Asking about payments - sql server high payments, i didint used it much. StudentSubscription

Question

Hello, I am a student in Poland, studying at an IT university. We have access to Azure for Students, and I've started working on a mobile app with an API service in C# and a SQL Server database. I wanted to use Azure to host my API along with the SQL database. However, after just one week of hosting, 1/6 of the total budget for students (which is $100) has already been used up, with 90% of it going towards database usage. I didn't do much, just some testing and a few dozen queries to the database each day. If it continues like this, I'll run out of budget in 2-3 weeks. Is this cost normal? Have I configured something incorrectly?

Answer 1

Hi @Kamil

As you mentioned, 90% of the cost is going towards database usage.

To save the cost, what you could do instead is switch to a lower-cost tier or switch to serverless tier with auto-pause enabled. With auto-pause enabled the server will pause if there is no activity during the time period you set (minimum of 1 hour).

You can change the tier in the portal via Settings -- Compute + storage.

Serverless compute tier for Azure SQL Database

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/serverless-tier-overview?view=azuresql&tabs=general-purpose

Additionally, to save the cost, there are several options that could be helpful.

Please check in below link How to stop Azure SQL Database - Microsoft Q&A

Let us know if you have any additional questions.

Thank you!

Answer 2

HI Kamil,

Are you utilizing the sql database 24/7? if so the cost might look too heavy... esp., when you are running on a free version. Pls try to implement the serverless tier option (link below) to pause the database when there are no actions. This might bring down your cost and you can extend the free $ until the end of your trial period.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/serverless-tier-overview?view=azuresql&tabs=general-purpose

Please Upvote and Accept as answer if the reply was helpful, this will be benefitting the other community members who go through the same issue.