Introducing GitHub Pre-Purchase Plans: A Simpler Way to Plan Your GitHub Spend
As AI-powered development scales, more of what organizations pay for on GitHub is shifting from fixed per-seat pricing to usage-based billing. GitHub Copilot, Actions, Codespaces, AI Credits: spend now reflects what teams actually build, and that can vary month to month. For most engineering and finance leaders, that raises a familiar question: how do you set a confident annual budget when consumption is variable? How do you capture the savings that come with committing upfront? That is what GitHub Pre-Purchase Plans are for. Commit to an amount upfront, use it across eligible GitHub services over a 12-month term, and receive built-in savings based on the size of the commitment. Variable usage becomes a plan. Builders keep building, and finance teams get a number they can count on. Microsoft is introducing two GitHub Pre-Purchase Plans (P3) for commercial customers, both available through Azure Reservations: How the plans work The model is the same for both plans: Commit upfront. Choose a pre-purchase tier that fits your expected GitHub usage. Receive built-in savings. Larger commitments unlock higher discount tiers, up to 15%. Draw down as you go. Eligible usage consumes from the prepaid balance over the 12-month term. Replenish or shift to pay-as-you-go. If usage exceeds the prepaid amount, purchase another plan or continue with pay-as-you-go billing where available. Commit units are available for the plan term and do not carry over after the term ends. Why choose a Pre-Purchase Plan? Pre-Purchase Plans are not replacing how you buy GitHub today. They provide another option for customers who have a reasonable view of expected usage and want to plan ahead. The value is straightforward: Simpler purchasing with one prepaid commitment instead of managing multiple separate charges across GitHub services. Built-in savings compared with pay-as-you-go pricing. The more you commit, the greater the discount. Alignment with Azure billing. GitHub usage is billed through the Azure subscription linked to your GitHub organization, so Pre-Purchase Plans fit into the same planning motions you already use for Azure commitments. Pricing*: Both plans use the same published tier structure: *Pricing as of June 2026 and is subject to change. Customers should review the latest documentation before purchasing. **Example if GitHub Enterprise generates a retail cost of $100, then 100 GitHub Commit Units (GCUs) are consumed Two examples Planning across the GitHub platform Suppose an organization expects about $500,000 in eligible GitHub usage over the next year across GitHub Copilot, GitHub Enterprise, GitHub Advanced Security, Actions, and GitHub AI Credits. With the GitHub Pre-Purchase Plan, the organization chooses the 500,000 commit unit tier, pays $425,000 upfront, and applies that commitment across eligible services over the 12-month term. That gives the team one platform-wide commitment with 15% built-in savings. Planning for AI credit consumption Another organization's biggest source of variability is GitHub AI Credits as Copilot and agentic development expand. Instead of using a broader platform commitment, that team chooses the GitHub AI Credits Pre-Purchase Plan so AI Credit usage draws down from a dedicated prepaid balance. This is a better fit when the main goal is to plan specifically around AI credit consumption. How Pre-Purchase Plans relate to Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan If you are also evaluating the Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan, here is the distinction: that plan is broader than GitHub and covers eligible usage across Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio, Fabric, and GitHub. Choose a GitHub Pre-Purchase Plan when GitHub is the platform you are planning around. Choose Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan when the goal is agent development spanning the wider Microsoft platform Getting started Both plans are available through Azure Reservations today. Sign in to the Azure portal Go to Reservations Select Add Choose GitHub Pre-Purchase Plan or GitHub AI Credits Pre-Purchase Plan. Select your subscription and scope. Choose your tier and complete payment For detailed purchasing steps, scope guidance, prerequisites, and examples, see the Microsoft Learn documentation: Watch how to bill their GitHub consumption (GitHub Copilot, Codespaces, Actions, etc.) through their Azure subscription GitHub Pre-Purchase Plan - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn GitHub AI Credits Pre-Purchase Plan - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft LearnRight‑sizing Azure Savings Plans, one hour at a time
Most of us have, at some point, sized a commitment the same way we order food for a team offsite: estimate, round up, and hope nobody complains. It works for pizza. It is a less robust strategy for a three‑year Savings Plan. Azure Cost Management already produces commitment recommendations for you, and they are a great starting point. But the headline dollar figure on the portal hides the most useful signal a FinOps team can get its hands on: the hourly Pay‑As‑You‑Go (PAYG) usage that the recommendation engine actually looked at. Once you have that signal in a spreadsheet, "right‑sized" stops being a vibe and starts being a number you can defend in a steering meeting. This post walks through how to pull that data out of the Cost Management REST API, and shares a small companion PowerShell script that does the heavy lifting and produces analyst‑friendly CSV and Markdown outputs. Why a single recommended number isn't enough A Savings Plan recommendation is, at its core, an optimisation against a distribution