant storage (GRS) for your backups. Azure Backup uses Blob storage for storing your backups. Charges for storage are separate from the cost of Azure Backup Protected Instances.

Archive tier support is not available for on-premises server backups.

Standard Tier Archive Tier
LRS $- per GB N/A
ZRS $- per GB N/A
GRS $- per GB N/A
RA-GRS N/A N/A

Azure Backup Storage Reserved Capacity

Backup Storage Reserved Capacity helps you lower your backup data storage cost by committing to one-year or three-years of Azure Backup Storage. Reserved capacity can be purchased in increments of 100 TB and 1 PB sizes for 1-year and 3-year commitment duration. All prices are for the entire term of reservation. For more information, please see documentation.

1-year reserved 3-year reserved
Standard Tier Standard Tier
100 TB / month 1 PB / month 100 TB / month 1 PB / month
LRS $- $- $- $-
GRS $- $- $- $-
RA-GRS $- $- $- $-

Backup for SQL Server on Azure VMs

The size of the backed-up data before compression and encryption determines the billing for using Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VMs

  • When backing-up SQL Server running on an Azure VM, the size of the databases configured for backup determines the size of each instance.
  • When backing-up SQL Server availability groups, the size of the databases configured for backup on an availability group determines the size of each instance.
Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month
Instance < or = 500 GB $- + storage consumed
Instance is > 500 GB $- for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed

Example: If you have 1.2 TB of data in one instance, then the cost would be $- plus storage consumed. You would be charged $- for two 500 GB increments and $- for the remaining 200 GB data.

Backup Storage

Backup Storage is an auto-scaling, reliable set of storage accounts managed by Azure Backup and isolated from customer tenants to provide additional security. Azure Backup uses Blob storage for storing your backups. Charges for storage are separate from the cost of Azure Backup Protected Instances.

By default, all backup data protected by Azure Backup go into the Standard tier. For backups with long term retention (monthly and yearly backups with retention longer than 6 months), you have the option to move them to the Archive tier. Learn more.

In Standard tier, you have the flexibility to choose between locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS) or geo-redundant storage (GRS) for your backups. If you enable cross-region-restore, we upgrade your backup storage from GRS to read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS).

Storage in GB/Month LRS ZRS GRS RA-GRS
Standard Tier $- per GB $- per GB $- per GB $- per GB
Archive Tier $- per GB N/A $- per GB N/A

Azure Backup Storage Reserved Capacity

Backup Storage Reserved Capacity helps you lower your backup data storage cost by committing to one-year or three-years of Azure Backup Storage. Reserved capacity can be purchased in increments of 100 TB and 1 PB sizes for 1-year and 3-year commitment duration. All prices are for the entire term of reservation. For more information, please see documentation.

1-year reserved 3-year reserved
Standard Tier Standard Tier
100 TB / month 1 PB / month 100 TB / month 1 PB / month
LRS $- $- $- $-
GRS $- $- $- $-
RA-GRS $- $- $- $-

Early deletion

In addition to the per-GB, per-month charge, any backup data that is moved to the Archive tier is subject to an Archive early deletion period of 180 days. This charge is prorated. For example, if a backup is moved to the Archive tier and then a “Stop Protection and Delete data” is performed on the associated datasource, you will be charged an early deletion fee for 135 (180 minus 45) days of Backup Storage in Archive tier.

Rehydration

Restoring from the Standard tier of Backup Storage is free of charge and does not incur any transaction or egress charges. However, when you restore data from the Archive tier, a one-time data retrieval fee is charged. The charges are same as the data retrieval charges for Azure Blob storage. Learn more.

Backup for SAP HANA on Azure VMs

The size of the backed-up data before compression and encryption determines the billing for using Azure Backup for SAP HANA DBs on Azure VMs. Currently, backup is supported for only scale-up deployment i.e. SAP HANA server in a single Azure VM.

Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month
Instance < or = 500 GB $- + storage consumed
Instance > 500 GB $- for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed

Example: If you have 1.2 TB of data in one instance, then the cost would be $- plus storage consumed. You would be charged $- for each of the two 500 GB increments and $- for the remaining 200 GB data.

Backup Storage

Backup Storage is an auto-scaling, reliable set of storage accounts managed by Azure Backup and isolated from customer tenants to provide additional security. Azure Backup uses Blob storage for storing your backups. Charges for storage are separate from the cost of Azure Backup Protected Instances.

By default, all backup data protected by Azure Backup go into the Standard tier. For backups with long term retention (monthly and yearly backups with retention longer than 6 months), you have the option to move them to the Archive tier. Learn more.

