Confused with charges on your Azure VM – Let’s see how it’s calculated

Recently I have been asked by few people about the Azure VM charges. Let’s see how Azure Bill for the VM.

Please note that when a new VM spin-up Azure starts charging for the following meters.

  • Compute hours
  • IP Address hours (if the Public IP is static)
  • Data Transfer Out (it’s about the data get out of the datacenter)
  • Standard IO-Block Blob Read, Write, Delete
  • Standard Managed Disk Operations

For any VM which is already build in the portal please note the following thumb rule.

  • When the VM is up & Running azure charge for all the above.
  • When the VM is Deallocated then charge only for storage (used capacity, e.g. if you got a 1TB disk and is in use 1GB you charge for 1GB, note this is not applicable for the managed disks, if you have a managed disk of 1 TB and the VM is deallocated Azure will still charge for the 1 TB managed disk.)
  • When the VM is shut down and not Deallocated then you charged both for storage and compute resources.

Where to check the billing information.

Azure Portal you can check resources cost from the Cost Management + Billing service.