Ongoing costs for Azure Container App Environment

Question

Ongoing costs for Azure Container App Environment

nbis-2025 20

Hello everyone,

In the cost analysis overview of our Azure resource group, we've noticed a consistent daily cost of 2.07 EUR for the resource labeled "privateendpoint (microsoft.app/managedenvironments)", which corresponds to an instance of consumption-based Azure Container App Environment.

We stopped the Container App instance labeled "app-dev (microsoft.app/containerapps)" two days ago, and its associated costs have dropped to zero. However, the cost for the Azure Container App Environment instance continues to accrue.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find much information online regarding the pricing details for consumption-based Azure Container App Environments.

How can I find out why this daily cost persists and how it is calculated?

nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T10:10:27.89+00:00

This is a snippet from bicep template used to create the Container App Environment:

workloadProfiles: [

{

workloadProfileType: 'Consumption'

name: 'Consumption'

enableFips: false

}

]
Suchitra Suregaunkar 16,620 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-19T13:25:36.0266667+00:00
Hello nbis-2025,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A portal.

The ongoing cost which you are seeing is tied to the Azure Container App Environment itself specifically the resource labeled "privateendpoint (microsoft.app/managedenvironments)". Even though you have stopped the container app instance (app-dev), the environment remains active and incurs charges due to its configuration and underlying infrastructure.

Consumption-based environments support scale-to-zero pricing, meaning you only pay when your app is active. However, this applies to the container app, not the environment itself.

The environment may still incur costs for resources like private endpoints, networking, and idle infrastructure that remain provisioned even when no apps are running.

If you have configured the environment with a minimum number of instances or enabled features like private endpoints, those components can continue to generate costs.

Cost Is Calculated from the pricing details: Azure Container Apps charge based on vCPU-seconds, GiB-seconds, Number of requests. The first 180,000 vCPU-seconds, 360,000 GiB-seconds, and 2 million requests per month are free.

Idle infrastructure (e.g., private endpoints or minimum instances) is billed at a reduced rate, even when no requests are being processed. Reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/container-apps/#pricing

In your case, the €2.07 daily cost likely reflects the base infrastructure cost of keeping the environment alive with its private endpoint active.

As a workaround you need to review the environment configuration:

Check if the workloadProfiles section in your Bicep template includes any minimum instance settings or idle capacity that could be incurring charges.

Your snippet suggests a consumption-only profile, but does not confirm whether idle infrastructure is scaled to zero.

Inspect Private Endpoint Usage: Private endpoints are billed separately. If you no longer need secure access via private networking, consider removing the private endpoint from the environment.

Use Azure Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs based on your configuration using the https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

Consider Deleting the Environment: If the environment is no longer needed, deleting it will stop all associated charges.

You can also refer below document related to Billing in Azure Container Apps.

1.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-apps/billing

2.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-apps/environment-type-consumption-only

If you found the comment helpful, please consider clicking "Upvote" it or If you need any further assistance, please feel free to reach out.

Thanks,

Suchitra.
nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T16:08:07.81+00:00
Hello @Suchitra Suregaunkar Thank you for your response.

As you suggested, I have exported the Container Environment Resource as a Bicep template. However, I noticed that the template does not include any settings for minimum instances or idle capacity.

I'd like to provide some additional context:

We have deployed our apps in both Dev and Production environments, each within separate Azure resource groups. The Dev Container App scales down to zero after a predefined time threshold to avoid billing for unused resources. In contrast, the Prod Container App has its minimum replicas set to 1 to ensure it remains active. Neither app exposes a public API, but both require a Private Endpoint to be accessed by another internal application running within an Azure Virtual Network. To support this, I enabled HTTP Ingress for the Container Apps and restricted ingress traffic to the Virtual network. We already use multiple Private Endpoints for other Azure resources, and each costs only 0.216 EUR/day. The billing of 2.07 EUR/day is likely not for Private endpoint.

