CSPM Pricing for Foundational CSPM and Defender CSPM

Question

Good evening all,

I have some questions regarding CSPM. I have read the documentation:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/concept-cloud-security-posture-management#defender-cspm-plan-options

AND Pricing documentation:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/defender-for-cloud/

But I still have questions, due to the appallingly bad pricing information.

Firstly:

During a Landing Zone Accelerator Configuration exercise with the GUI. Which Plan does the following Enable?:

"Enable Microsoft Defender CSPM" - Yes

Will it enable Foundational CSPM or Defender CSPM?

Secondly:

On the pricing page, both Foundational and Defender CSPM Plans link to the same note regarding pricing only applying to certain resources only.

Nothing tells me what the costs are though.

I read this community page:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1282832/want-to-know-defender-cspm-standard-plan-features

Where Shweta Mathur suggests that Foundational is completely free, but Defender CSPM has a cost of $15/billable resource/month.

I take that as meaning, we have 13 VM's, so it will cost 13 x $15 a month = $195 per month for Defender CSPM.

Foundational CSPM would be free but doesn't provide nearly as much protection, help or analysis.

Can you you assist please?

Thanks in advance, Perry.

Answer 1

Hi Perry,

Your understanding of the pricing seems correct.

If you login to Defender for Cloud and go down to the Workload Protections, you'll see a list of advanced features that require the Defender Plan:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/workload-protections-dashboard