As Azure adoption grows, managing cloud costs becomes crucial for enterprise users. While Azure’s pay-as-you-go model offers flexibility, organizations need effective cost monitoring to stay within budget and identify resource spending patterns.
Azure Cost Analysis provides a native solution for tracking cloud expenditures, but enterprises managing multiple environments may face limitations. In this guide, we’ll explore Azure’s cost management features and how Turbo360 offers enhanced capabilities for monitoring multiple Azure subscriptions.
What is Azure Cost Analysis?
Azure Cost Analysis is a built-in cost management tool that provides comprehensive visibility into your organization’s Azure spending. This enables users to track resource utilization and identify opportunities for cost optimization across subscriptions.
Source: Microsoft
The tool offers interactive dashboards with customizable views that break down costs by resource types, resource groups, services, locations, and tags.
With Azure Cost Analysis, you can:
- Monitor daily, monthly, and annual spending trends
- Create and manage budgets with automated alerts
- Forecast future expenses based on historical usage patterns
- Generate detailed reports for financial planning and chargeback
- Identify underutilized resources and cost optimization opportunities
Azure Cost Analysis is available directly in the Azure portal under Cost Management + Billing and requires no additional installation, making it an accessible starting point for organizations looking to implement cloud cost governance.
Benefits of Azure Cost Analysis
Azure Cost Analysis provides significant advantages for engineering teams to optimize their cloud spend.
Comprehensive Cost Visibility
Azure Cost Analysis delivers detailed insights into your organization’s Azure spending across all services and resources. The platform breaks down costs by various dimensions, including
- Resource types
- Resource groups
- Locations
- Tags
Proactive Budget Management
With budget alerts, Azure Cost Analysis helps prevent unexpected spending spikes. You can set custom budget thresholds with automated notifications when spending approaches or exceeds your defined limits, This allows you to react quickly before costs escalate.
Resource Optimization Insights
The platform identifies underutilized or idle resources that continue to generate costs without delivering business value. These insights help organizations:
- Utilize right-sizing strategies;
- Eliminate waste;
- And optimize resource allocation based on actual consumption patterns rather than assumptions.
Simplified Cost Allocation
For organizations that need to distribute cloud costs across business units, projects, or departments, Azure Cost Analysis provides the granular data needed for accurate chargeback and showback processes. This granular visibility fosters cloud spending accountability throughout the organization.
Informed Decision-Making
Historical spending data and usage trends enable data-driven decisions about future resource provisioning and capacity planning. Teams can analyze past spending patterns to predict future costs and make adjustments to their cloud strategy before committing to new initiatives or deployments.
Self-Service Access
The interface makes cost data accessible to stakeholders beyond the finance department. Development teams, project managers, and business unit leaders can independently access relevant cost information. This practice can help teams foster a culture of cost awareness throughout the organization.
Limitations of Azure Cost Analysis
While Azure Cost Analysis offers ways to save money, it has several limitations that enterprises should be aware of:
Single Subscription View
The most significant limitation is that Azure Cost Analysis only provides detailed analysis at the individual subscription level.
Enterprise organizations with dozens or hundreds of subscriptions must switch between subscriptions for comprehensive cost analysis. Cross-subscription comparison requires manual data extraction and consolidation, creating inefficiencies for large-scale environments.
Data Refresh Delays
Cost data typically has an 8-24 hour delay before appearing in the analysis views. Real-time cost monitoring is not available, creating challenges for time-sensitive decisions.
Usage data for certain services may experience even longer delays. This makes it even more difficult to maintain cost awareness.
Limited Customization
Dashboard customization options are restricted compared to third-party solutions. Advanced filtering scenarios across multiple dimensions can be difficult to implement, and there’s limited ability to create custom metrics that combine different cost factors.
Restricted Historical Data
Standard retention periods may not meet the needs of organizations requiring extended historical analysis. Year-over-year comparison capabilities are constrained by data retention policies, and detailed usage data is available for a shorter period than aggregated cost data. This limitation impacts long-term trend analysis and capacity planning.
Integration Challenges
Azure Cost Analysis offers limited native integration with non-Microsoft tools and platforms. Additional effort is required to incorporate Azure cost data into enterprise financial systems, and API limitations exist when building custom reporting solutions. This creates barriers for organizations with heterogeneous cloud environments or established financial reporting workflows.
