Azure Saving Plan vs. Reserved Instances, Document Extract and Notes

I have compiled the following information to help you better understand “Saving plan” and “Reserve instances” when using Pricing Calculator as shown on the left.

	Azure Saving Plan	Azure Reserved Instance
Doc	Save with Azure savings plans	Save with Azure reservations
What	Up to 30%+ discount from pay-as-you-go pricing across Azure compute resource globally Applicable to a selected scope Scope changeable Plan transferable between supported agreements 1- or 3-year commitment with monthly or up-front payment For Windows VMs and SQL Database, the saving plan discount doesn’t apply to the software costs. You may be able to cover the licensing costs with Azure Hybrid Benefit. Self-service reservations trade-in for Azure savings plans If your Azure VMs, Dedicated Hosts, or Azure App Service reservations don’t provide the necessary flexibility you need, you may trade them for a savings plan.	Up to 60%+ discount from pay-as-you-go prices Reservation scoping and options Discount auto-applies to the resource usage that matches the attributes you select when you buy the reservation including: SKU, Region (where applicable); and Reservation scope 1- or 3-year commitment with monthly or up-front payment Reservation benefits are “use-it-or-lose-it” at hourly grain.
How	Search the keyword, save and click Saving plans. Who can buy a savings plan Savings plan-eligible resources Determine your savings plan commitment Manage Azure savings plans – Microsoft Cost Management	Seach with the keyword, save or reservation, and click Reservations. Determine what to purchasePurchase reservations
Why	Consistent compute spending on disparate resources	Consistent resource usage

Additional Information

• Spot Virtual Machines – Spot Pricing and Features

Use Spot Virtual Machines to buy unused compute capacity at significant cost savings for:

• workloads that can handle interruptions and don’t need to be completed within a specific period of time.
• workloads for dev/test/QA/Batch/ML/AI/image, etc. 

• Azure Dev/Test pricing
  • Provision fast, lean, and highly secure dev/test workloads on Azure—and realize substantial cost savings compared to your production workloads.
  • Azure Dev/Test pricing plan
    • Pay-As-You-Go
    • Enterprise
    • An active subscriber of Visual Studio with the Microsoft Customer Agreement