In Standard tier, you have the flexibility to choose between locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS) or geo-redundant storage (GRS) for your backups. If you enable cross-region-restore, we upgrade your backup storage from GRS to read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS).

Storage in GB/Month LRS ZRS GRS RA-GRS
Standard Tier $- per GB $- per GB $- per GB $- per GB
Archive Tier $- per GB N/A $- per GB N/A

Azure Backup Storage Reserved Capacity

Backup Storage Reserved Capacity helps you lower your backup data storage cost by committing to one-year or three-years of Azure Backup Storage. Reserved capacity can be purchased in increments of 100 TB and 1 PB sizes for 1-year and 3-year commitment duration. All prices are for the entire term of reservation. For more information, please see documentation.

1-year reserved 3-year reserved
Standard Tier Standard Tier
100 TB / month 1 PB / month 100 TB / month 1 PB / month
LRS $- $- $- $-
GRS $- $- $- $-
RA-GRS $- $- $- $-

Early deletion

In addition to the per-GB, per-month charge, any backup data that is moved to the Archive tier is subject to an Archive early deletion period of 180 days. This charge is prorated. For example, if a backup is moved to the Archive tier and then a “Stop Protection and Delete data” is performed on the associated datasource, you will be charged an early deletion fee for 135 (180 minus 45) days of Backup Storage in Archive tier.

Rehydration

Restoring from the Standard tier of Backup Storage is free of charge and does not incur any transaction or egress charges. However, when you restore data from the Archive tier, a one-time data retrieval fee is charged. The charges are same as the data retrieval charges for Azure Blob storage. Learn more.

Backup for Azure Files

Azure Backup offers a Snapshot Management solution for protecting Azure Files. The snapshot data created by Azure Backup is present in your Storage account and incurs snapshot storage charges. This data is not moved to a Recovery Services Vault.

An Azure Files Protected instance is defined as the Storage Account that holds backed up Azure Files shares.

  • The combined size of all backed-up Azure File Shares in a Storage Account determines the instance size while using the Snapshot management for Azure Files.
  • Azure Backup uses Azure File Share snapshots for creating recovery points.
Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month
Instance is > 250 GB $-
Instance < or = 250 GB 60% of Azure Files Protected Instances price per month

Backup for Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Azure Backup and Azure Database Services have come together to build an enterprise-class backup solution for Azure Database for PostgreSQL servers that retains backups for up to 10 years. Please refer to our support matrix to understand the features supported currently.

Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month
Instance cost per 250 GB $- + storage consumed

Backup Storage

Backup Storage is an auto-scaling, reliable set of storage accounts managed by Azure Backup and isolated from customer tenants to provide additional security. Charges for storage are separate from the cost of Azure Backup Protected Instances.

By default, all backup data protected by Azure Backup go into the Standard tier. For backups with long term retention (monthly and yearly backups with retention longer than 6 months), you have the option to move them to the Archive tier. Learn more.

In Standard tier, you have the flexibility to choose between locally redundant storage (LRS), zone redundant storage (ZRS) or geo-redundant storage (GRS) for your backups.

Your backup data can be moved to Archive tier via policy or by running specific PowerShell commands on chosen backups.

Storage in GB/Month LRS ZRS GRS RA-GRS
Standard Tier $- per GB $- per GB $- per GB N/A per GB
Archive Tier $- per GB N/A per GB $- per GB N/A per GB

Azure Backup Storage Reserved Capacity

Backup Storage Reserved Capacity helps you lower your backup data storage cost by committing to one-year or three-years of Azure Backup Storage. Reserved capacity can be purchased in increments of 100 TB and 1 PB sizes for 1-year and 3-year commitment duration. All prices are for the entire term of reservation. For more information, please see documentation.

1-year reserved 3-year reserved
Standard Tier Standard Tier
100 TB / month 1 PB / month 100 TB / month 1 PB / month
LRS $- $- $- $-
GRS $- $- $- $-
RA-GRS $- $- $- $-

Early deletion

In addition to the per-GB, per-month charge, any backup data that is moved to the Archive tier is subject to an Archive early deletion period of 180 days. This charge is prorated. For example, if a backup is moved to the Archive tier and then a “Stop Protection and Delete data” is performed on the associated datasource, you will be charged an early deletion fee for 135 (180 minus 45) days of Backup Storage in Archive tier.

