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Azure
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Optimize your Azure costs

Manage your cloud spending and focus on what matters most to your business.
Take cost optimization training
OVERVIEW

Save money on Azure

  • Find out about the tools, offers, and guidance designed to help you manage and optimize your Azure costs. Learn how to understand and forecast your bill, optimize workload costs, and control your spending.
  • Monitor and analyze your Azure bill with Microsoft Cost Management. Set budgets and allocate spending to your teams and projects. Estimate the costs for your next Azure projects using the Azure pricing calculator. Successfully build your cloud business case with key financial and technical guidance from Azure.
  • Follow your Azure Advisor best practice recommendations for cost savings. Review your workload architecture for cost optimization using the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Review assessment and the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework design documentation. Save with Azure offers and licensing terms such as the Azure Hybrid Benefit, paying in advance for predictable workloads with reservations, Azure Spot Virtual Machines, Azure savings plan for compute, and Azure dev/test pricing.
  • Mitigate cloud spending risks by implementing cost management governance best practices at your company using the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. Implement cost controls and guardrails for your environment with Azure Policy.
OPTIMIZATION

8 ways to optimize costs today

Shut down unused resources

Identify idle virtual machines (VMs), ExpressRoute circuits, and other resources with Azure Advisor. Get recommendations on which resources to shut down, and see how much you would save.
Learn more

Right-size underused resources

Find underutilized resources with Azure Advisor—and get recommendations on how to reduce your spend by reconfiguring or consolidating them.
Learn more

Add an Azure savings plan for compute for dynamic workloads

Save up to 65% off pay-as-you-go pricing when you commit to spend a fixed hourly amount on compute services for one or three years.
Learn more

Reserve instances for consistent workloads

Get a discount of up to 72% over pay-as-you-go pricing on Azure services when you prepay for a one- or three-year term with reservation pricing.
Learn more

Take advantage of the Azure Hybrid Benefit

Save when you migrate your on-premises workloads to Azure. Windows Server customers can save up to 36%, and SQL Server customers can save up to 28% compared to the leading cloud provider.
Learn more

Configure autoscaling

Save by dynamically allocating and deallocating resources to match your performance needs.
Learn more

Choose the right Azure compute service

Host your code using one of the many ways Azure offers. Operate more cost efficiently by selecting the right compute service for your application.
Learn more

Set up budgets and allocate costs to teams and projects

Create and manage budgets for the Azure services you use or subscribe to—and monitor your organization’s cloud spending—with Microsoft Cost Management.
Learn more
Security

Embedded security and compliance

34,000
Full-time equivalent engineers dedicated to security initiatives at Microsoft.
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15,000
Partners with specialized security expertise.
 
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>100
Compliance certifications, including over 50 specific to global regions and countries.
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Learn more about security on Azure
Partners

Get help managing your costs from expert partners

Find help with cost management from an Azure partner with verified capabilities—and move forward confidently, knowing your partner is committed to your success.
Find a partner
RESOURCES

Cost optimization resources

  1.
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Optimize your Azure costs to help meet your financial objectives

Ensure your Azure workloads are cost optimized and help free up funds to support essential surge areas like remote work.
Read the blog
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Define roles and responsibilities for cloud cost optimization

Cloud cost management is a journey, with many factors to consider and steps to take to improve cloud spending behaviors.
Read the blog
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The Total Economic Impact™ Of Azure Solutions That Enhance Cost Efficiency1

Optimize your cloud spending and AI adoption with Microsoft Azure tools and strategic pricing offers.
Get the study
Back to RESOURCES - Analyst reports tab section
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Next steps

Choose the Azure account that’s right for you

Pay as you go or try Azure free for up to 30 days.
Get started with Azure
Business Solutions Hub

Find the right Microsoft Cloud solution

Browse the Microsoft Business Solutions Hub to find the products and solutions that can help your organization reach its goals.
Explore Microsoft solutions
  1. [1]

    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.