In the cost analysis overview, I observed the following resources incurring separate charges: The Container App billing fluctuates daily due to autoscaling based on traffic. However, the Load Balancer instance, Private Endpoint, and Container Environment incur consistent daily costs:

privateendpoint (microsoft.app/managedenvironments)

capp-svc-lb (microsoft.network/loadbalancers)

app-dev (microsoft.app/containerapps)

private-endpoint-app-dev(microsoft.network/privateendpoints)

Interestingly, although we first deployed the Dev app and added the Prod app a week later, the consistent daily billing for Microsoft.App/managedEnvironments only began after three months of usage on 21st of July. From our side, there were no changes made to the Container App or Environment settings on that day. We also couldn’t find any manual or automated changes in the activity logs. I'm wondering if we were possibly using a free or trial budget during the first three months that was available for our Azure subscription?

According to the documentation page https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/templates/microsoft.app/managedenvironments?pivots=deployment-language-bicep#ingressconfigurationscale, there is a setting called IngressConfigurationScale that specifies a minimum of 2 replicas. I did not configure this setting during deployment of the Container Environment or Container App. Additionally, the exported Bicep file does not include any ingress settings. I found another Microsoft documentation page https://docs.azure.cn/en-us/container-apps/ingress-environment-configuration, which states that each ingress instance uses 1 vCPU and 2 GB memory.

Does this mean we are being billed for 2 ingress instances due to the default replica count?
nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T18:03:44.5633333+00:00

@Suchitra Suregaunkar Thank you for your help.
nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T18:05:25.97+00:00

@Suchitra Suregaunkar

Answer accepted by question author

0 additional answers

Your answer

nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T10:10:27.89+00:00

This is a snippet from bicep template used to create the Container App Environment:

workloadProfiles: [

{

workloadProfileType: 'Consumption'

name: 'Consumption'

enableFips: false

}

]
nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T18:03:44.5633333+00:00

@Suchitra Suregaunkar Thank you for your help.
nbis-2025 20 Reputation points

2025-09-19T18:05:25.97+00:00

@Suchitra Suregaunkar

Answer 1

Hello nbis-2025,

According to official Microsoft documentation (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-apps/billing) Azure Container Apps environments may incur charges when used with Virtual Networks, Private Endpoints, Load Balancers
If you use Container Apps with your own virtual network or your apps utilize other Azure resources, additional charges may apply.
Ingress Proxy Replicas Are Not Billed: By default, each environment includes 2 ingress proxy replicas (1 vCPU, 2 GB memory each), but these are not billed unless premium ingress is configured. No billing is applied for scaling the ingress proxy or for the vCPU cores and allocated memory
Consumption Plan Free Grants: Azure provides monthly free usage for each subscription: 180,000 vCPU-seconds 360,000 GiB-seconds 2 million HTTP requests These are not shown on your bill unless exceeded. Free usage does not appear on your bill. You are only charged as your resource usage exceeds the monthly free grants.

You can use Azure Cost Analysis to confirm which components are generating costs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/quick-acm-cost-analysis

I would also recommend to Raising a support ticket with Microsoft to the daily charges for your Azure Container App Environment so that billing team will review your subscription and resource usage in detail.

To create support ticket to azure billing team from azure portal please follow the below steps and let me know if it works or not.

1.From the resource menu, in the Help section, select Support + Troubleshooting. In the Support + Troubleshooting pane on the right, type "Billing" in the search box, select Billing, and then click Next.

2.Select the subscription and click Next. You will be presented with some suggestions to resolve your issue. If none of these apply, please follow the steps below.

sc1

3.Scroll down and you will find an option to Contact Support. From there, select Create a support request.

sc2

Enter the problem description (Issue type - Billing, Subscription, Summary - Billing, Problem type - Assistance with Bill, Problem subtype - Help with a billing discrepancy)

5.If the solutions appear again, click on 'Return to support request'. Click Next, and you will then be able to create the billing support ticket.

Kindly let us know if the above suggested solution helps or you need further assistance on this issue.

Thanks,

Suchitra.