of hourly compute spend over a lookback window. The portal typically surfaces the single commitment level that maximises savings under a "reasonable utilisation" assumption. That's a sensible default, but it answers only one question. The questions FinOps practitioners also want to answer include: What does my PAYG demand actually look like hour‑by‑hour? Smooth and predictable, or spiky and seasonal? How does coverage and savings change if I commit a bit less, or a bit more? Will the recommended commitment leave me with wastage on weekends or overnight? Can I correlate the hourly profile with maintenance windows, batch jobs, or business hours? You cannot answer those questions with a single dollar figure. You can answer all of them with the hourly series and the alternative commitment levels — and the API exposes both. What the Benefit Recommendations API gives you The endpoint is the Benefit Recommendations - List operation (api-version=2025-03-01). Pointed at any of the supported scopes — Billing Account (EA), Billing Profile (MCA), Subscription, or Resource Group — it returns one or more recommendations for the chosen lookBackPeriod (Last7Days, Last30Days, Last60Days) and term (P1Y, P3Y). The two $expand options are where the magic lives: $expand=properties/allRecommendationDetails returns an array of alternative commitment levels (AllSavingsBenefitDetails). Each entry includes commitmentAmount, coveragePercentage, benefitCost, overageCost, savingsAmount, savingsPercentage, wastageCost, and averageUtilizationPercentage. $expand=properties/usage returns the hourly PAYG charge series (usage.charges) that the engine used. Combined with properties.firstConsumptionDate and properties.lastConsumptionDate, you get a complete time‑aligned view of demand. Both expansions are cheap and worth requesting every time. They turn a single recommendation into a small, complete data product. Meet the script: Export-BenefitRecommendations.ps1 To make this useful in five minutes rather than an afternoon, there is a PowerShell script on GitHub that wraps the API call and produces ready‑to‑use artifacts. It is interactive, so there is nothing to memorise: === Azure Benefit Recommendations Export === Select billing scope kind: * [1] Billing Account (EA) [2] Billing Profile (MCA) [3] Subscription [4] Resource Group Enter choice 1-4 (default 1): 1 Billing Account ID: <your-EA-billing-account-id> Select lookback period: [1] Last7Days * [2] Last30Days [3] Last60Days Enter choice 1-3 (default 2): 3 Select term: * [1] P1Y [2] P3Y Enter choice 1-2 (default 1): 2 ... Retrieved 1 recommendation(s). It authenticates via the Az.Accounts module, always requests both $expand options, follows nextLink pagination, verifies API access up front (translating 401/403/404 into actionable hints), and writes four files using a predictable name pattern: yyyy-MM-dd-<scope>-<lookback>-<term>-AllRecommendationDetails.csv — one row per commitment alternative, ready for pivot tables. yyyy-MM-dd-<scope>-<lookback>-<term>-TopRecommendation.md — a Markdown brief on the top recommendation, including the recommended commitment row and the full alternatives table. yyyy-MM-dd-<scope>-<lookback>-<term>-HourlyUsage.csv — hour‑by‑hour PAYG usage for the top recommendation, aligned to the API's actual data window (no padding, no trailing blanks). yyyy-MM-dd-<scope>-<lookback>-<term>-Raw.json — optional full response dump, for archival or downstream tooling. The naming convention is intentional: paste a folder of these into Power BI and the dates, scopes, and terms are already in the filename. A worked example Here is a real shape from a sample Last60Days / P3Y export against an EA billing account. The AllRecommendationDetails CSV gives us four commitment alternatives: averageUtilizationPercentage,coveragePercentage,commitmentAmount,overageCost,benefitCost,savingsAmount,savingsPercentage,totalCost,wastageCost 100.000,28.868,4.124,30914.280,5889.072,6656.889,15.317,36803.352,0.000 100.000,39.168,5.848,26437.791,8350.944,8671.506,19.953,34788.735,0.000 9.984,97.883,16.359,919.948,23360.652,19179.641,44.131,24280.600,3.767 98.684,98.900,16.806,477.956,23998.968,18983.317,43.680,24476.924,315.907 Read those rows like an interactive lever: Commit $4.124/hr → 28.9% coverage, 15.3% savings, zero wastage. Safe, but most of your spend is still PAYG. Commit $5.848/hr → 39.2% coverage, 19.9% savings. Still safe, still conservative. Commit $16.359/hr → 97.9% coverage, 44.1% savings, ~$3.77 of wastage. This is the sweet spot the engine flags as recommended. Commit $16.806/hr → 98.9% coverage, 43.7% savings, but wastage jumps to $315.9 over the window. You bought more coverage and the engine charged you for it. The hourly CSV is what makes the recommendation defensible. It contains 1,428 rows — one per hour from 2026-04-11T00:00 through 2026-06-09T11:00 (the API's reported data range, not "now minus 60 days"): DateTime,HourlyPayGoUsage 2026-04-11T00:00,29.5350191832771 2026-04-11T01:00,29.566694701744 ... 2026-06-09T11:00,32.7312920192344 Drop that into Excel or Power BI, lay a horizontal line at the recommended commitmentAmount ($16.359/hr), and you immediately see how often demand sits above the line (covered by PAYG overage) versus below it (where the commitment is technically idle but, given the savings rate, still net‑positive). You can also slice by hour‑of‑day to spot weekend troughs or batch‑job spikes that change how you interpret "average utilisation." Try it yourself The script and full documentation live at github.com/DirkBrinkmann/azure-savingsplan-insights. Quickstart: git clone https://github.com/DirkBrinkmann/azure-savingsplan-insights.git cd azure-savingsplan-insights Install-Module Az.Accounts -Scope CurrentUser # if you don't already have it #Connect to Azure Connect-AzAccount #Run the script .