These limitations become particularly problematic for large enterprises managing complex multi-subscription environments, where comprehensive visibility across the entire Azure estate is essential for effective cost governance.
How to Use Azure Cost Analysis: Common Use Cases & Features
Azure Cost Analysis offers a robust set of features to help organizations gain visibility into their cloud spending patterns. In this section, we will explore practical applications of Azure Cost Analysis. We’ll walk through common use cases and demonstrate how to leverage the platform’s visualization features to answer critical cost management questions.
Visualize Cost Usage by Time Period
Azure Cost Analysis view enables you to visualize your cost usage by applying filters over a specified time period. You can easily determine the maximum cost incurred by any resource group or individual resource for any customized date range.
To identify which resource groups are consuming the most budget in a particular month, simply select the resource group option from the list of preview views when defining your cost analysis view, and specify your desired time interval.
Identify Which Resources Cost the Most
To identify your most expensive resource for a specific month, simply select the “resource” option from the preview views list when creating a cost analysis view. Make sure to specify your desired time interval to focus on the exact month you want to analyze.
Anomaly detection in Cost Analysis helps you anticipate cost fluctuations over time, eliminating unexpected surprises. This helps you discover unusual patterns in your cost usage, giving you advance warning when spending deviates from normal trends.
Discover How Many Reservations Are Being Used
Reservations offer a billing discount while not affecting your resources’ runtime state. When you make a reservation, the discount is applied automatically to matching resources.
You can purchase Azure Reservations by committing to one-year or three-year plans for,
- Virtual Machines
- Azure Blob storage or Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
- SQL Database compute capacity
- Azure Cosmos DB throughput and other Azure resources
Only resources covered by an Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft Customer Agreement, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), or subscriptions with pay-as-you-go rates qualify for a reservation discount.
All the purchased reservation utilizations can be viewed by navigating to Reservations in the Azure portal. To view the utilization history and specifics, select the utilization percentage.
Organize Costs by Properties
Azure Cost Analysis allows you to segment and visualize spending data using multiple properties that align with your organization’s structure and priorities. You can organize costs by:
Key Properties:
- Resource-based: Resource type, resource group, location
- Billing: Subscription, meter category, billing account
- Business: Tags, cost centers, applications
- Optimization: Reserved instance coverage, pricing tier, SKU
To use this feature, simply access Cost Analysis in the Azure portal, select your preferred time range, and use the “Group by” dropdown to choose your primary dimension. Add filters to refine your view and save custom configurations for repeated use.
Understand Billing and Resource Management Scopes
Billing manages your business relationships and issues customer invoices for goods or services. Through your billing account, you can control all your payments, invoices, and cost tracking in one place.
Azure offers three resource management scopes. Each scope supports access and governance management, which may or may not include cost management.
- Management groups are hierarchical containers used to arrange Azure subscriptions. A management group tree can support up to six levels of depth. The Root level and the subscription level are not included in the limit.
- Subscriptions are the primary storage containers for Azure resources.
- Resource groups are logical collections of connected resources for an Azure solution with a standard lifecycle. An illustration would be resources that are deployed and removed simultaneously.
Use cost alerts to monitor usage and spending
Azure Cost Analysis supports three types of alerts to help you proactively monitor your cloud spending. Azure budget alerts notify you when your spending, whether in terms of usage or cost, reaches or exceeds the limit specified in the alert condition.
Credit alerts inform you when your Azure Prepayment (previously called a financial commitment) has run out, with warnings automatically generated at 90% and 100% of your Azure Prepayment credit balance.
Finally, department spending quota alerts send notifications when your department’s spending exceeds a specific quota threshold, helping you maintain financial control across organizational units.
Azure Cost Analysis Best Practices
Use the best practices to maximize the value you get from Azure Cost Analysis.
1. Implement Consistent Resource Tagging
Develop a extensive tagging strategy across all of your Azure resources. Tags should reflect business dimensions like department, project, environment, and application.
This granular categorization enables meaningful cost allocation and creates the foundation for accurate reporting. Consider using automated policies to enforce tagging compliance during resource provisioning.
2. Set Up Meaningful Budget Alerts
Configure budget alerts at different thresholds (e.g., 70%, 85%, and 95% of budget) to provide early warnings before exceeding financial limits.