Rehydration

Restoring from the Standard tier of Backup Storage is free of charge and does not incur any transaction or egress charges. However, when you restore data from the Archive tier, a one-time data retrieval fee is charged. The charges are same as the data retrieval charges for Azure Blob storage. Learn more.

Backup for Azure Blobs

Operational backup for blobs is a managed, local data protection solution that lets you protect your block blobs from various data loss scenarios like corruptions, blob deletions, and accidental storage account deletion. The backup data is not stored in a Backup Vault. To learn more about operational backup for blobs see blobs documentation.

You won't incur any management charges or instance fee when using operational backup for blobs. However, you will incur the following charges:

Backup for Azure Disks

Azure Backup uses incremental snapshots of the managed disk. Incremental snapshots are charged per GiB of the storage occupied by the delta changes since the last snapshot. The snapshots created by Azure Backup are stored in the resource group within your Azure subscription and incur Snapshot Storage charges. For more details about the snapshot pricing, see Managed Disk Pricing. Because the snapshots aren't copied to the Backup Vault, Azure Backup doesn't charge a Protected Instance fee and Backup Storage cost doesn't apply.

Incremental snapshots are always stored on standard storage, irrespective of the storage type of parent-managed disks and are charged based on the pricing of standard storage. For example, incremental snapshots of a Premium SSD-Managed Disk are stored on standard storage. By default, they are stored on ZRS in regions that support ZRS. Otherwise, they are stored on locally redundant storage (LRS). The per GiB pricing of both the options, LRS and ZRS, is the same.

Backup for Azure Kubernetes Service

Azure Backup offers Kubernetes aware backup solution allowing customers to protect containerized applications and data within Persistent Volumes deployed in an AKS cluster. The backup data created by Azure Backup is stored in your storage account and incurs blob storage charges and volumes are stored as Disk snapshots incurring disk snapshot charges.

An AKS Protected instance is defined as the AKS Cluster being configured for backup.

  • The protected instance fees is determined by number of Namespaces within AKS cluster selected to be backed up within a Protected Instance.
AKS Protected Instance Azure Backup price per month
Namespaces in each instance $- per Namespace

Azure pricing and purchasing options

Connect with us directly

Get a walkthrough of Azure pricing. Understand pricing for your cloud solution, learn about cost optimization and request a custom proposal.

Talk to a sales specialist

See ways to purchase

Purchase Azure services through the Azure website, a Microsoft representative, or an Azure partner.

Explore your options

Additional resources

Azure Backup

Learn more about Azure Backup features and capabilities.

Pricing calculator

Estimate your expected monthly costs for using any combination of Azure products.

SLA

Review the Service Level Agreement for Azure Backup.

Documentation

Review technical tutorials, videos, and more Azure Backup resources.

High-level overview

  • The new pricing model for Azure Backup has two components:

    • Protected instances: This is the primary billing unit for Azure Backup. Customers pay for the number of instances that are protected with the Azure backup service
    • Storage: Customers can choose between Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) or Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) for their backup vault. The net price for Storage depends on the amount of data stored with the service.

    These two components appear as separate line items on the monthly Azure bill.

  • A protected instance refers to the computer, physical or virtual server you use to configure the backup to Azure. An instance is protected once you configure a backup policy for the computer, server, or database, and create a backup copy of the data. Subsequent copies of the backup data change the amount of storage consumed, but additional backup copies don’t add to the number of protected instances. Some common examples of protected instances are virtual machines, application servers, and personal computers running the Windows operating system. For example:

    • A virtual machine running the Hyper-V or Azure IaaS hypervisor fabric. The guest operating systems for these virtual machines can be Windows Server or Linux.
    • An application server with physical or a virtual machine running Windows Server and workloads with data to backup. Common workloads are Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange server, Microsoft SharePoint server, Microsoft Dynamics, and the File Server role on Windows Server. To back-up or protect these workloads, you’ll need Azure Backup Server or System Center Data Protection Manager, DPM.
    • A personal computer running the Windows operating system.
    • SQL Server which includes all databases on the server.

    If you choose to backup a virtual machine hypervisor fabric and its guest workload, the hypervisor fabric and the guest workload are treated as separate protected instances and are charged independently.

  • No, from a billing perspective, instances are classified into three categories based on the size of the instance. The price per protected instance depends on the categorization of the instance in the pricing table above. Note that the prices in the above table do not include Storage which is a separate charge.

  • Customers will not be charged for any restore operations or outbound network bandwidth (egress) that is associated with restore operations.

  • The new pricing will be applicable to all Azure Backup customers.