\Export-BenefitRecommendations.ps1 You will need read permission on the scope you target — Cost Management Reader on a subscription, or Billing Reader at the billing account / billing profile level, is enough. Give it a spin against your own scope and tell us how it goes. The repo at github.com/DirkBrinkmann/azure-savingsplan-insights has Issues and Discussions enabled — bug reports, edge cases ("my response shape looks different"), feature ideas, and "I plotted this in Power BI and learned X" stories are all welcome. The script will only get better with real‑world data behind it, and yours is the kind we want to hear about. Closing nudge In FinOps terms, this is squarely an Inform phase activity: turning a black‑box recommendation into a transparent dataset your team can challenge, chart, and align on. The API has had this data all along; the script just makes it boring to extract — which is exactly what you want a FinOps tool to be. Pull a Last60Days / P3Y export for your top‑spending scope, plot the hourly line, and decide your next Savings Plan with a number you can point to. Your future self (and your finance partner) will thank you.Sentinel Foundry - MCP Server (Preview) (Github Community Release)
I’ve been cooking something that a lot of people in SOC have been struggling with — especially on the engineering side of Microsoft Sentinel. Thanks to the Microsoft Security team for shaping the capabilities of Sentinel even better with Sentinel Data Lake & Modern SecOps. Today’s the day I can finally share it. Note: This is not an official Microsoft product, but it is designed to make the Sentinel Build even better (complement) with much more intelligence. 🚀 Sentinel Foundry is now in public preview with 43 tools. (Sentinel Foundry - MCP Server) It’s an MCP server built to act like the brain of a strong Sentinel engineer — helping make building, improving, and operating Sentinel far more practical, faster, and honestly more enjoyable. For a lot of teams, the challenge is not understanding what Sentinel can do. The hard part is the engineering work around it: -> Deciding what data should actually be ingested -> Building a clean, scalable Sentinel foundation -> Writing useful detections instead of noisy ones -> Balancing security value with cost -> Turning ideas into deployable engineering outputs That is exactly why I built Sentinel Foundry to help communities grow stronger. It helps with the real engineering tasks behind Sentinel — from architecture thinking to detection design, deployment planning, ingestion strategy, automation ideas, and many of the workflows outlined in the GitHub project. How does it work? Here’s one of the flagship prompts I ran with it: “Give me a complete security posture report for our workspace. Score each pillar and tell me what to prioritise.” And within seconds, it produced a structured engineering blueprint that would normally take a lot longer to pull together manually. You can see the example prompts here in what it can do: https://github.com/prabhukiranveesam/Sentinel-Foundry#what-can-it-do I want building Sentinel to feel less like repetitive engineering overhead — and more like real security engineering that is fast, creative, and enjoyable. If you work with Sentinel as a SOC L2 analyst, engineer, detection engineer, consultant, or architect, I’d genuinely love for you to try it and tell me what you think. 🔗 Public Preview: https://github.com/prabhukiranveesam/Sentinel-Foundry This is just the start of an AI era — and I’m excited to keep shaping it with more powerful features over the coming days. This is very easy to set up and will be available to all of you at no cost during this month as part of the public preview, and your feedback is extremely valuable to shape this as a powerful solution.Announcing savings plan for databases: flexible savings for modern, evolving workloads
As organizations modernize their data platforms, database environments are constantly changing. Teams migrate between services, scale across regions, and evolve architectures to support new applications and AI driven workloads. But optimizing costs in these environments can be challenging, especially when savings options require locking into specific services, regions, or configurations. To help with these challenges, we’re introducing savings plan for databases, a new way to save on eligible database services while maintaining the flexibility needed to modernize and grow your business. Savings plan for databases helps IT, engineering, and FinOps teams reduce database costs with a simple, spend based commitment—without slowing down architectural change. What is savings plan for databases? Savings plan for databases is a spend based pricing model that enables customers to save on eligible database services by committing to a fixed hourly spend for one year. In return, customers receive lower prices—up to 35% compared to pay-as-you go pricing on select services*. Instead of committing to a specific database service, region, or configuration, customers commit to an hourly dollar amount (for example, $5 per hour). The plan automatically applies savings to eligible database usage each hour, prioritizing the usage that delivers the greatest savings first—across services and regions—until the hourly commitment is met. Any usage beyond the commitment continues at pay-as-you go rates, ensuring flexibility as needs change. Pricing is for illustrative purposes only. Benefits designed for modern database workloads Flexibility as environments evolve Savings plan for databases is designed for change. Savings continue to apply as workloads modernize or move across regions—without