Change App Service plan implies I can consolidate to a single plan yet doesn't allow me to select an existing plan

Question

Change App Service plan implies I can consolidate to a single plan yet doesn't allow me to select an existing plan

catmanjan 111

I have two azure app services and I'd like to put them on the same plan, at the moment they each have their own.

So I clicked on Change plan, a pop up appears that even says "Changing the plan that your app is hosted on allows you to either consolidate your apps into a single plan which allows them to share machine resources"

However, the form below it does not allow you to select an existing plan, meaning you can't do that - I even tried typing in the name of my existing plan, however I got an error message about it not being unique...

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Bhargavi Naragani 6,535 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-08T05:55:42.89+00:00
Hi @catmanjan,

If the plan you're typing already exists in the same resource group and region, it won’t create a new one it will re-use it. The error message you’re seeing ("App service plan name must be unique in each resource group") actually means that you're trying to create a new plan with a name that already exists, which Azure doesn’t allow. That’s misleading when you're just trying to select an existing one.

To properly move your app to an existing App Service Plan:

Ensure both apps are in the same region.

Ensure both App Services use the same OS and pricing tier (or are compatible).

Use the Azure Portal or Azure CLI to move the app: Using CLI:
az webapp update --name YourAppName \ --resource-group YourResourceGroup \ --plan ExistingAppServicePlanName
Using the portal:
Go to your app in the portal => Under "Change App Service Plan", manually enter the name of the existing plan (ensure it’s in the same resource group and region). If it's compatible, it will accept and move the app to that plan.

For Reference:
Change an App Service plan
az webapp update - CLI

Hope the above provided information help you resolve the issue, if you have any further concerns or queries, please feel free to reach out to us.
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-08T06:17:23.98+00:00

"If the plan you're typing already exists in the same resource group and region, it won’t create a new one it will re-use it."

There is a bug here then:
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-08T06:25:52.6333333+00:00

Also that command line doesn't seem to work, was this response hallucianted by ChatGPT?unrecognized arguments: --plan
Siva Nair 2,420 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-08T07:12:56.2833333+00:00

Hi catmanjan,

I understand that you are trying to put your app services in one same plan, As per below document here Change App service plan, You can move an app to another App Service plan, as long as the source plan and the target plan are in the same resource group and geographical region and of the same OS type. Any change in type, such as Windows to Linux or any type that's different from the originating type, isn't supported.

Any VNET integration configured on the app must be disabled prior to changing App Service plans.

And also please go through the note mentioned in link, The dropdown shows only plans that are in the same resource group and geographical region as the current App Service plan, Please confirm.

Can you send me the previous screens as well from where you are navigating to the screen you provided in the question, Thanks

If you have any further assistant, do let me know.
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-08T23:37:26.5233333+00:00

All resources are in the same resource group, region, OS type, no VNET integration

Definitely a bug here:

Accepted answer

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Your answer

Bhargavi Naragani 6,535 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-08T05:55:42.89+00:00

Hi @catmanjan,

If the plan you're typing already exists in the same resource group and region, it won’t create a new one it will re-use it. The error message you’re seeing ("App service plan name must be unique in each resource group") actually means that you're trying to create a new plan with a name that already exists, which Azure doesn’t allow. That’s misleading when you're just trying to select an existing one.

To properly move your app to an existing App Service Plan:

Ensure both apps are in the same region.

Ensure both App Services use the same OS and pricing tier (or are compatible).

Use the Azure Portal or Azure CLI to move the app: Using CLI:
az webapp update --name YourAppName \ --resource-group YourResourceGroup \ --plan ExistingAppServicePlanName
Using the portal:
Go to your app in the portal => Under "Change App Service Plan", manually enter the name of the existing plan (ensure it’s in the same resource group and region). If it's compatible, it will accept and move the app to that plan.

For Reference:
Change an App Service plan
az webapp update - CLI

Hope the above provided information help you resolve the issue, if you have any further concerns or queries, please feel free to reach out to us.
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-08T06:17:23.98+00:00

"If the plan you're typing already exists in the same resource group and region, it won’t create a new one it will re-use it."

There is a bug here then:
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-08T06:25:52.6333333+00:00

Also that command line doesn't seem to work, was this response hallucianted by ChatGPT?unrecognized arguments: --plan
Siva Nair 2,420 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-08T07:12:56.2833333+00:00

Hi catmanjan,

I understand that you are trying to put your app services in one same plan, As per below document here Change App service plan, You can move an app to another App Service plan, as long as the source plan and the target plan are in the same resource group and geographical region and of the same OS type. Any change in type, such as Windows to Linux or any type that's different from the originating type, isn't supported.

Any VNET integration configured on the app must be disabled prior to changing App Service plans.

And also please go through the note mentioned in link, The dropdown shows only plans that are in the same resource group and geographical region as the current App Service plan, Please confirm.

Can you send me the previous screens as well from where you are navigating to the screen you provided in the question, Thanks

If you have any further assistant, do let me know.
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-08T23:37:26.5233333+00:00

All resources are in the same resource group, region, OS type, no VNET integration

Definitely a bug here:

Answer 1

TP 126.3K Volunteer Moderator

Hi,

UPDATE: The app service plans were originally in different resource groups and then later moved into the same resource group. That is why they are unable to be consolidated into the same app service plan. Please see discussion in comments below.

Please execute below command in Azure Cloud Shell (PowerShell) and reply back with your results:

Set-AzWebApp -ResourceGroupName saas -Name Workflow5000 -AppServicePlan MainHostingPlan

Please click Accept Answer and upvote if the above was helpful.

Thanks.

-TP

catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-09T00:05:40.2666667+00:00

See attached
TP 126.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2025-04-09T00:23:00.6833333+00:00

Were both of these App Service Plans created in the same resource group originally? Or was one or both of them moved from their original resource group into the "saas" resource group at a later point?
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-09T00:24:45.5633333+00:00

They were both moved to saas from their original resource groups, as well as their associated app services
TP 126.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2025-04-09T00:38:15.3533333+00:00

They were both moved to saas from their original resource groups, as well as their associated app services

That's the reason it's not working. Moving to different resource group doesn't change the underlying webspace that each app service plan is in. The two plans (and thus the web apps) are in different webspaces.

Stated another way. You are aware of the limitation regarding resource group, region, os, needing to be the same. Well, changing the resource group after the fact so that they are the same doesn't help with the technical reason preventing the change.

You could manually re-deploy one of the webapps to the other app service plan, or if you wanted you could create brand new app service plan and then redeploy both web apps into it. I know it is more work/difficulty than just clicking change app service plan, but you are up against current limitation of the platform.

Once you have your web apps consolidated into one app service plan please be sure to delete unused app service plan(s) so that charges don't keep accruing.
catmanjan 111 Reputation points

2025-04-09T00:43:20.6066667+00:00

Okay fair enough, the documentation should be updated to state that the original resource groups, and presumably regions and OS's need to be the same - currently it is misleading hence my ticket
TP 126.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2025-04-09T00:51:45.4833333+00:00

Okay fair enough, the documentation should be updated to state that the original resource groups, and presumably regions and OS's need to be the same - currently it is misleading hence my ticket

I agree. There is another limitation you might run into whereby the SKU you want to switch to isn't available in the webspace and thus it blocks you for that reason. The resource group / region / os are same, but webspace could still be different due to one using a SKU that wasn't available in the other when the plan was created.

I updated my answer above to include the reason why you were unable to consolidate. Please click Accept Answer to close up this thread.

Thank you.

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Change App Service plan implies I can consolidate to a single plan yet doesn't allow me to select an existing plan

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