Protected Instances

  • No, usage is prorated based on the number of days in a month that an instance has been protected.

  • All data stored with Azure Backup is billed per the backup storage rates listed above, for the duration that the data is kept with Azure Backup. However, increasing retention does not impact the software price for protected instances that you pay. Note that you must have the latest Azure Backup agent installed on the machine to ensure this behavior.

  • For as long as your data is retained with Azure Backup, you will continue to pay for both Protected Instances and Storage. Your Protected Instances bill is based on the size from the last successful backup before you decided to stop protection. Your Storage bill is based on the total amount of data stored in the backup vault for that instance.

    For example, take the backup of a 100GB virtual machine. The Protected Instance charge is $- per month. Every day 1GB of data is added and the data is retained for 120 days, and you are charged Storage for that separately. After 1 month if you decide the stop protection of the virtual machine but retain the data in Azure Backup, then you will be charged $- per month until the backup data is explicitly deleted by you.

  • Yes, the Azure Backup agent needs to be upgraded to the latest version to take advantage of the new pricing. Using an older agent will adversely impact the size of protected instances being billed.

  • The new pricing will be applicable to all Azure Backup customers.

Backup storage costs

  • All data stored with Azure Backup is billed per the backup storage rates listed above.

  • This depends on the storage choice selected for the backup vault. The choice of storage for the backup vault are: Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) or Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS).

  • Yes. The backup data in each vault will be billed at the appropriate LRS or GRS Block Blob rates for the region where the vault is located. The customer has complete control of the Azure storage bill with the vault choices that are picked.

  • The total amount of backup data held in Azure Backup (the “backend size”) for a specific Protected Instance can change due to the following factors:

    • Retention period of the backed-up data
    • Net new churn stored in each recovery point
    • Level of compression achieved on the backup data
    • Frequency of the scheduled backup jobs
    • Any associated backup metadata
  • The backup vault Dashboard page will show the total data from the machine registered to the vault. It will also show the type of storage used for the backup vault.

  • As with the current pricing, you do not have to pay for storage transactions with Azure Backup. These are included as a part of the software price that you pay.

Networking costs

  • ExpressRoute charges are not covered by Azure Backup. The customer will continue to pay for Azure Backup independently and for ExpressRoute based on the port speed that has been selected.

Examples

  • Primary machine Workload Protected instance size Billed amount*
    1 Windows host Windows Server 2012 (Files/Folder backup) 300GB $-/month
    3 Windows hosts Microsoft Exchange
    Microsoft Exchange
    Microsoft Exchange
    600GB
    1,300GB
    400GB
    $-/month
    $-/month
    $-/month
    1 Windows client machine Windows 8.1 (Files/Folder backup) 25GB $-/month
    1 Hyper-V virtual machine Virtual machine backup 30GB $-/month
    1 Azure IaaS virtual machine Virtual machine backup 250GB $-/month
    1 Windows guest machine Windows Server 2012 (Files/Folder backup) 120GB $-/month
    1 Windows guest machine Microsoft SQL Server standalone 600GB $-/month
    3 Windows guest machines Microsoft SQL Server cluster:
    • Machine 1: 50 databases
    • Machine 2: 75 databases
    • Machine 3: 20 databases
    70GB
    80GB
    15GB
    $-/month +
    $-/month +
    $-/month

    NOTE: If the databases move around in the cluster, then the size at the time of the backup is used for calculations.

    5 Windows guest machines Complete SharePoint farm with frontend, content databased etc… 1,300GB $-/month (SharePoint farm size > 1,000GB and < 1,500GB)

    NOTE: A SharePoint farm is a special entity and is billed based on the total size of the protected data in the farm.

    *Azure storage is billed additionally based on backup choices.
  • For protecting the 250GB of SQL Server databases to Azure Backup, the SQL Server is treated as a protected instance. Since the size of the protected instance is greater than 50GB but less than 500GB, the price is $- per month. If the virtual machine is also backed-up to Azure Backup, it is counted as another protected Instance. Since the virtual machine size is between 50GB and 500GB, its price is also $- per month.

    Virtual machine backup and in-guest workload backup are charged independently.

  • Yes, when using the MAB server to backup data locally you will still be charged the per instance backup service fee. However, since the data is only being backed up locally, you will not incur any Azure storage charges.

Talk to a sales specialist for a walk-through of Azure pricing. Understand pricing for your cloud solution.

Get free cloud services and a $200 credit to explore Azure for 30 days.

Added to estimate. Press 'v' to view on calculator
Can we help you?