Assign alert notifications to both financial stakeholders and the technical teams responsible for resource management. This distributed awareness enables coordinated responses to potential overspending.
3. Schedule Regular Cost Reviews
Establish a cadence of cost review meetings with cross-functional teams including IT, finance, and business stakeholders.
During these sessions, analyze spending trends, identify anomalies, and develop action plans for optimization. This regular attention to cloud spend helps institutionalize financial discipline in cloud operations.
4. Leverage Saved Views for Standardized Reporting
Create and share standardized cost views for different stakeholder groups within your organization.
Finance teams may need detailed breakdowns across all resources, while development teams might benefit from focused views of their specific projects. These consistent reporting formats improve communication and facilitate trend analysis over time.
5. Combine Cost Analysis with Azure Advisor
Source: Microsoft
Integrate Azure Advisor recommendations with your cost analysis workflow to identify concrete optimization opportunities.
Advisor provides actionable insights for right-sizing underutilized resources, leveraging reserved instances for commitment-based cost savings, and eliminating unnecessary spending.
6. Implement Charge-Back or Show-Back Models
Use the detailed cost breakdowns from Azure Cost Analysis to implement internal charge-back (billing internal departments) or show-back (showing costs without charging) models. This visibility creates accountability and encourages owners to optimize cloud usage when they are able to see a direct financial impact.
7. Establish Resource Naming Conventions
Enforce standardized naming conventions that show ownership, purpose, and environment for each resource. Consistent naming enhances the readability of cost reports and helps quickly identify the purpose and ownership of high-cost resources, especially in large environments with thousands of resources.
How to Set Up and Use Azure Cost Analysis (Step-by-Step)
Getting started with Azure Cost Analysis is straightforward. Follow these steps to configure and begin using this powerful cost management tool:
Step 1: Access Azure Cost Analysis
- Sign in to the Azure portal
- In the search bar, type “Cost Management + Billing” and select it from the results
- Within the Cost Management + Billing page, select “Cost analysis” from the left navigation menu
Step 2: Select the Appropriate Scope
- In the scope dropdown at the top of the Cost Analysis page, select the subscription, resource group, or management group you want to analyze
- For enterprise-wide analysis, select a management group that contains multiple subscriptions
- Note that your access permissions determine which scopes you can view
Step 3: Configure Your First Cost View
- When you first access Cost Analysis, it displays a default view showing your accumulated costs for the current month
- Use the “Time range” dropdown to select a different period (e.g., last month, last 3 months, custom date range)
- Select the “Group by” dropdown to organize costs by different dimensions:
- Resource type
- Resource group
- Location
- Tags
- Service name
Step 4: Apply Filters for Detailed Analysis
- Click the “Add filter” button to narrow your cost view
- Select a property to filter by (e.g., service name, resource group)
- Choose the specific values to include
- Add multiple filters to create highly targeted views
Step 5: Create and Save Custom Views
- After configuring your view with the desired time range, grouping, and filters, click “Save” at the top of the page
- Give your view a detailed name that showcases its purpose (e.g., “Monthly Infrastructure Costs by Region”)
- Add the view to your dashboard (optional)
Step 6: Set Up Cost Alerts and Budgets
- From the Cost Management + Billing page, select “Budgets” from the left navigation menu
- Click “Add” to create a new budget
- Configure the budget parameters:
- Name
- Reset period (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually)
- Creation date and expiration
- Amount
- Set up alert conditions (e.g., 80% of budget, 100% of budget)
- Configure alert recipients by email
Step 7: Export and Schedule Reports
- In the Cost Analysis view, click “Export” at the top of the page
- Choose your preferred format (CSV or Excel)
- For recurring reports, click “Schedule” instead of “Export”
- Configure the schedule, delivery method, and recipients
Step 8: Analyze Cost Forecasts
- In your Cost Analysis view, select a time period that includes future dates
- Azure will automatically display a forecast of expected costs based on your historical usage patterns
- Use this information for budget planning and to identify potential overspending before it occurs
Step 9: Explore Cost Optimization Recommendations
- From the Cost Management + Billing page, select “Advisor recommendations” from the left navigation menu
- Review the cost optimization suggestions provided by Azure Advisor
- For each recommendation, evaluate the potential savings and implementation effort
- Prioritize and implement recommendations based on ROI
Monitoring Multiple Azure Subscriptions With Turbo360
Turbo360’s Cost Analyzer is an all-in-one integrated solution that offers a variety of features to meet the user’s needs and requirements.
