Azure calculators

Azure bills usually come down to drivers like GB-month, requests, and outbound transfer. These tools help you build a planning estimate with transparent assumptions.

Azure cost guides All calculators Methodology

A practical Azure estimate

  1. Start with drivers: requests/month, GB/month transfer, GB-month stored, and uptime hours.
  2. Use an effective rate first (blended) to get directionality.
  3. Add boundaries: internet egress vs intra-region vs cross-region.
  4. Validate against a real week of billing exports and adjust.
Networking Logging Storage FinOps

Common pitfalls

  • Mixing regions and applying a single $/GB to multiple transfer paths.
  • Underestimating retries and fan-out patterns that multiply request volume during incidents.
  • Letting logs/metrics grow without retention and query guardrails.
  • Using end-of-month storage size instead of average GB-month.

If you need a checklist-style workflow, start with cloud cost estimation checklist.

How to get your inputs

  • Requests: Azure Monitor metrics for API Management, Load Balancer, or App Service.
  • Transfer: Cost Management usage reports or Network Watcher flow logs (GB).
  • Storage: Azure Storage metrics and billing exports for GB-month and requests.
  • Logs: Log Analytics ingestion metrics and retention settings.
Object storage cost
GB-month + request fees with your pricing assumptions.
Data egress cost
Outbound GB/month × $/GB for planning scenarios.
API request cost
Estimate request-based charges with per-1k assumptions.
Response transfer estimator
Convert RPS and payload size into GB/month transfer.
Log cost
Ingestion + retention + scan/query (driver-based).
Kubernetes cost
Node sizing + surrounding line items checklist.
Compute instance cost
Instance count × $/hour × uptime.
Storage pricing (generic)
GB-month baseline for disks, volumes, and storage tiers.

Result interpretation (Azure)

  • Transfer costs usually separate internet egress from intra-region traffic; model both.
  • Storage bills often include both GB-month and per-request transactions, so check both drivers.
  • Compute costs are sensitive to uptime hours; scheduled workloads change the baseline fast.
  • Logs and metrics grow quietly; validate retention days and query frequency.
  • If the estimate is high, validate your blended rate before removing drivers.

Scenario planning (Azure)

  • Baseline: steady request volume, normal retry rates, and average storage growth.
  • Peak: 2x-3x requests and egress for promotions or incidents.
  • Storage growth: model a growth curve, not a single month-end size.
  • Region split: if you use multiple regions, separate rates per region.
  • Observability burst: increase ingestion and query volume for incident months.

Validate after changes (Azure)

  • Compare estimated drivers to Cost Management usage types.
  • Verify outbound transfer boundaries after networking or CDN changes.
  • Check log ingestion and retention against Log Analytics settings.
  • Review a recent week of billing exports to confirm the model.
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Next steps

For step-by-step estimation checklists and pitfalls, browse Azure cost guides.