requiring customers to repurchase or reconfigure commitments. This makes it well suited for dynamic environments where architectures are expected to evolve over time. Automatic cost optimization With a single hourly commitment, customers unlock discounted prices on eligible database usage. Savings are applied automatically each hour, ensuring customers get the most value from their commitment without manual management or constant tuning. Predictable budgeting and forecasting A fixed hourly spend replaces variable pay-as-you-go costs with a predictable commitment, making it easier for FinOps and IT finance teams to forecast spend, plan budgets, and manage cloud investments with confidence. What services that are covered with the savings plan for databases: Savings plan for databases pricing How to purchase a savings plan for databases Getting started is simple: Review personalized recommendations in the Azure portal based on recent database usage. Choose an hourly commitment and scope it into a subscription, resource group, management group, or entire account. Select a payment option—pay monthly or upfront at no additional cost—and optionally enable auto‑renewal. Once purchased, savings are applied automatically to eligible database usage every hour. Learn more here on how to purchase a savings plans here. Example: saving while modernizing Consider a team running a global application that uses Azure SQL Database and Azure Database for PostgreSQL today, with plans to expand into additional regions over the next year. Instead of purchasing individual reservations tied to specific services or regions, the team purchases a 1‑year savings plan for databases with a $5/hour commitment. As usage shifts across database services and regions, Azure automatically applies discounted prices to eligible usage up to the hourly commitment. The team continues modernizing without disruption—while benefiting from predictable savings. Summary Savings plan for databases provides a new way to optimize database costs —without locking into fixed architectures. With hourly commitments, automatic optimization, and predictable costs, it’s designed to support modernization today and continued growth tomorrow. Get started You can begin saving today: View your recommendation in Azure Advisor Purchase a plan in Azure portal Visit the Savings plan homepage Review the Microsoft Documentation Watch demo videos at the Azure Essentials Show *Customers may see savings estimated to be between 0% and 35%. The 35% savings estimate is based on one Azure SQL Database serverless running for 12 months at a pay-as-you-go rate vs. a reduced rate for a 1-year savings plan. Based on Azure pricing as of March 2026. Prices are subject to change. Actual savings may vary based on location, database service, and/or usage. ** Note that savings plan for databases will also be consumed by SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines and SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc hourly license at the normal pay-go price.
Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan: One Unified Path to Scale AI Agents
AI is now essential, and at Microsoft Ignite 2025, we introduced a new foundation for intelligent agents: Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ. These three IQs represent the intelligence layer that gives agents deep context; understanding how people work, connecting to enterprise data, and orchestrating knowledge across platforms. Together with the launch of Microsoft Agent Factory, organizations now have a unified program to build, deploy, and manage agents powered by these IQs. Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) is designed to for organizations looking to confidently invest in AI agent development with a single, predictable budget. It empowers businesses to experiment, build, and scale sophisticated AI agents without the friction of fragmented licensing or unexpected costs. By unifying access to agentic services across Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Copilot Studio*, Microsoft Fabric, and GitHub, Microsoft Agent P3 empowers organizations to harness the full potential of the IQ layer thus removing barriers and unlocking the value of truly intelligent, context-driven agents. What is Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan and how to does it work? Microsoft Agent P3 is a one-year pay-upfront option. Customers commit upfront to a lump-sum pool of Agent Commit Units (ACU) that can be used at any time during the one-year term. Every time you consume eligible services across Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Copilot Studio*, Microsoft Fabric, and GitHub, the ACUs are automatically drawn down from your P3 balance. If you use up your balance before the year ends, you can add another P3 plan or switch to pay-as-you-go. If you don’t use all your credits by the end of the year, the remaining balance expires. Pricing* *Pricing as of November 2025, subject to change. **Example if Microsoft Copilot Studio generates a retail cost of $100 based on Copilot Credit and Microsoft Foundry usage, then 100 Agent CUs (ACUs) are consumed. What is covered by the Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan? * List as of February 2026, subject to change ** Currently in Private Preview *** Covers Copilot Credits enabled agentic services: Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 first-party agents, and Copilot. Microsoft reserves the right to update Copilot Credit eligible products. Customer Example Suppose a customer expects to consume 1,500,000 Copilot Credit with custom agents created in Microsoft Copilot Studio. Assuming the pay-as-you-go rate for Copilot Credit to be $0.01, then at the pay-as-you-go