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Azure

Azure savings plan for compute

Discover a flexible way to save up to 65% on compute services.1
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Overview

Reduce compute costs with an easy, flexible savings plan

  • Save up to 65% on pay-as-you-go prices for select services and get greater savings with longer-term plans.1 Add other cost savings offer like Azure Hybrid Benefit to save even more.
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  • Save regardless of region, instance series, or operating system, with the biggest savings automatically applied first. Modernize your workloads and continue saving as your needs change over time.
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  • Choose a one-year or three-year term, setting your plan's hourly amount with personalized recommendations based on your recent usage. Pay in full upfront or in equal monthly payments at no additional cost. Apply savings across subscriptions, resource groups, management groups, or entire Azure accounts.
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How it works

Explore how Azure savings plan for compute can help you save on select services

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See how the savings plan for compute works

Get lower prices when you use your hourly amount or less. Pay-as-you-go pricing takes effect only if you use more than your hourly amount.
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See how Azure savings plan for compute is applied to your environment

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Understand your savings plan recommendations

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Pricing calculator

Discover your savings with Azure savings plan for compute

Use the pricing calculator to estimate your savings with Azure savings plan for compute.
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Resources

Explore additional resources

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Azure savings plan for compute Microsoft Learn module

Gain a fundamental understanding and develop practical skills for adopting Azure savings plan for compute.
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Reserved Instances and Savings Plan for Compute

Find out how to optimize and save by taking advantage of Azure VM Reserved Instances and a savings plan for compute.
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FAQ

Azure savings plan for compute FAQ

  • In the Azure portal, review your Azure Advisor recommendations then add a savings plan or contact an Azure sales specialist or partner. Learn more.

    • Choose a one-year or three-year term.
    • Set your optimal hourly commitment amount by referring to personalized recommendations based on your recent usage.
    • Pay upfront or monthly at no extra cost.
    • Select the scope to apply savings plan benefit.
  • Available Azure prepayments and credits will be first applied against savings plan payment charges. The remaining balance will either be invoiced using the primary payment instrument in your billing profile or billed against the credit card on file at the time of purchase/during the standard monthly billing cycle charge.

    For customers transacting through a partner, please contact your trusted partner for billing and payment details.
  • “The term starts immediately after purchase. For example, if a savings plan is purchased at 12:19 PM, the term will cover usage from the 12 PM hour.”
  • Savings plan benefits can be targeted using the resource group, subscription, management group, and shared (i.e., EA Enrollment or MCA Billing Profile) scopes. After purchase, you can update the benefit scope of a savings plan as many times as necessary.

    Learn more about savings plans scopes.

    Learn more about updating savings plan scopes.
  • When purchasing a savings plan, you have the option to pay in a single payment (upfront) or in equal monthly payments over the term of the savings plan. There’s no difference in total cost when paying upfront or monthly.

    Enterprise Agreement savings plans are priced and billed in your local currency.

    Microsoft Customer Agreement savings plans are always priced in US dollars, but are billed in your local currency, following standard currency rules based on the monthly invoice on which the charge is issued. Learn more.
  • Review your recently purchased savings plans in the Azure portal by selecting "savings plan" on the left side of the portal. The details associated with each purchased savings plan will appear on the right. When you click on a savings plan, you’ll be directed to the utilization report for that plan.

    Follow the process in this documentation to see which compute service received the savings plan discount.
  • An Azure savings plan for compute represents an hourly spend commitment that you make to Azure in exchange for reduced usage prices on eligible resources. You’ll be billed for the committed amount every hour, regardless of your usage. Each hour, the cost of eligible resources usage is billed using the savings plan rate, and the resulting amount is deducted from your hourly commitment. Once the commitment is consumed, any additional usage is billed using your regular pay-as-you-go rate. Learn more.

    Savings plan pricing is calculated based off the pay-as-you-go price for select compute services. If the pay-as-you-go price decreases or increases, the savings plan rate will reflect this price change. Savings plan savings percentages vary by select compute service and can also fluctuate during the savings plans term. Regardless of price changes, the hourly commitment you defined will not change.
  • You'll receive email notification 30 days prior to expiration and then again on the date of expiration. Once the savings plan term is complete, your deployed resources will continue to run uninterrupted with usage billed at the pay-as-you-go rate.

    To avoid unintentional loss of savings due to expiration, you can automatically purchase a new savings plan upon expiration. Learn more.
  • Azure savings plan for compute is available globally for customers transacting under the Microsoft Customer Agreement or Enterprise Agreement.
  • Yes, recommendations available in Azure Advisor and the Azure portal are based on your usage of savings plan-eligible resources over the last 30 days that were billed under pay-as-you-go rates (i.e., not covered by either reservations or savings plans). Learn more.
  • Savings plans are OS-agnostic and apply equally to the underlying infrastructure costs regardless of the operating system deployed. Thus, savings plans don’t need to be scoped for a particular OS and will automatically cover a mixed environment.

    If SQL Server or Windows Server are deployed on the VM, you may use a license you already own with Azure Hybrid Benefit or pay the Windows Server licensing rate. For more information, visit the Azure pricing calculator.
  • Azure savings plan for compute doesn’t infer capacity guarantees.
  • Savings plans cannot be modified or cancelled once the commitment to spend is made. If your usage needs grow beyond your current savings plan, you may purchase another savings plan.
  • With reserved instances, you select instance family, size, and region, and the savings will only apply if all these requirements are met. With Azure savings plan for compute, you’re only committing to an hourly amount.

    Reserved Instances continue to be available for purchase. You may leverage both Reserved Instances and the savings plan the same time. Learn more.

    You can trade in a recently purchased Reserved Instances for a savings plan. See instructions.
  • The list of compute services covered by Azure savings plan for compute can be found here. In addition, non-savings-plan eligible Azure services that are powered by savings plan-eligible VMs may also be covered by savings plan. For example, usage charges from virtual machines used by Azure solutions such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) or Azure Databricks are also eligible for the Azure savings plan. For these services, please confirm that the solution’s underlying VM is listed as savings-plan eligible. This can be done via the Azure pricing pages.
  1. [1]
    Customers may see savings estimated to be between 11% and 65%. The 65% savings is based on one M64dsv2 Azure VM for CentOS or Ubuntu Linux in the East US region running for 36 months at a pay-as-you-go rate of ~$4,868.37/month vs. a reduced rate for a 3-year savings plan of ~$1,703.44/month. Based on Azure pricing as of October 2022. Prices subject to change. Actual savings may vary based on location, instance type, or usage.
  2. [2]
    Virtual machines don’t include BareMetal Infrastructure and Av1 series.
  3. [3]
    The Azure savings plan for compute can only be applied to the App Service upgraded Premium v3 plan and the upgraded Isolated v2 plan.
  4. [4]
    The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Azure Solutions That Enhance Cost Efficiency: Accelerating Cloud Migration and AI Adoption With Azure Solutions, a Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Microsoft, June 2025.

    To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed eight decision-makers with experience using the evaluated Azure solutions. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization, a global enterprise with $1 billion in annual revenue that is migrating to the cloud to modernize and innovate with AI. It has an annual Azure spend of $12.5 million, which grows 5% year-over-year.