Cost Cutting Effort for IoT Hub

Question

Cost Cutting Effort for IoT Hub

NLE JB 70

Hello,

Is there a way to reduce the cost of our IoT Hub?

We are currently on a Standard Tier.

I want to know if there are ways to lessen the cost of our IoT hub in development environment since there are no projects on going.

I checked if theres an option to scale down however I cant find one and also we have IoT devices registered already.

I also dont want to lose any configuration in case there will be a project and the need for it in the future.

Thank you.

NLE JB 70 Reputation points

2025-05-14T04:09:07.1533333+00:00

Hello @VSawhney

I am currently more interested on scaling down since I want the configuration to be intact in case we need it in the future.

As I have said currently we are on a Standard Tier and I want to scale it down to Basic or even Free if its possible.

Could you give me a guide on how to do it?

Currently theres no option for downgrade and we are already on the lowest messaging limit.

Thank you.

VSawhney 795 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello NLE JB,

After you create your IoT hub, you can upgrade from the basic tier to the standard tier without interrupting your existing operations. You can't downgrade from standard tier to basic tier. For more information, see How to upgrade your IoT hub.

Please refer the below pointers:

Upgrade from Basic to Standard tier at any time without downtime
Scale within the same tier, such as increasing or decreasing the number of units (e.g., from S1 to S2 within Standard tier) . You can change total number of message quota (400,000 for you at minimum).
Use the Free tier only for testing and evaluation. However, you cannot upgrade from Free to Basic or Standard, nor can you downgrade to Free.

Feature	Free Tier	Basic Tier	Standard Tier
Device-to-cloud telemetry	✅	✅	✅
Cloud-to-device messaging	❌	❌	✅
Device management (twins, etc.)	❌	❌	✅
Azure IoT Edge	❌	❌	✅
Max messages/day (per unit)	8,000	400K–300M	400K–300M

Hope this helps. Thank you!

VSawhney 795 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-15T05:42:06.68+00:00

Hello NLE JB,

Following up to check of the response provided helped you in solving the issue. Please feel free to reach us for further queries.

Thank you!
VSawhney 795 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-16T05:50:44.9666667+00:00

Hello NLE JB,

Just wanted to follow up again to ensure that the information provided was helpful in resolving the issue. If there’s anything further we can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you!

2 answers

Your answer

NLE JB 70 Reputation points

2025-05-14T04:09:07.1533333+00:00

Hello @VSawhney

I am currently more interested on scaling down since I want the configuration to be intact in case we need it in the future.

As I have said currently we are on a Standard Tier and I want to scale it down to Basic or even Free if its possible.

Could you give me a guide on how to do it?

Currently theres no option for downgrade and we are already on the lowest messaging limit.

Thank you.
VSawhney 795 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-14T09:47:15.09+00:00

Hello NLE JB,

After you create your IoT hub, you can upgrade from the basic tier to the standard tier without interrupting your existing operations. You can't downgrade from standard tier to basic tier. For more information, see How to upgrade your IoT hub.

Please refer the below pointers:

Upgrade from Basic to Standard tier at any time without downtime

Scale within the same tier, such as increasing or decreasing the number of units (e.g., from S1 to S2 within Standard tier) . You can change total number of message quota (400,000 for you at minimum).

Use the Free tier only for testing and evaluation. However, you cannot upgrade from Free to Basic or Standard, nor can you downgrade to Free.

Feature Free Tier Basic Tier Standard Tier

Device-to-cloud telemetry ✅ ✅ ✅

Cloud-to-device messaging ❌ ❌ ✅

Device management (twins, etc.) ❌ ❌ ✅

Azure IoT Edge ❌ ❌ ✅

Max messages/day (per unit) 8,000 400K–300M 400K–300M

Hope this helps. Thank you!
VSawhney 795 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-15T05:42:06.68+00:00

Hello NLE JB,

Following up to check of the response provided helped you in solving the issue. Please feel free to reach us for further queries.