rate, this will cost $15,000. In addition, if they are using 5000 Microsoft Foundry Provisioned Throughput Units (PTU) and assuming the pay-as-you-go rate for PTU to be $1, then at the pay-as-you-go rate, this will cost $5,000. By purchasing Tier 1 (20,000 ACUs) Microsoft Agent P3 at the cost of $19,000, it will give a 5% saving compared to the pay-as-you-go rate for the same usage. How to purchase a Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan? Sign in to the Azure portal →Reservations → + Add → Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan. Select your subscription and scope Choose your tier and complete payment. What sets Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan apart? At the heart of Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan are four pillars that redefine how organizations consume AI services: One Plan: A single offer that spans Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Copilot Studio*, Microsoft Fabric, and GitHub. No more siloed credits or SKU-level complexity, just one pool for all your AI workloads. Breadth of Services: Access to 30+ services, from Azure AI Search and Cognitive Services to orchestration tools and Copilot-enabled experiences. One Governance Path: Simplifies procurement and budget management. Procurement teams gain visibility and control without sacrificing agility. Predictable Savings: Get discounts and avoid surprises when you choose this plan. Conclusion The Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan is designed to make your AI journey simpler, smarter, and more cost-effective. By combining the strengths of Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Copilot Studio*, Microsoft Fabric, and GitHub into a single, unified offer, the plan eliminates the need to choose one platform or manage multiple contracts. Organizations benefit from predictable budgeting, streamlined procurement, and the flexibility to innovate across more than 30+ agentic services—all with one pool of funds. Whether you’re just starting with AI or scaling enterprise-wide adoption, the Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan empowers you to unlock the full value of Microsoft’s agentic platform—driving innovation, efficiency, and business impact. And with support for agents built on Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ, customers can be confident their solutions are grounded in the latest intelligence announced at Ignite. What’s next Read the Microsoft Agent P3 Offer MS Learn Doc Purchase Microsoft Agent P3 in your Azure Portal * Covers Copilot Credits enabled agentic services: Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 first-party agents, and Copilot. Microsoft reserves the right to update Copilot Credit eligible products
Understand New Sentinel Pricing Model with Sentinel Data Lake Tier
Introduction on Sentinel and its New Pricing Model Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform that collects, analyzes, and correlates security data from across your environment to detect threats and automate response. Traditionally, Sentinel stored all ingested data in the Analytics tier (Log Analytics workspace), which is powerful but expensive for high-volume logs. To reduce cost and enable customers to retain all security data without compromise, Microsoft introduced a new dual-tier pricing model consisting of the Analytics tier and the Data Lake tier. The Analytics tier continues to support fast, real-time querying and analytics for core security scenarios, while the new Data Lake tier provides very low-cost storage for long-term retention and high-volume datasets. Customers can now choose where each data type lands—analytics for high-value detections and investigations, and data lake for large or archival types—allowing organizations to significantly lower cost while still retaining all their security data for analytics, compliance, and hunting. Please flow diagram depicts new sentinel pricing model: Now let's understand this new pricing model with below scenarios: Scenario 1A (PAY GO) Scenario 1B (Usage Commitment) Scenario 2 (Data Lake Tier Only) Scenario 1A (PAY GO) Requirement Suppose you need to ingest 10 GB of data per day, and you must retain that data for 2 years. However, you will only frequently use, query, and analyze the data for the first 6 months. Solution To optimize cost, you can ingest the data into the Analytics tier and retain it there for the first 6 months, where active querying and investigation happen. After that period, the remaining 18 months of retention can be shifted to the Data Lake tier, which provides low-cost storage for compliance and auditing needs. But you will be charged separately for data lake tier querying and analytics which depicted as Compute (D) in pricing flow diagram. Pricing Flow / Notes The first 10 GB/day ingested into the Analytics tier is free for 31 days under the Analytics logs plan. All data ingested into the Analytics tier is automatically mirrored to the Data Lake tier at no additional ingestion or retention cost. For the first 6 months, you pay only for Analytics tier ingestion and retention, excluding any free capacity. For the next 18 months, you pay only for Data Lake tier retention, which is significantly cheaper. Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent Assuming no data is queried or analyzed during the 18-month Data Lake tier retention period: Although the Analytics tier retention is set to 6 months, the first 3 months of retention fall under the free retention limit, so retention charges apply only for the remaining 3 months of the analytics retention window. Azure pricing calculator will adjust accordingly. Scenario 1B (Usage Commitment) Now, suppose you are ingesting 100 GB per day. If you follow the same pay-as-you-go pricing model described above, your estimated cost would be approximately $15,204 per month. However, you can reduce this cost by choosing a Commitment Tier, where Analytics tier ingestion is billed at a discounted rate. Note that the discount applies only to Analytics tier ingestion—it does not apply to Analytics tier retention costs or to any Data Lake tier–related charges. Please refer to the pricing flow and the equivalent pricing calculator results shown below. Monthly cost savings: $15,204 – $11,184 = $4,020 per month Now the question is: What happens if your usage reaches 150 GB per day? Will the additional 50 GB be billed at the Pay-As-You-Go rate? No. The entire 150 GB/day will still be billed at the discounted rate associated with the 100 GB/day commitment tier bucket. Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent (100 GB/ Day) Azure Pricing Calculator Equivalent (150 GB/ Day) Scenario 2 (Data Lake Tier Only) Requirement Suppose you need to store certain audit or compliance logs amounting to 10 GB per day. These logs are not used for querying, analytics, or investigations on a regular basis, but must be retained for 2 years as per your organization’s compliance or forensic policies. Solution Since these logs are not actively analyzed, you should avoid ingesting them into the Analytics tier, which is more expensive and optimized for active querying. Instead, send them directly to the Data Lake tier, where they can be retained cost-effectively for future audit, compliance, or forensic needs. Pricing Flow Because the data is ingested directly into the Data Lake tier, you pay both ingestion and retention costs there for the entire 2-year period. If, at any point in the future, you need to perform advanced analytics, querying, or search, you will incur additional compute charges, based on actual usage. Even with occasional compute charges, the cost remains significantly lower than storing the same data in the Analytics tier. Realized Savings Scenario Cost per Month Scenario 1: 10 GB/day in Analytics tier $1,520.40 Scenario 2: 10 GB/day directly into Data Lake tier $202.20 (without compute) $257.20 (with sample compute price) Savings with no compute activity: $1,520.40 – $202.20 = $1,318.20 per month Savings with some compute activity (sample value): $1,520.40 – $257.20 = $1,263.20 per month Azure calculator equivalent without compute Azure calculator equivalent with Sample Compute Conclusion The combination of the Analytics tier and the Data Lake tier in Microsoft Sentinel enables organizations to optimize cost based on how their security data is used. High-value logs that require frequent querying, real-time analytics, and investigation can be stored in the Analytics tier, which provides powerful search performance and built-in detection capabilities. At the same time, large-volume or infrequently accessed logs—such as audit, compliance, or long-term retention data—can be directed to the Data Lake tier, which offers dramatically lower storage and ingestion costs. Because all Analytics tier data is automatically mirrored to the Data Lake tier at no extra cost, customers can use the Analytics tier only for the period they actively query data, and rely on the Data Lake tier for the remaining retention. This tiered model allows different scenarios—active investigation, archival storage, compliance retention, or large-scale telemetry ingestion—to be handled at the most cost-effective layer, ultimately delivering substantial savings without sacrificing visibility, retention, or future analytical capabilities.Streamline Analytics Spend on Microsoft Fabric with Azure Reservations
Introduction As organizations accelerate their cloud adoption, optimizing spend while maintaining performance and scalability is a top priority. Microsoft Fabric, our all-in-one, software-as-a-service data platform, is designed to help teams accomplish any data project. But how can you ensure your investment delivers maximum value? In this post, we’ll explore how Azure reservations for Microsoft Fabric can help you optimize costs, simplify purchasing, and streamline your data analytics spend. What Is Microsoft Fabric? Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end data platform that brings together data orchestration, transformation, machine learning, real-time event processing, reporting, and databases in a single SaaS experience. It’s designed for data engineers, scientists, analysts, and business users, offering role-specific workloads and integrated AI experiences, all backed by a unified data lake—OneLake. Unlike traditional services that require managing different pricing and capacities for each workload, Fabric simplifies this with a single capacity model. You purchase Fabric Capacity Units (CUs), which power all workloads, and jobs consume CUs at different rates depending on your compute needs. How Azure reservations Work with Fabric Azure reservation is a pricing model that helps you save when you commit to a specific resource, region, and term - ideal for stable, predictable workloads. Reservations don’t affect capacity or runtime; they simply provide discount benefits. Azure analyzes your usage and recommends reservation options, and tools like Azure Advisor guide you toward the right purchase. You may be familiar with how reservations work with virtual machines, but Azure reservations can also apply to other services such as Microsoft Fabric. When purchasing Fabric, you can choose a pay-as-you-go model for flexible usage or save substantially with Azure reservations for consistent workloads. For example, if you deploy an F64 SKU in Fabric for ongoing reporting and analytics, buying an Azure reservation for this SKU ensures you pay the discounted rate for your consistent usage. How to Purchase a Reservation for Microsoft Fabric Let’s look at how you can purchase a reservation for Microsoft Fabric. Follow these steps below or watch this video: 1. Start in the Microsoft Marketplace or Azure Portal: Visit the Microsoft Marketplace and look up Microsoft Fabric. Click “Get it now” and it will take you to the Azure Portal. 