Azure Cost Analysis vs. Turbo360 Cost Analyzer: Feature Comparison
| Feature | Azure Cost Analysis | Turbo360 Cost Analyzer |
| Multi-subscription visibility | Limited – must switch between subscriptions | Yes – unified view across all subscriptions |
| Data refresh rate | 8-24 hour delay | Near real-time (4-hour refresh) |
| Cost allocation | Basic allocation options | Advanced allocation with custom business dimensions |
| Budget monitoring | Single subscription budgets | Cross-subscription budget monitoring |
| Historical data retention | Limited by Azure retention policies | Extended historical data retention |
| Customizable dashboards | Basic customization | Advanced dashboard customization |
| Resource scheduling | Not available natively | Built-in resource scheduling for cost optimization |
| Anomaly detection | Basic anomaly detection | Advanced AI-driven anomaly detection |
| Alert capabilities | Basic threshold alerts | Customizable alerts with multiple notification channels |
| Integration with external tools | Limited API capabilities | Comprehensive API and integration options |
| Custom tagging support | Basic tag support | Advanced tag management and inheritance |
| Reserved instance optimization | Basic RI reporting | Advanced RI utilization and recommendations |
| User access controls | Standard RBAC | Fine-grained access controls with custom roles |
| Pricing | Included with Azure subscription | Custom. Request pricing here. |
Analysis Views in Cost Analyzer can visualize multiple Azure subscription and resource costs simultaneously. Grouping and filtering options are provided to customize views according to the user’s preferences.
Monitors in Cost Analyzer allow you to set a monthly or daily budget for your Azure costs and receive notifications if the actual cost exceeds the budget. You can preview Azure cost trends to gain valuable insights before setting up a monitor. Monitor rules for a single monitor can be specified for resources across multiple subscriptions.
Cost Optimization in Cost Analyzer enables you to create optimization schedules with resources associated by defining the tiers, throughput values, and the resource state concerning the Up and Down hours of a day.
Turbo360’s Cost Analyzer is one of the best solutions that provides cost visualization and cost monitoring support for multiple Azure subscriptions. Get unlimited access to all of Cost Analyzer’s features by signing up for a free 14-day trial here!
FAQs: Top Questions About Azure Cost Analysis For Multiple Subscriptions
Can I Have Multiple Subscriptions in Azure, and Why Would I Need Them?
Yes, you can have multiple Azure subscriptions under a single account. Azure subscriptions serve as both billing boundaries and access control boundaries. Multiple subscriptions are often necessary when you reach per-subscription resource limits or need better governance over your Azure resources.
Why Can’t I See All My Subscription Costs in One View Using Native Azure Cost Management?
Native Azure Cost Management is limited to analyzing costs at a single subscription level. This is a significant limitation for enterprise organizations that manage multiple environments and need comprehensive visibility across their entire Azure estate. Turbo360’s Cost Analyzer solves this problem by providing a unified view of costs across all your subscriptions.
How Do Management Groups Help With Multiple Subscription Management?
Management groups organize subscriptions into hierarchies for governance and management. You can create a structure mirroring your organization, apply policies that cascade to all subscriptions within a group, and view aggregated costs.
While management groups offer cross-subscription capabilities, tools like Turbo360 Cost Analyzer provide deeper multi-subscription cost analysis and optimization.
How Can I Set Up Cost Allocation Across Departments When Resources Span Different Subscriptions?
Turbo360 lets you create Cost Management Groups that cluster resources from any subscription based on departments, projects, or business dimensions.
This enables proper chargeback and showback models regardless of subscription architecture, providing accurate cost allocation that aligns with your organizational structure rather than technical subscription boundaries.
What Should Be Considered When Developing a Subscription Scaling Strategy?
When developing a subscription scaling strategy, consider:
- Billing requirements for different departments or projects;
- Access control needs based on your organizational structure;
- Subscription-level resource limits that might necessitate additional subscriptions;
- Management overhead associated with each additional subscription;
- And how you’ll analyze costs across these subscriptions.
Tools like Turbo360 help mitigate the complexity of managing costs across multiple subscriptions by providing unified visibility and control.
