Best Azure Cost Management Tools in 2026
Microsoft Azure offers powerful cloud services, but its complex pricing model makes cost optimization challenging. Organizations typically waste 30-40% of their Azure budget on unused or overprovisioned resources. The right tool can help you recover this waste and optimize your spend.
Common Azure Cost Challenges and Leakage Areas
Azure's extensive service catalog and complex pricing create many opportunities for cost leakage. Here are the most common areas where organizations lose money:
Top Azure Cost Leakage Areas
- Oversized Virtual Machines - VMs provisioned for peak load but running at 15-25% average utilization
- Unused Reserved Instances - RIs purchased but not matched to running instances, or wrong region/size
- Premium storage waste - Using Premium SSD for workloads that don't need high IOPS
- Orphaned resources - Unattached disks, unused public IPs, empty resource groups, idle App Service plans
- Dev/test running 24/7 - Non-production environments not shut down outside business hours
- AKS inefficiency - Over-provisioned node pools, pods with excessive resource requests
- Azure SQL over-provisioning - DTU or vCore tiers far exceeding actual database needs
Manual Azure Cost Optimization: How to Do It Yourself
Manual Azure cost optimization is possible but requires dedicated effort and deep platform knowledge:
1. VM Right-Sizing (Manual)
Use Azure Monitor to export CPU, memory, and disk metrics. Analyze 2-4 weeks of data to identify consistently underutilized VMs. Resize through the portal, considering that VMs must be stopped for most size changes.
Time required: 6-10 hours/week depending on environment size
2. Reserved Instance Planning (Manual)
Analyze 6-12 months of VM usage to identify stable workloads. Calculate potential savings using the Azure Pricing Calculator. Purchase RIs through the portal, ensuring flexibility settings match your needs.
Time required: 12-20 hours for initial analysis, monthly tracking
3. Orphaned Resource Cleanup (Manual)
Navigate through each subscription to identify unattached disks, unused IPs, and idle resources. Use Azure Resource Graph queries for large environments. Manually delete after confirming resources are safe to remove.
Time required: 3-6 hours/week for ongoing hygiene
4. Dev/Test Scheduling (Manual)
Create Azure Automation runbooks to start/stop VMs on schedules. Configure Logic Apps for more complex scenarios. Manually maintain schedules as teams and resources change.
Time required: 8-16 hours initial setup, 2-4 hours/week maintenance
Why Automated Tools Are Essential for Azure
Azure's complexity makes manual optimization particularly challenging. Here's why automation is critical:
Manual Approach Challenges
- Complex multi-subscription management
- RI matching across instance flexibility
- No unified view across subscriptions
- Reactive rather than proactive savings
- Azure Advisor has limited automation
Automated Tool Benefits
- Unified multi-subscription dashboard
- Intelligent RI recommendations
- Automated Spot VM management
- Real-time spending alerts
- Continuous compliance monitoring
Azure Cost Optimization Essentials
- VM right-sizing - Match VM SKUs to actual workload needs
- Reserved Instances - Up to 72% savings with commitments
- Spot VMs - Up to 90% savings for interruptible workloads
- Storage tiering - Automatic blob lifecycle management
- AKS optimization - Container-level cost allocation
Top 5 Azure Cost Management Tools
1. DeepCost
AI-powered Azure cost optimization with VM right-sizing, Reserved Instance recommendations, and AKS optimization.
Pros
- 48% average Azure savings
- Automated RI planning
- AKS optimization
- Spot VM management
- Multi-cloud support
Cons
- Full automation requires Pro plan
2. Azure Cost Management + Billing
Native Azure tool for cost analysis, budgets, and basic recommendations. Free but limited automation.
Pros
- Free with Azure
- Native integration
- Advisor recommendations
Cons
- Basic automation
- Limited analytics
- Azure only
3. CloudHealth by VMware
Enterprise cloud management with strong Azure support, governance, and policy management.
Pros
- Enterprise governance
- Multi-cloud support
- Policy automation
Cons
- Complex setup
- Enterprise pricing
- Slow to implement
4. Spot.io by NetApp
Azure Spot VM management with automatic failover and AKS container optimization.
Pros
- Azure Spot management
- AKS optimization
- Automatic failover
Cons
- Compute focused
- No storage optimization
- Learning curve
5. Turbonomic
IBM-owned platform with AI-driven resource optimization for Azure and hybrid environments.
Pros
- AI-driven automation
- Hybrid cloud support
- Application awareness
Cons
- Complex pricing
- Enterprise focus
- Steep learning curve
Our Recommendation
For Azure cost optimization, DeepCost delivers the best ROI with its AI-powered recommendations and automated savings. It excels at VM right-sizing, Reserved Instance planning, and AKS optimization, with customers seeing 48% average Azure savings.
Azure Cost Management provides good basic visibility and is free, making it a starting point. For enterprise governance, CloudHealth remains strong. For Spot VM management specifically, Spot.io offers excellent automation.