The following are more or less equivalent service tiers in the Azure SQL DTU-model:
- Azure SQL Standard S9 offers 24 cores with a 12 maxdop (maximum degree of parallelism)
- Azure SQL Standard S12 offers 44 cores with a 22 maxdop
- Azure SQL Premium (high performance IO) P11 offers 18 cores with a 18 maxdop
- Azure SQL Premium (high performance IO) P15 offers 42 cores with a 42 maxdop
With Azure SQL DTU model you don't have to pay licensing fees.