How is Azure Virtual Desktop Cost Estimation Priced?

Question

Are AVDs priced based on host runtime or users connected? The Azure calculator has default total usage hours of 220 is equivalent to a typical 40-hour work week for a month. Usually estimates are 720 hours (typical runtime for a month 24x7)

There is also a popup that states "Total usage hours is the number of hours per month that the group of users will be connected to the resources allocated to them."

So, is the final cost the combination of usage hours per user plus underlying hosting infrastructure?

Answer 1

Hello, @JH !

How is Azure Virtual Desktop Cost Estimation Priced?

There are two components to Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) pricing:

• User access rights (license/user access)
• Azure infrastructure costs (VMs, storage, networking)

There are many possible variables when it comes to AVD pricing but generally speaking the number of active users (users connected) increases the number of VMs required (host runtime) and the number of VMs required increases the compute cost. Costs associated with storage and bandwidth, however, may not scale as linearly.

Looking at the Azure pricing calculator, you can see this in effect. If you focus just on peak concurrency by setting off peak concurrency to 0%, you'll see a clearer relationship in the estimated cost when you double total named users or cut total usage hours in half (as this affects the number of compute instances and the number of hours those instances are used).

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