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Cost Guide

AI Landing Zone - Cost Guide

Template: AI Landing Zones - Standard Deployment

Region: East US (adjust for your target region)

Azure Pricing Calculator Link: Azure Pricing Calculator Estimate

🔗 Quick Start

  1. Open the Azure Pricing Calculator
  2. Follow the service configurations below
  3. Add each service by clicking the "+" button
  4. Configure using the specifications provided

📋 Service Configuration Checklist

1. Networking Services

Application Gateway

  • Service: Application Gateway
  • Region: East US
  • Tier: WAF V2
  • Gateway hours: 730 hours/month (24/7)
  • Zone redundancy: Yes (3 zones)
  • Capacity Units: Auto-scaling (estimate 10 CU average)
  • Data processed: 100 GB/month (adjust based on traffic)
  • Outbound data transfers: 50 GB/month

Estimated Cost: ~$350-450/month

Azure Firewall

  • Service: Azure Firewall
  • Region: East US
  • SKU: Standard
  • Deployment hours: 730 hours/month (24/7)
  • Zone redundancy: Yes (3 zones)
  • Data processed: 500 GB/month
  • Threat Intelligence: Standard (included)
  • Firewall Policy: 1 policy

Estimated Cost: ~$400-500/month

Azure Bastion

  • Service: Azure Bastion
  • Region: East US
  • Tier: Standard
  • Hours: 730 hours/month
  • Outbound data transfer: 10 GB/month

Estimated Cost: ~$140/month

Public IP Addresses

  • Service: IP Addresses
  • Region: East US
  • Type: Standard Public IPv4
  • Zone redundancy: Yes
  • Quantity: 2 (Application Gateway + Firewall)
  • Hours per IP: 730 hours/month

Estimated Cost: ~$7/month

Private Endpoints

  • Service: Private Link / Private Endpoint
  • Region: East US
  • Number of Private Endpoints: 10
    • App Configuration: 1
    • API Management: 1 (if deployed)
    • Container Apps Environment: 1
    • Container Registry: 1
    • Storage (Blob): 1
    • Cosmos DB: 1
    • AI Search: 1
    • Key Vault: 1
    • AI Services: 1
    • OpenAI: 1
  • Inbound data processed: 100 GB/month total
  • Outbound data processed: 50 GB/month total

Estimated Cost: ~$73/month ($7.30 per endpoint)

Private DNS Zones

  • Service: Azure DNS (Private DNS)
  • Number of zones: 15 zones
    • privatelink.azure-api.net
    • privatelink.cognitiveservices.azure.com
    • privatelink.openai.azure.com
    • privatelink.services.ai.azure.com
    • privatelink.search.windows.net
    • privatelink.documents.azure.com
    • privatelink.blob.core.windows.net
    • privatelink.vaultcore.azure.net
    • privatelink.azconfig.io
    • privatelink.{region}.azurecontainerapps.io
    • privatelink.azurecr.io
    • privatelink.applicationinsights.azure.com
    • (additional zones as needed)
  • DNS queries: 1 million queries/month

Estimated Cost: ~$9/month

Virtual Network

  • Service: Virtual Network
  • Address space: 192.168.0.0/23 (512 IPs)
  • Subnets: 9 subnets
  • Peering: Hub-spoke peering (optional, if configured)
  • Data transfer (peering): 100 GB/month (if using peering)

Estimated Cost: ~$0 (free) + peering costs if applicable (~$10/month)

Network Security Groups

  • Service: Network Security Groups
  • Quantity: 8 NSGs
    • Agent subnet NSG
    • Private Endpoints subnet NSG
    • Application Gateway subnet NSG
    • API Management subnet NSG
    • Container Apps Environment subnet NSG
    • Jumpbox subnet NSG
    • DevOps Build Agents subnet NSG
    • Azure Bastion subnet NSG

Estimated Cost: ~$0 (free)

2. Compute Services

Virtual Machine - Build VM (Linux)

  • Service: Virtual Machines
  • Region: East US
  • Operating System: Linux (Ubuntu 22.04)
  • Type: Compute Optimized
  • Tier: Standard
  • Instance: F4s v2 - 4 vCPUs - 8 GB RAM
  • Virtual Machines: 1
  • Hours: 730 hours/month (24/7) or less if auto-shutdown configured
  • Managed Disks: - OS Disk: Standard SSD, 128 GB - Delete with VM: Yes
  • Availability Zone: Zone 1

Estimated Cost: ~$120/month (24/7) or ~$60/month (12 hours/day)

Virtual Machine - Jump VM (Windows)

  • Service: Virtual Machines
  • Region: East US
  • Operating System: Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition
  • Type: General Purpose
  • Tier: Standard
  • Instance: D4as v5 - 4 vCPUs - 16 GB RAM
  • Virtual Machines: 1
  • Hours: 730 hours/month (24/7) or less if auto-shutdown configured
  • Managed Disks: - OS Disk: Standard SSD, 128 GB
  • Availability Zone: Zone 1
  • License: Windows Server license included

