Question: Does Azure Monitor Cost Money?

Answer

Azure Monitor does indeed cost money, but the costs are based on a consumption-based pricing model, which means you only pay for what you use. Here are the key points to understand the costs associated with Azure Monitor:

1. Pricing Model: Azure Monitor uses a pay-as-you-go billing model. You pay for the specific features and data you use, rather than a flat fee.

2. Free Features: Certain features are provided at no cost, such as the collection and alerting on the Activity log and the collection and analysis of standard metrics from Azure resources.

3. Charged Features: The main components that incur costs include:

   • Logs: Ingestion, retention, and export of data in Log Analytics workspaces and Application Insights resources. Log data ingestion is typically the largest component of Azure Monitor charges. There are different pricing tiers available, including pay-as-you-go and commitment tiers.
   • Platform Logs: Processing of diagnostic and auditing information sent to destinations other than a Log Analytics workspace incurs charges.
   • Metrics: Collecting custom metrics and retrieving metrics via the REST API incurs costs, while standard metrics are free.
   • Prometheus Metrics: Charges are based on data samples ingested and query samples processed for the managed service for Prometheus.
   • Alerts: Costs depend on the type and number of signals used by the alert rule, its frequency, and the type of notification used.
   • Web Tests: There are costs associated with standard web tests and multi-step web tests in Application Insights.

4. Data Ingestion and Retention: The bulk of the costs for Azure Monitor come from data ingestion and retention. For example, data ingestion is charged at $2.30 per GB for the pay-as-you-go model, and there are commitment tiers that offer fixed prices for larger volumes of data. Data retention beyond 31 days also incurs a cost of $0.10 per GB per month.

5. Data Transfer: While data transfer can incur costs, these are typically small compared to the costs for data ingestion and retention. Inbound data transfer is free, but outbound data transfer between regions is charged at the normal rate.

6. Tools for Cost Management: Azure provides tools like Azure Cost Management + Billing and Usage and Estimated Costs to help you analyze and optimize your Azure Monitor costs.

By understanding these components, you can better manage and estimate the costs associated with using Azure Monitor.