Can we stop Azure App Service to save cost ?

Question

Can we stop Azure App Service to save cost ?

MS Techie 2,751

Why have they given the Number of Hours for the Azure App Service. Anyways we cannot stop the Azure App Service to save some costs.
OR
is there an option to STOP the AppService to SAVE COST ? Can we schedule the Start and Stop of Azure App Service ?

My requirement is that the Web App should be running during Weekdays and shutdown during Weekends.

I am aware that for Azure VMs, we can stop the Azure VM , during non-working hours to save money .

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Answer 1

sadomovalex 3,636

it is possible to stop whole app service (see Full stopping a Web App), but I'm not sure that it will affect pricing:

Go to https://resources.azure.com
Find needed app service from above list
In JSON view on the right side click Edit
Change “state” from “Running” to “Stopped” – this is the same as if you would stop App service form Azure portal
Find “scmSiteAlsoStopped” property and set it from “false” to “true” – it will stop SCM file

MS Techie 2,751 Reputation points

2021-02-22T15:11:35.577+00:00

Hi, but will that stop the azure pricing charges ?
sadomovalex 3,636 Reputation points

2021-02-23T14:57:32.9+00:00

looks like it doesn't: Don't charge for app services in a stopped state:

Since billing is defined by the App Service Plan’s tier (free, shared, basic, standard, premium), to stop billing you’ll need to scale down to the free tier of the plan.

So the only way is to scale down to free tier of App Service plan.
MS Techie 2,751 Reputation points

2021-02-24T13:44:09.333+00:00

is it possible to automatically scale down from Standard tier to free tier for the Azure App Service plan ?

in other words, is it possible to automatically scale up and down across tiers .. i only know that from Standard tier onwards for App Service, we can scale out and scale in .... but not across tiers .

So is it possible to scale automatically across tiers ?
sadomovalex 3,636 Reputation points

2021-02-24T16:01:10.57+00:00

documentation says that it is possible in general:

Your App Service plan can be scaled up and down at any time. It is as simple as changing the pricing tier of the plan. You can choose a lower pricing tier at first and scale up later when you need more App Service features.For example, you can start testing your web app in a Free App Service plan and pay nothing. When you want to add your custom DNS name to the web app, just scale your plan up to Shared tier. ... The same works in the reverse. When you feel you no longer need the capabilities or features of a higher tier, you can scale down to a lower tier, which saves you money.

It means that it should be possible to do it automatically e.g. with Powershell.
MS Techie 2,751 Reputation points

2021-03-02T17:40:01.533+00:00

For the App Service , is it possible to automatically scale across tiers like Basic , Standard ?

Answer 2

Jack Roper 21

I don't believe that is possible - one workaround would be to use autoscaling rules to move between free or lower cost app service tiers based on time of day or usage.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/overview-hosting-plans

cheong00 3,486 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2021-02-22T10:20:10.48+00:00

Yup. Or you can set your spending limit in Cost and Billing so if it reaches the limit the service will stop automatically.
MS Techie 2,751 Reputation points

2021-02-22T12:01:03.777+00:00

In Auto-scaling , we can only scale in or scale out.. We cannot move between tiers in auto-scaling , i think

Answer 3

MS Techie 2,751

Can some expert or Microsoft Employee comment on this

if Azure App Service cannot be stopped to save money... then why in microsoft Azure Pricing site, they talk about number of hours of running App Service ?

Julio César Hernández Sánchez 1 Reputation point

2021-03-02T17:58:25.243+00:00

Hi, I'm not a microsoft employe but i think that is because you can scale the app service plan.

for example

100 hours whit the S1 plan

and

644 hours whit the S2 plan

¡Regards!
Jani Hyytiäinen 5 Reputation points

2023-09-03T07:15:00.6566667+00:00

Because you might be scaling down your instance to another plan (f.ex. free tier) while your load is low. Which means you'll not be running the selected instance 730h/mo.
N P 0 Reputation points

2024-12-05T08:53:05.2933333+00:00

You might also choose to deploy and run an app service for a few hours, days or weeks and then delete it - makes sense to have a per hour cost so you can budget accordingly.

Answer 4

I think they mean that they will calculate cost based on used hours (you can scale up/down an App Service and/or just create/delete a new App Service anytime during the month, which affecting the cost per month), but it does not mean that they design the resource as something that can be paused/resumed natively for the sake of saving cost.

The underlying reason could be: App Service is indeed a dedicated server (CPU + Memory + Disk) which is a preserved resource (could be tied to multiple Function App / Logic Apps) thus pausing them does not release the resource back to Azure. Therefore, in Azure perspective, they are still paying for the resource cost. If they pay, we need to pay them back for sure.

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Can we stop Azure App Service to save cost ?

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