Estimated Cost: ~$180/month (24/7) or ~$90/month (12 hours/day)

Azure Container Apps

  • Service: Container Apps
  • Region: East US
  • Workload Profile: Dedicated (D4)
    • 4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM per instance
    • Minimum instances: 1
    • Maximum instances: 3
  • Average instances running: 2
  • Hours: 730 hours/month per instance
  • Total vCore hours: 2 instances × 4 vCPUs × 730 = 5,840 vCore-hours
  • HTTP requests: 1 million requests/month

Estimated Cost: ~$280-350/month (depends on scaling)

Azure Container Registry

  • Service: Container Registry
  • Region: East US
  • SKU: Premium
  • Storage: 100 GB
  • Build vCPU minutes: 500 minutes/month
  • Geo-replication: None (1 region)
  • Data transfer out: 10 GB/month

Estimated Cost: ~$40/month

3. AI & Cognitive Services

Azure AI Foundry / AI Services

  • Service: Azure AI Services (multi-service account)
  • Region: East US
  • API Calls: Variable (usage-based)
  • Estimate baseline: 100,000 API calls/month

Estimated Cost: ~$50-200/month (highly variable based on usage)

Azure OpenAI Service

  • Service: Azure OpenAI Service
  • Region: East US
  • Model: GPT-4o (latest)
  • Input tokens: 1 million tokens/month
  • Output tokens: 500,000 tokens/month
  • Model: GPT-4o-mini (for lighter tasks)
  • Input tokens: 5 million tokens/month
  • Output tokens: 2 million tokens/month

Estimated Cost: ~$100-500/month (depends on model and usage)

Note: Pricing varies significantly by model. Use Azure OpenAI pricing page for accurate estimates.

Azure AI Search

  • Service: Azure AI Search (formerly Cognitive Search)
  • Region: East US
  • Tier: Standard (S1) - 25 GB storage - 1 replica
    • 1 partition
  • Hours: 730 hours/month
  • Search queries: 100,000 queries/month
  • Indexing: 10 GB indexed data

Estimated Cost: ~$250/month

Alternative - Basic Tier: ~$75/month (for dev/test)

4. Data Services

Azure Cosmos DB

  • Service: Azure Cosmos DB
  • Region: East US
  • API: SQL (Core) API
  • Capacity mode: Provisioned throughput
  • Throughput: 1,000 RU/s (Request Units per second)
  • Storage: 50 GB
  • Backup: Continuous backup (7 days)
  • Multi-region writes: No
  • Availability zones: Yes

Estimated Cost: ~$175/month

Alternative - Serverless: ~$25-100/month (for dev/test, usage-based)

Storage Account

  • Service: Storage Accounts
  • Region: East US
  • Performance: Standard
  • Redundancy: Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
  • Account kind: StorageV2 (general purpose v2)
  • Tier: Hot
  • Capacity: 100 GB - Blob storage: 80 GB
    • File storage: 20 GB
  • Write operations: 100,000 operations/month
  • Read operations: 200,000 operations/month
  • Data retrieval: 10 GB/month

Estimated Cost: ~$5-10/month

Azure Key Vault

  • Service: Key Vault
  • Region: East US
  • Tier: Standard
  • Secrets: 50 secrets
  • Certificate operations: 100 operations/month
  • Key operations: 10,000 operations/month
  • Advanced threat protection: No

Estimated Cost: ~$1-3/month

App Configuration

  • Service: App Configuration
  • Region: East US
  • Tier: Standard
  • Requests: 100,000 requests/month
  • Storage: 1 GB

Estimated Cost: ~$1-2/month

Alternative - Free Tier: $0/month (limited to 1,000 requests/day)

5. Monitoring & Observability

Log Analytics Workspace

  • Service: Azure Monitor (Log Analytics)
  • Region: East US
  • Data ingestion: 50 GB/month
  • Data retention: 30 days (default)
  • Commitment tier: Pay-as-you-go

Estimated Cost: ~$125/month

Application Insights

  • Service: Application Insights
  • Region: East US
  • Data ingestion: 20 GB/month (included in Log Analytics above)
  • Web tests: 5 multi-step web tests
  • Availability tests runs: 10,000 runs/month

Estimated Cost: ~$10/month (web tests, data covered by Log Analytics)

6. Optional Services

*API Management* (if enabled in deployToggles)

  • Service: API Management
  • Region: East US
  • Tier: Premium
  • Units: 3 (for zone redundancy)
  • Hours: 730 hours/month
  • API calls: 1 million calls/month
  • Cache: 1 GB

Estimated Cost: ~$2,700/month (Premium tier)

Alternative - Developer Tier: ~$50/month (for dev/test, no SLA)

*Bing Search* (Grounding with Bing)

