cost optimization
798 articles on cost optimization — what drives the cost, how it is priced, and where the savings actually are.
Azure SQL serverless cost: when auto-pause beats provisioned
Azure SQL Database serverless bills compute per second and pauses when idle, which can slash the bill for intermittent workloads but cost more for steady ones. Here is where serverless wins and where provisioned vCore is cheaper.
Azure SQL elastic pools cost: sharing capacity across databases
Azure SQL elastic pools let many databases share a single pool of DTUs or vCores, which is far cheaper than provisioning each database on its own when their peaks do not coincide. Here is how the math works.
Azure Cosmos DB autoscale cost: when the 50% premium pays off
Cosmos DB autoscale raises the per-RU/s rate by 50 percent but scales throughput automatically between 10 percent and 100 percent of a maximum. For variable traffic it can be cheaper than standard provisioned; for flat traffic it is a needless premium. Here is the math.
Azure storage redundancy cost: LRS vs ZRS vs GRS explained
The redundancy option you pick for an Azure storage account changes the price of every gigabyte. LRS is the baseline, ZRS adds zone resilience, and GRS roughly doubles cost for cross-region durability. Here is what each buys and costs.
Azure Blob transaction cost: the per-operation charge people miss
Azure Blob Storage charges not just for gigabytes stored but for every read, write, and list operation, and on cool and archive tiers those transaction fees can dwarf the storage itself. Here is how transaction pricing works and how to control it.
Azure Monitor cost: taming metrics, alerts, and ingestion
Azure Monitor spans metrics, alerts, and Log Analytics ingestion, and the ingestion charge at roughly $2.30 per gigabyte is what usually runs the bill up. Here is how each part is priced and how to keep observability affordable.
Azure Application Gateway v2 cost: fixed fees plus capacity units
Application Gateway v2 bills a fixed hourly fee plus capacity units that scale with traffic, and the WAF-enabled SKU costs noticeably more. Here is how the pricing works and when a simpler load balancer is cheaper.
Azure AKS control plane cost: Free vs Standard tier explained
AKS offers a Free control plane with no uptime SLA and a Standard tier that charges about $0.10 per cluster per hour for a financially backed SLA. Here is when the paid tier is worth it and where the real AKS cost actually lives.
Azure VMSS Flexible vs Uniform cost: orchestration and spot mixing
Virtual Machine Scale Sets come in Flexible and Uniform orchestration modes. Neither mode has an orchestration fee, but Flexible's ability to mix spot and on-demand and different VM sizes changes what you can save. Here is the cost angle.
Azure B-series burstable VM cost: credits, banking, and when to use them
B-series burstable VMs cost far less than general-purpose sizes because they run at a low baseline CPU and bank credits for bursts. For mostly idle workloads they are the cheapest option; for steady load they throttle. Here is how they work.
Azure Dv5 vs Ev5 VM cost: paying for memory you may not need
The Dv5 general-purpose and Ev5 memory-optimized families share a CPU generation but differ in memory per vCPU and price. Choosing Ev5 for a CPU-bound workload pays for RAM that sits unused. Here is how to pick the right family.
Azure Event Hubs vs Service Bus cost: streaming vs messaging pricing
Event Hubs prices by throughput units for high-volume streaming, while Service Bus prices by operations and messaging units for enterprise messaging. They solve different problems at very different cost curves. Here is how to compare them.
Azure Synapse serverless vs dedicated SQL pool cost
Synapse offers a serverless SQL pool billed per terabyte scanned and dedicated SQL pools billed per hour of provisioned capacity. Which is cheaper depends on how often you query and how much data each query touches. Here is the comparison.
Azure disk Ultra vs Premium SSD cost: paying for IOPS the right way
Premium SSD bundles IOPS and throughput into fixed disk sizes, while Ultra Disk bills capacity, IOPS, and throughput as three separate dials. For most workloads Premium is cheaper; Ultra wins only when you need decoupled, extreme performance. Here is the math.
Azure Cosmos DB multi-region cost: what each replica region adds
Adding a region to Cosmos DB multiplies your throughput cost by the number of regions, and enabling multi-region writes multiplies it further. Global distribution is powerful but priced per region. Here is how to weigh the cost against the benefit.
Azure Blob lifecycle management cost: automating tier moves and deletes
Azure Blob lifecycle policies automatically move data to cooler tiers and delete it on a schedule, turning manual tiering into ongoing savings. The rules are free to run; the savings come from data landing on the right tier. Here is how to build them.
Azure Databricks DBU cost explained: the compute unit behind the bill
Azure Databricks bills a DBU rate for its platform on top of the underlying VM cost, and the DBU rate varies by workload type and tier. Understanding DBUs is the key to controlling Databricks spend. Here is how they work.
GCP sustained use discounts explained: automatic savings for steady VMs
Google Cloud applies sustained use discounts automatically to Compute Engine VMs that run for a large fraction of the month, cutting the effective rate by up to 30 percent with no commitment. Here is how they work and how they stack with committed use discounts.
GCP custom machine types cost: paying only for the vCPU and memory you need
Compute Engine custom machine types let you pick vCPU and memory independently instead of taking a predefined shape, which can cut cost when your workload does not match a standard ratio. Here is how the pricing works and when custom pays off.
GKE cluster management fee explained: the flat charge before any nodes
Every GKE cluster carries a flat management fee of about 0.10 dollars per hour, roughly 73 dollars a month, on top of the compute it runs, with one free cluster per billing account. Here is how the fee works and when it matters for your cost.
GKE Autopilot pod pricing explained: paying for requested resources
GKE Autopilot bills you for the CPU, memory, and ephemeral storage your pods request, not for nodes, so cost tracks your resource requests directly. Here is how the per-pod rates work and how to keep requests honest.
GCP Cloud Run min instances cost: what keeping instances warm costs
Cloud Run scales to zero by default, but setting a minimum number of instances keeps them warm to avoid cold starts, and those idle instances bill continuously at a reduced rate. Here is what min instances cost and when they are worth it.
GCP Cloud Run CPU allocation cost: request-based vs always-allocated
Cloud Run offers two CPU allocation modes, one that bills CPU only during requests and one that keeps CPU always allocated, and the choice changes both cost and behavior. Here is how each is priced and which fits your workload.
GCP Cloud Functions 2nd gen cost: what changed and how to optimize
Cloud Functions 2nd gen runs on Cloud Run and Eventarc under the hood, which changes its pricing from the 1st gen model. Here is how 2nd gen bills, how it differs from 1st gen, and how to keep function cost low.