Azure billing meters: What you need to know about the upcoming changes
Overview
This article is to inform you of some important changes that we are making as part of our ongoing efforts to improve your Azure experience and increase pricing transparency. We are making changes to the billing meters that could affect some Azure services and resources that you may use, and we want to make sure you understand what the changes are, why we are doing them, and how they will impact your billing.
These updates will not impact your prices, but you may notice some changes in how your Azure consumption is shown on your invoice, price sheet, API, and other Cost Management tools.
What is happening?
Over the next several months, we will be updating a number of Azure billing meters to reflect the true meter ID metadata. A billing meter is used to determine the cost of using a specific service or resource in Azure. It helps calculate the amount you will be charged based on the quantity of the resource consumed. The billing meter varies depending on the type of service or resource.
These updates will result in having only individual, unique meters. This means that each Azure service, resource, and region will have its own billing meter ID that precisely reflects its consumption and price. This will ensure that you see the correct meter ID on your invoice.
This process will be implemented in batches over the next several months. Every time a batch is completed, we will update this blog. You may receive direct notifications if the upcoming batch of new meters impacts you, given your consumption. At every stage, we will continue to add the list of updated meters to this MS Learn page, and it will serve as the main reference for this project.
Figure 1. Updated meter information
|
Service Name |
Product Name |
Region |
Feature |
Meter Type |
Meter ID (new) |
Meter ID (previous) |
|
Virtual Machines |
Virtual Machines DSv3 Series Windows |
CH West |
Low Priority |
1 Compute Hour |
59f7c6d9-3658-5693-8925-4aae24068de8 |
0ce7683b-0630-4103-a9a7-75a68fbf6140 |
Why is this important?
You may notice some changes in the way your Azure consumption is reported and displayed on your invoice, price sheet, API, and other Cost Management tools. You may also need to update some of your internal processes or systems that rely on the billing meter IDs, given that those will change with these updates. There will be no impact on your prices throughout this project. The same resource, same region, and same consumption will see the same price, but under the new billing meter ID.
What do I need to do?
We recommend you review the list of updated meters constantly and familiarize yourself with the new meter IDs and names that apply to your Azure consumption. You should check reports that you have for analysis, budgets, and any saved views to see if they use the updated meters. If so, you might need to update them accordingly for the new meter IDs and names. If you don’t use any meters from the updated meters list, these changes don’t affect you.
To learn how to create and manage budgets and save and share customized views, visit the documentation below:
- Tutorial - Create and manage budgets - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn
- Save and share customized views - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn
If you want to learn more about how to manage your billing account and subscriptions, please visit the Cost Management + Billing documentation. If you are having cost management or invoice related issues because of this change, please contact support.
As mentioned above, this blog post will be updated when the next batch of meters is released in May 2024.