Thank you!
VSawhney 795 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-16T05:50:44.9666667+00:00

Hello NLE JB,

Just wanted to follow up again to ensure that the information provided was helpful in resolving the issue. If there’s anything further we can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hello NLE JB,

It sounds like you're trying to find ways to cut costs for your IoT Hub, especially when there aren't any ongoing projects in your development environment. Here are a few suggestions:

Scale Down Option: While you mentioned not seeing an option to scale down your IoT Hub in the Azure portal, you can look into switching to a lower pricing tier if you’re not actively using the current capacity. Check if moving to the Free or Basic tier could suit your development needs. Be cautious, though, as this can impact the number of messages and connections allowed. You can use separate free or Basic Tier IOT hub for POC or development works.
Device Management: If you have IoT devices registered but aren't using them, consider unregistering them to save on resources. Ensure you have the necessary configurations documented so that you can easily re-register them in the future. Device Management IOT Hub
Use Device Simulators: Since you’re in a development environment and may not need to deploy actual devices, using the Azure IoT Device Telemetry Simulator can help you simulate device behavior without incurring costs associated with physical devices.
Cost Alerts & Budgets: Utilize Azure’s cost management tools to set budgets and alerts to monitor your expenditures. This can help you identify any unexpected charges and optimize accordingly. Budget management blog azure
Monitor and Optimize: Ensure that you regularly review your IoT Hub usage and optimize settings and configurations to maintain efficiency. Monitor Azure IOT Hub
Cost Management Best Practices: Familiarize yourself with the cost optimization strategies specifically designed for IoT solutions.

I hope this helps you in your cost-cutting efforts! If you have further questions, feel free to provide additional details!

Please take a few minutes to accept this answer if you got all inputs regarding cost management of IOT hub

Thank you!

Answer 2

Hello NLE JB,

welcome to this moderated Azure community forum.

An IoT Hub is created as either Free (limited in features, only one per subscription), Basic (only ingest), or Standard tier (having all features).

Upgrading is possible but downgrading is less obvious and it's not simply using a dropdown box...

If you want to scale down, you probably need to reduce the number of IoT Hubs (moving dev, test, acceptance, and production devices to one IoT Hub and using tags to separate them) or you need to recreate a new IoT Hub having lesser features.

Either way, devices need to moved between IoT Hubs so they will probably get changed credentials.

If you have used the Azure Device Provisioning Service (DPS) to have devices connected to the IoT Hubs, you are lucky!

The DPS is designed to let devices switch between IoT Hub.

Just link one or more IoT Hub (of different tiers) to the same DPS and each device enrollment can be appointed to a different or same IoT Hub. There are even strategies like lowest latency or custom appointment possible.

A device first 'knocks on the door' of a DPS requesting access to some IoT Hub. The DPS select an IoT Hub and arranges the device registration. After that, the device will always try to reach that IoT Hub.

If access to the IoT Hub is denied, the device will knock on the door of the DPS again for a new registration.

Check with you developers is a DPS is in place.

An alternative is to share on IoT Hub for all types of devices (Dev, Test, etc.) or having a separate Azure subscription for each developers so each is using a Free tier IoT Hub.

If the response helped, do "Accept Answer". If it doesn't work, please let us know the progress. All community members with similar issues will benefit by doing so. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

NLE JB 70 Reputation points

2025-05-23T05:46:57.2+00:00

Hello @Sander van de Velde | MVP

Since downgrade is not possible, I will now check the device removal option.

Currently we have 117 iot devices in our develop environment if I remove some devices how big of an impact it will be for the cost?

The DPS option I am not quite sure, its seems to be complicated lol.

Thank you.
Sander van de Velde | MVP 36,766 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-05-23T06:31:45.4366667+00:00

Hello NLE JB,

If the devices that you removed did not send any messages, the impact is zero.

Actually, the costs of the IoT Hub shown in the screendump is already at the lowest point:

It seems to be the smallest F1 which gives you the opportunity to send 400.000 messages a day.

Even is all devices are removed, you still need to pay that ~1 euro per day for that resource.

Keep in mind that the real costs (and value) of an IoT solution is normally not the IoT Hub, it's all the resources behind it, including databases and reporting.

If you do not need that part, you better minimize that part.

For example, if an Eventhub is put right behind the IoT Hub, why not pause the ingestion there?

Regarding the DPS, it's work but it is not that complicated. If it was used from the start as documented in the Azure IoT documentation, this whole transition was a no-brainer :-)

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Cost Cutting Effort for IoT Hub

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