Azure Cost Optimisation for SMBs: 10 Quick Wins
Ten Azure changes that typically cut SMB bills 20–40% — reservations, right-sizing, storage tiers, and the ones nobody remembers.
Australian SMB Azure bills creep up. New workloads get deployed at default settings, old workloads never get cleaned up, and nobody owns the cost. Here are ten changes that typically cut SMB Azure spend 20–40% in a single afternoon.
1. Right-size VMs
Azure Advisor flags under-utilised VMs. A B-series burstable VM at half the cost will run most workloads that are sitting at 5% average CPU. Resize during a maintenance window.
2. Use reserved instances for steady workloads
1-year RI saves around 40%, 3-year saves around 60% versus pay-as-you-go. Buy RIs only for VMs you're sure you'll keep running.
3. Auto-shutdown dev/test VMs
Dev VMs running 24/7 when only used 8 hours/day are wasting 67% of their spend. Built-in auto-shutdown in Azure portal takes 30 seconds to configure.
4. Move infrequent data to cool / archive tiers
Hot blob storage is ~10x the price of archive. Old backups, audit logs, and finished project files belong in cool or archive tiers with lifecycle policies.
5. Delete unattached managed disks
When you delete a VM in Azure, the OS and data disks stay unless you explicitly tick the box. Run a query for unattached disks — you'll find dozens you forgot about.
6. Delete unattached public IPs
Same story — standard public IPs are billed whether they're attached or not. Audit and remove.
7. Use the Azure Hybrid Benefit
If you have Software Assurance on Windows Server or SQL licences, you can apply them to Azure VMs for ~40% off the VM rate. Most SMBs forget this exists.
8. Right-size App Service plans
A single App Service plan can host multiple web apps. Consolidate small apps from individual S1 plans onto a shared one.
9. Set spending alerts and budgets
Azure budgets fire alerts at 50%, 80%, and 100% of monthly spend. The free version takes 5 minutes to configure and prevents the "$15K bill this month" surprise.
10. Use the Azure pricing calculator before, not after
Most cost surprises come from someone deploying a workload at default settings without checking the SKU pricing. Make it a team rule to run the calculator before any new deployment over a defined dollar threshold.
For a typical SMB Azure tenant under $5K/month, working through this list takes one engineer about half a day and pays back the same month.