CLOUD
10 ways to cut your Azure bill
Practical Azure cost optimisation — Reservations, Savings Plans, Azure Hybrid Benefit, rightsizing, storage tiers and more — with a savings calculator.
By VISIBI Cloud team·Reviewed by Saeed Ak, Co-founder & CTO·Updated 29 September 2026·8 min read
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Practical Azure cost optimisation — Reservations, Savings Plans, Azure Hybrid Benefit, rightsizing, storage tiers and more — with a savings calculator.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
✓Azure Hybrid Benefit can cut Windows and SQL costs significantly if you own licences.
✓Reservations and Savings Plans reduce rates for steady workloads.
✓Auto-shutdown for dev/test is an easy win.
FREE CALCULATOR
Estimate your Azure savings
Estimated saving per year£43,200
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Rates
- Azure Reservations for steady VMs and databases
- Azure Savings Plan for compute
- Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server and SQL
- Dev/Test pricing for non-production subscriptions
Usage
- Rightsize VMs with Azure Advisor
- Auto-shutdown non-production VMs
- Use Spot VMs for batch workloads
- Move storage to cool or archive tiers
- Delete unattached disks and old snapshots
- Scale App Service plans and AKS node pools
Governance
Use Azure Policy for tagging and allowed SKUs, and set budgets with alerts in Azure Cost Management.
Common mistakes to avoid
✕Buying commitments before rightsizing
✕No tagging, so nobody knows who owns the spend
✕Click-ops changes that can’t be reproduced or audited
✕Migrating without a rollback plan
HOW VISIBI CAN HELP
How we help with cloud
01AssessCertified architects review cost, security and reliability.
02PlanA prioritised roadmap with savings and risks quantified.
03ImplementChanges delivered as Terraform with zero-downtime rollout.
04OperateFinOps reviews, monitoring and optional 24/7 managed services.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Azure Hybrid Benefit?
A licensing benefit that lets you use existing Windows Server and SQL Server licences with Software Assurance on Azure.
Reservations or Savings Plan?
Reservations give deeper discounts for specific resources; Savings Plans are more flexible.
How much can we save?
Many estates save 20–40% — the free estimate gives your figure.
SA
Reviewed by Saeed Ak · Co-founder & CTO25 years engineering high-traffic ecommerce, cloud and security platforms. Written by the VISIBI Cloud team.Meet the team →