Microsoft Azure

Entry plans and the real monthly bill

In US dollars, per month, as listed by Microsoft Azure (East US (Virginia)). IPv4 added where it's charged separately.

Swipe the table sideways for the price and the bill.

Where Microsoft Azure has datacenters

49 in 32 countries, as listed by Microsoft Azure.

Where it stands among 43

Each fact with every host's answer. Microsoft Azure is outlined.

Add-ons and extra charges

Public IPv4

$3.65/month extra 730 h x $0.005/hour, Standard static IPv4 (stated hourly rate)

Automatic backups

$5.00/month on the cheapest plan Protected-instance fee plus storage consumed

Snapshots

$0.05 per GB-month Managed disk snapshots, Standard LRS and ZRS, on the used portion

Extra traffic

Not stated No traffic allowance; outbound transfer is metered per GB, rate not in the cited text

How you pay

Hourly billing

YesYes Priced per hour; not billed while stopped (deallocated)

Minimum term

None (pay as you go) 'No upfront commitment, cancel anytime'; 1- and 3-year reservations lower prices

Setup fee

Not stated No setup fee wording in the cited pages

Always-free server

12 months for new customers: 750 hours a month each of B1s, B2pts v2 and B2ats v2 Not always free

New-account credit

$200 for 30 days

Payment methods

Card, Bank transfer Credit or debit card, or monthly invoice paid by check or wire transfer; no prepaid or virtual cards

Signup checks

Card verification with a temporary $1 authorization

Refunds

None stated No money-back period stated for pay-as-you-go use

What you get

Processors

Intel Xeon (Bv1, Bsv2), AMD EPYC 7763v (Basv2), Ampere Altra (Bpsv2) Bv1 runs on Haswell to Ice Lake Xeons, not chosen by the customer

ARM servers

YesYes Bpsv2 series on Ampere Altra

IPv6 included

YesYes Public IPv6 addresses have no charge

What comes with it

Block storage

YesYes Managed disks, billed separately; price depends on disk type and region

Object storage

YesYes Azure Blob Storage; no native S3 API documented

Private network

YesYes Azure Virtual Network, no charge

Cloud firewall

YesYes Network security groups; Azure Firewall is a separate paid service

Load balancers

YesYes Azure Load Balancer

DDoS protection included

YesYes DDoS infrastructure protection at no additional cost; enhanced tiers are paid

Managed databases

sql-server, PostgreSQL, MySQL Azure SQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL and for MySQL

Managed Kubernetes

YesYes Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

API

YesYes Azure Resource Manager REST API

Terraform provider

Not statedNot stated Not stated on Microsoft's own pages in the cited text; the azurerm provider is published by HashiCorp

Custom ISO

Not statedNot stated Custom VHD images can be uploaded; ISO upload isn't documented

Windows

Offered Windows Server VMs have their own price list; licence cost not in the cited text

Who you're renting from

Company

Microsoft Corporation

Owned by

Independent No parent company; Microsoft runs Azure itself

Based in

United States Redmond, Washington

Founded

2010 Year Azure launched; Microsoft itself is older

Support

Basic support (self-help, community, billing) included; technical support by email, phone and chat on paid plans

Certifications

ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS Azure-wide

Where we recommend it