Best subscription plan for testing VMs in Azure Portal to minimize cost

Question

What is the best subscription to use for Azure certification for VM creation and usage. Of course want to minimize what we pay for testing as we are only running it for training and not production. Any insight is appreciated, currently we are using pay as you go

Answer 1

Hello, @Paul Peterson !

What is the best Azure subscription for learning about Azure either for free or limiting costs? What VM specific benefits should I look for?

If you are studying Azure and want to reduce costs, there are 3 subscription options to look at:

• Azure free subscription: Free for new Azure users, starts with a $200 Azure credit to use in the first 30 days, provides popular services free for 12 months, and more. You can deploy Windows 11 VMs for development or testing purposes on this subscription type.
• Azure student subscription: Gives active students at registered learning institutions $100 in Azure credit to be used within 12 months (you can sign up again if you are still a student every 12 months), does not require a credit card, and provides use of free services if you move to pay as you go. You can deploy Windows 11 VMs for development or testing purposes on this subscription type.
• Pay as you go subscription: Allows you to take advantage of free products and only pay for what you use. Great for cost efficient learning if the free and student subscriptions are not an option. You will need the appropriate license type to deploy Windows 11 (or previous Windows client image VMs) which makes Windows Server or Linux more cost effective options for this subscription.

For VMs in particular, pay close attention to the following benefits:

• Can use Windows 11 VMs for development and testing purposes: Both the Azure free subscription and the Azure student subscription allow you to use Windows 11 VMs for development and testing purposes without having to acquire a qualifying multitenant or client license.
• Free burstable VM hours: Check the free products benefit for each subscription for 750 hours each of B1s, B2pts v2 (Arm-based), and B2ats v2 (AMD-based) burstable VMs

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