  • Service: Bing Search API
  • Tier: S1
  • Transactions: 10,000 transactions/month

Estimated Cost: ~$7/month

💰 TOTAL COST SUMMARY

Standard Deployment (All Services Enabled)

Category Monthly Cost (USD)
Networking $980 - $1,180
- Application Gateway $350 - $450
- Azure Firewall $400 - $500
- Azure Bastion $140
- Public IPs $7
- Private Endpoints $73
- Private DNS Zones $9
Compute $440 - $650
- Build VM (Linux) $120
- Jump VM (Windows) $180
- Container Apps $100 - $300
- Container Registry $40
AI Services $400 - $950
- Azure OpenAI $100 - $500
- AI Search $250
- AI Services $50 - $200
Data $180 - $190
- Cosmos DB $175
- Storage Account $5 - $10
- Key Vault $1 - $3
- App Configuration $1 - $2
Monitoring $135
- Log Analytics $125
- Application Insights $10
Optional $0 - $2,707
- API Management (if enabled) $0 - $2,700
- Bing Search $7
TOTAL (without API Management) $2,135 - $3,105/month
TOTAL (with API Management) $4,835 - $5,812/month

🎯 COST OPTIMIZATION SCENARIOS

Scenario 1: Development/Test Environment Estimated savings: 50-60% reduction

Changes:

  • Disable Azure Firewall: -$400/month
  • Disable Azure Bastion: -$140/month
  • Disable Jump VM: -$180/month
  • Use AI Search Basic tier: -$175/month
  • Use Cosmos DB Serverless: -$100/month
  • Auto-shutdown Build VM (12h/day): -$60/month
  • Reduce Container Apps scaling: -$100/month

New Total: ~$980 - $1,350/month

Scenario 2: Minimal Production (No App Gateway/Firewall) Estimated savings: 40% reduction

Changes:

  • Disable Application Gateway: -$400/month
  • Disable Azure Firewall: -$400/month
  • Use Azure Front Door instead (if needed for WAF)

New Total: ~$1,335 - $1,925/month

Scenario 3: Maximum Cost Optimization

Estimated savings: 70% reduction

Changes:

  • All from Scenario 1
  • Disable Container Apps (use Azure Container Instances): -$200/month
  • Use consumption-based AI services only: -$200/month
  • Reduce monitoring data retention to 7 days: -$75/month

New Total: ~$640 - $900/month

📊 VARIABLE COSTS TO MONITOR

These costs are usage-based and can vary significantly:

  1. Azure OpenAI: Depends on tokens processed (can range from $10 to $5,000+/month)
  2. AI Services API calls: Pay per transaction
  3. Azure AI Search queries: Included in tier pricing, but indexing costs vary
  4. Cosmos DB: RU/s consumption can spike with traffic
  5. Data egress: Outbound data transfer charges (especially cross-region)
  6. Log Analytics: Data ingestion over 5GB/day gets expensive
  7. Container Apps scaling: Auto-scaling can increase costs during peak times

🛠️ HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

Step-by-Step:

  1. Open Calculator: Go to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

  2. Select Region: Change to your target deployment region (prices vary by region)

  3. Add Services: Use the search box to find each service and click "+"

  4. Configure: For each service, use the specifications in this guide

  5. Adjust: Modify quantities based on your specific needs

  6. Export/Save: Click "Export" to save as Excel or click "Save" to generate a shareable link

  7. Review Monthly: Update estimates as your usage patterns become clear

📌 IMPORTANT NOTES

  • Regional Pricing Varies: Costs shown are for East US. Some regions cost 10-30% more.
  • Currency: All prices in USD. Use Azure's currency converter for other currencies.
  • Reserved Instances: VMs and other compute can save 30-70% with 1-3 year reservations.
  • Azure Hybrid Benefit: Save up to 40% on Windows VMs if you have existing licenses.
  • Dev/Test Pricing: Special pricing for MSDN subscribers.
  • Free Services: Some services have free tiers (App Config, DNS queries, etc.).
  • Data Transfer: Within the same region is typically free; cross-region and outbound have costs.

🔗 USEFUL LINKS

  • Azure Pricing Calculator: https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/calculator/
  • Azure OpenAI Pricing: https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/details/cognitive-services/openai-service/
  • Azure AI Services Pricing: https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/details/cognitive-services/
  • Azure Cost Management: https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_CostManagement/Menu/overview
  • Azure TCO Calculator: https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/tco/calculator/
  • Azure Architecture Center: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/architecture/

📞 NEED HELP?

  • Review the Bicep template: bicep/infra/sample.main.bicepparam to see which services are enabled
  • Adjust deployToggles to disable expensive services you don't need
  • Contact Azure Support for EA/CSP pricing discussions
  • Use Azure Cost Management after deployment for real-time cost tracking

Last Updated: November 5, 2025
Template Version: Based on Azure AI Landing Zones main.bicep v1.0

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