Decide between a savings plan and a reservation

Azure provides you with two ways to save on your usage by committing for one or three years. You have the freedom to choose the savings options that best align with your workload patterns.

Compare reservations with savings plans

When you opt for reservations, you're making a commitment to use a specific type of compute instance or instance family, in a specific Azure region, for a set period of time. For example, you might commit to using a D2v4 virtual machine in the Japan East region for one year. An Azure savings plan involves committing to a specific hourly expenditure on eligible compute services across all Azure regions for a certain period. For instance, you might commit to spending $5.00 per hour for three years. Reservations only apply to the specified compute service and region combination. Savings plan benefits are applicable to all usage from participating compute services across the globe, up to the hourly commitment.

Choose a reservation

Opt for reservations when you have workloads that run continuously and are highly stable, with no anticipated changes to the instance type, instance family, or region. When fully utilized, reservations provide the greatest savings.

Choose a savings plan

Opt for savings plans when your workloads are dynamic or evolving, particularly if they use various instance families or compute services. Or when they're running in or shifting to different datacenter regions. Savings plans provide deep savings, flexible benefit application, and automatic optimization.

Related content

For general information about savings plans, see What is Azure savings plans for compute?.