At the end of each monthly billing cycle, the usage values will be charges to your payment method and the meters are reset.
You can deallocate a VM so that it is not assigned to a CPU or network in a datacenter, but the physical disks maintain so that it is easy to resume it.
Costs are resource specific, so different resources cost different amounts
Azure usage rates differ between Enterprise, Web Direct and CSP customers
Cost depends on what datacenter is running the service due to efficiency and cost of local resources
Data transfer pricing depends on what zones are being used
Visual Studio subscribers get a monthly credit benefit for testing
You can set a limit so that you aren’t charged once you have used up your credits. This is specific to subscriptions that include a monthly Azure credit allotment
If you know you have static and predictable costs, you can reserve for one or three year to save money
Some regions are cheaper, so ensure all resources are in that region or you will have a cost of sending data between regions
Oversized virtual machines will cost money for performance that isn’t being used
You can use the auto shutdown feature to either reduce capacity by reducing the number of virtual machines behind a load balancer or stopping a service
The higher up you go, the cheaper the cost
In Linux you don’t have to pay a licence cost.
If you already have a Windows Server Licence covered by software assurance, you can get a large discount by using this licence in Azure.
Similarly, SQL licences can be given for a saving.
By specifying you are in a non-production environment, you don’t need to pay a licence fee
If you are on an Enterprise agreement and have an investment in SQL server licences, you can use this in Virtual Machines for free.
SQL server developer edition is a free product for non-production use
SQL server costs are per core, so by reducing the number of cores, you can save on cost