2. Create Fabric Capacity: Select Configuration: In Azure Portal, on the Create Fabric Capacity page, select your subscription and resource group, name your capacity, and select your region. Select Size: Use the Fabric SKU estimator to determine the right capacity for your workloads, or start with a free trial and monitor usage with the capacity metrics app. You can always upgrade or create multiple capacities as needed. Organize with Tags: Use Azure tags to track costs and automate management across environments. 3. Buy Fabric Reservations: In the Azure portal, search for and select “Reservations.” On the Reservations page, click “Add” and select Microsoft Fabric. Choose your scope and subscription, select Fabric Capacity with upfront or monthly payments, and adjust the quantity as needed. Best Practices for Maximizing Savings To get the most value from your reservations, follow these best practices: Estimate Carefully: Avoid over-committing (which leads to wasted resources) or under-committing (which leads to higher costs). Understand your resource needs and usage and use Azure Advisor recommendations to make informed decisions. Enable Auto-Renew: Ensure your reservations automatically renew so you don’t lose the discount but adjust your reservation needs as workloads change. Monitor Usage: Use Azure Cost Management to continuously track reservation usage. Choose the Right Scope: Align reservation benefits with your organizational structure to maximize savings. Conclusion: Microsoft Fabric and Azure reservations empower organizations to streamline analytics spend, simplify purchasing, and unlock significant savings without sacrificing performance or scalability. Following best practices and leveraging the right tools ensures your cloud investments deliver maximum value. Get started today by visiting the Microsoft Marketplace and Azure Portal to purchase Fabric Capacity units and reservations or read Save costs with Microsoft Fabric Capacity reservations - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn to learn more.Smarter Cloud, Smarter Spend: How Azure Powers Cost-Efficient Innovation
In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations are under pressure to innovate rapidly while managing costs effectively. The cloud, especially with AI at the forefront, is driving transformation across industries. But with rising cloud spend and economic uncertainty, cost efficiency has become a top priority. To help customers navigate this challenge, Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study. The study reveals how organizations can unlock significant financial and operational benefits by leveraging Microsoft Azure’s tools and strategic pricing offers, especially when migrating to the cloud and adopting AI. Cloud Migration: Accelerating Modernization with Azure Migrating to the cloud is a foundational step for digital transformation. But many organizations initially struggled with cost overruns, lack of visibility, and inefficient resource usage. The TEI study shows how Azure’s native tools and strategic pricing offers helped overcome these challenges. Key Enablers of Cost-Efficient Migration: Azure Hybrid Benefit: Allows organizations to optimize savings in their migration journey by giving a discount on server licenses and subscriptions and granting hosting and outsourcing benefits Azure reservations: A commitment model that enables customers to save on their spend when they commit to a specific resource, in a region, and for a specific term. Azure savings plan for compute: A flexible pricing model that enables customers to save on their cost when they commit to a spend a fixed hourly amount for a specific term. Microsoft Cost Management & Azure Advisor: Provide real-time insights and optimization recommendations. Azure Pricing Calculator: Accurately estimate migration costs and forecast budgets. “Azure reservations and Azure Hybrid Benefit facilitate moving to the cloud. With these offers and better cost management, we are saving 30% to 35%. Managing our costs without these tools would be an unpredictable nightmare.” — Senior IT Director, Manufacturing Quantified Impact*: 25% reduction in cloud spending in Year 1 using Microsoft tools. $4.9M in direct savings over three years from tool-based optimization. $3.8M in additional savings from strategic pricing offers. AI Adoption: Driving Innovation with Cost-Efficient Azure Solutions Once migrated, organizations are increasingly turning to AI to drive innovation and competitive advantage. Azure doesn’t just support AI workloads, it makes them more cost-effective and scalable. Key Enablers of AI Adoption: Azure AI Foundry Provisioned Throughput reservations: Get cost savings compared to provisioned throughput (PTU) hourly pricing. Microsoft Cost Management & Azure Advisor: Help forecast and optimize AI-related cloud spend. Strategic Pricing Offers: Enable predictable budgeting and reinvestment into AI initiatives. “Leveraging Microsoft tools and strategic pricing offers is not only increasing profitability but also putting those savings into more interesting projects like AI with fraud prevention work and the customer experience.” — VP of Analytics Engineering, Financial Services “Azure reservations for AI projects using PTUs has helped our AI initiatives. It has helped better predict