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Estimate Azure Monitor costs

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Your Azure Monitor cost will vary significantly based on your expected utilization and configuration. Use the Azure Monitor Pricing calculator to get cost estimates for different features of Azure Monitor based on your particular environment.

Since Azure Monitor has multiple types of charges, its calculator has multiple categories. See the sections below for an explanation of these categories and guidance for providing estimates. See Azure Monitor Pricing for current pricing details.

Some of the values required by the calculator might be difficult to provide if you're just getting started with Azure Monitor. For example, you might have no idea of the volume of analytics logs generated from the different Azure resources that you intend to monitor. A common strategy is to enable monitoring for a small group of resources and use the observed data volumes with the calculator to determine your costs for a full environment. See Analyze usage in Log Analytics workspace for queries and other methods to measure the billable data in your Log Analytics workspace.

Tip

For strategies to reduce your Azure Monitor costs, see Cost optimization and Azure Monitor.

Log data ingestion

This section includes the ingestion and retention of data in your Log Analytics workspaces. This includes such features as Container insights and Application insights in addition to resource logs collected from your Azure resources and agents installed on your virtual machines. This is where the bulk of monitoring costs will typically be incurred in most environments.

Category Description
Estimate Data Volume For Monitoring VMs Data collected from your virtual machines either using VM insights or by creating a DCR to events and performance data. The data collected from each VM will vary significantly depending on your particular collection settings and the workloads running on your virtual machines, so you should validate these estimates in your own environment.
Estimate Data Volume Using Container Insights Data collected from your Kubernetes clusters. The estimate is based on the number of clusters and their configuration. This estimate applies only for metrics and inventory data collected. Container logs (stdout, stderr, and environmental variables) vary significantly based on the log sizes generated by the workload, and they're excluded from this estimate. You should include their volume in the Analytics Logs category.
Estimate Data Volume Based On Application Activity Data collected from your workspace-based applications using Application Insights. The data collected from each application will vary significantly depending on your particular collection settings and applications, so you should validate these estimates in your own environment.
Analytics Logs Resource logs collected from Azure resources and any other data aside from those listed above sent to Log Analytics tables not configured for basic logs. This can be difficult to estimate so you should enable monitoring for a small group of resources and use the observed data volumes to extrapolate for a full environment.
Basic Logs Resource logs collected from Azure resources and any other data aside from those listed above sent to Log Analytics tables configured for basic logs. This can be difficult to estimate so you should enable monitoring for a small group of resources and use the observed data volumes to extrapolate for a full environment.
Interactive Data Retention Interactive retention setting for your Log Analytics workspace.
Data Archive Archive setting for your Log Analytics workspace.
Basic Logs Search Queries Estimated number and scanned data of the queries that you expect to run using tables configured for basic logs.
Search Jobs Estimated number and scanned data of the search jobs that you expect to run against archived data.
Platform logs Resource logs collected from Azure resources to an Event Hub, Storage account, or a partner. This doesn't include logs sent to your Log Analytics workspace, which are included in the Analytics Logs and Basic Logs category. This can be difficult to estimate so you should enable monitoring for a small group of resources and use the observed data volumes to extrapolate for a full environment.

Managed Prometheus

This section includes charges for the ingestion and query of Prometheus metrics by your Kubernetes clusters.

Category Description
Metric Sample Ingestion Number and frequency of the Prometheus metrics collected by your AKS nodes. See Default Prometheus metrics configuration in Azure Monitor.
Query Samples Processed Number of query samples can be estimated from the dashboards and alerting rules that use them.

Alert rules

This section includes charges for alert rules.

Category Description
Metric Signals Monitored Number of metrics alert rules and their time series.
Log Signals Monitored Number of log search alert rules and their frequency.

ITSM connector - ticket creation/update

This section includes charges for ITSM events, which are sent in response to alerts being triggered.

Category Description
Estimate the number of ITSM events that will be sent beyond the number included for free.

Notifications

This section includes charges for notifications, which are sent in response to alerts being triggered.

Category Description
Emails, web hooks and push notifications Estimate the number of different types of notifications that will be sent beyond the number included for free.

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