costs.” — CIO, Healthcare Unquantified Benefits: Increased cloud insights and visibility. Improved governance and accountability. Enhanced productivity (24% by Year 3). The Bottom Line: Unified Transformation with Azure The TEI study concludes that Azure delivers a unified approach to cloud computing, enabling organizations to: Migrate to the cloud efficiently with cost control Adopt AI rapidly by reinvesting savings into innovation Achieve a net present value (NPV) of $8.7 million over three years Realize a 35% reduction in cloud spending in Year 1 “With Microsoft tools, we can focus on higher value projects. Instead of reviewing reports and conducting cost audits, we can build new tools and build with genAI. We can innovate faster.” — Vice President of Analytics Engineering, Financial Services Ready to Dive Deeper? This blog is just the beginning. The full Forrester TEI study is packed with insights, customer stories, and financial modeling to help you build your business case for Azure. Read the full study here *To understand benefits, costs, and risks, Forrester interviewed eight decision-makers with experience using the evaluated Azure solutions. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the results from these decision-makers into a single composite organization.Unlock Savings with Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan
Introduction As organizations scale their use of Microsoft Copilot Studio from building custom agents to integrating with Dynamics 365, cost predictability and optimization becomes critical. To help you plan confidently and save more, we’re introducing Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan (P3)*, a simple, one‑year plan that delivers volume discounts and automatic billing, so your team can focus on outcomes, not invoices. What is Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan? The P3 is a one‑year, pay‑up‑front option for Copilot Credits. You purchase Copilot Credit Commit Units (CCCU) and your usage automatically draws from this pool. Higher tiers unlock progressive discounts enabling more growth. See pricing here. How it works You pre-purchase a pool of Copilot Credits Commit Unit (CCCUs) for one year. Every time you use Copilot Credits for Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 first-party agents, or Copilot Chat*, the CCCUs are automatically drawn down from your P3 balance. If you use up your balance before the year ends, you can add another P3 plan or switch to pay-as-you-go. If you don’t use all your credits by the end of the year, the remaining balance expires. Example: A retail company runs 15 custom Copilot Studio agents to handle inventory checks, store operations, and customer service. They expect seasonal spike (holiday campaigns, back-to-school, and clearance events) but want predictable costs. Without P3: On the pay-as-you-go model their total cost can vary and spike as their usage goes up and down. During peak months, usage surges, and so does the bill make budgeting tough. With P3: Based on forecasting they expect to use 1,500,000 Copilot Credits over 12 months. Because they know how many Copilot Credits they plan on consuming, the retail company buys P3: Purchase P3 Tier 2: 15,000 CCCUs (this covers 1,500,000 Copilot Credits) P3 Upfront cost: $14,100 P3 discount: 6% vs PAYG Now, every time their agents run, CCCUs are automatically deducted from the P3 balance. P3 Tiers: Pricing as of October 2025, subject to change. See pricing here. Key Benefits Cost savings: Up to 20% discount at highest tier**. Budget predictability: One‑year term with upfront payment and no surprise bills. Flexibility: Add more P3 anytime; works alongside capacity packs and PAYG. No redeployment: Applies automatically to eligible usage. Defined Scope: Decide where the P3 applies based on your business needs. It can be applied at the resource group, subscription, management group, or shared level. How to Purchase Copilot Studio Pre-purchase plan Sign in to the Azure portal → Reservations → + Add → Copilot Credit Pre‑purchase Plan. Select your subscription and scope Choose your tier and complete payment. Link your subscription to Copilot Studio in Power Platform Admin Center. Best Practices Estimate accurately: Use historical usage or Copilot consumption estimator. Deploy first: Ensure environments are PAYG‑enabled before buying. Monitor utilization: Set alerts to avoid unexpected PAYG charges. Plan for renewal: Auto‑renew is on by default; adjust as needed. Conclusion If you’re scaling fast or managing multiple environments, P3 gives you predictable costs and meaningful savings without sacrificing flexibility. It’s ideal for customers with variable or growing usage who want to optimize spend and simplify billing. Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan makes it easier to innovate without worrying about unpredictable costs. By committing upfront, you unlock discounts, streamline billing, and gain confidence in your budget. Ready to start? Visit the Azure portal to purchase your plan today or read the Copilot Credits Pre-purchase Plans documents to learn more. Resources: Read how to confidently scale AI agent deployments with Copilot Studio Learn more about Microsoft Copilot Studio See Microsoft Copilot Studio Licensing Guide *Copilot Credit covers Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 first-party agents, and Copilot Chat. Microsoft reserves the right to update Copilot Credit eligible products. ** The actual realized cost per Copilot Credit for P3 and the MCS license will depend on the utilization rate. As such customers should take into account their expected usage pattern as P3 Commit Units expire annually while the Copilot Credit capacity packs expire monthly.
