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Need to compare cloud pricing? Our free calculator shows estimated costs across AWS, Azure, and GCP based on your inputs. We recognize that every provider employs different units, terminology, and pricing models. And when comparing multiple clouds, it becomes significantly more complicated to obtain the correct numbers to make informed decisions. That’s why we built the Cloud Pricing Tool. No login required. Just FinOps comparisons, across multiple tiers, payment options, and geographical regions, all on one comprehensive page. Why We Built the Cloud Pricing Tool Whether you’re a FinOps evangelist, an engineer, or a budget owner trying to make a decision, you’ve likely run into this roadblock: "I just want to know what this would cost in each cloud." While each major cloud provider offers its own pricing calculator, most fall short when it comes to clarity and comparison. Here’s what they’re missing: No multi-cloud comparison. Each tool only shows its own pricing. To compare AWS, Azure, and GCP, you’d have to open multiple calculators and manually cross-reference. Lack of transparency across providers. Even if you know which instance type you need, it’s hard to understand how pricing stacks up between clouds without jumping between tabs or spreadsheets. No quick answers. Even small estimates often involve navigating dozens of services and options just to get a baseline number. We built the Cloud Pricing Tool to solve that. It’s designed for users who already have an idea of what they’re looking for (EC2 instance types, vCPU needs, or storage estimates), but want a faster way to see how those choices translate into costs across providers. What You Can Do with It With Umbrella’s Cloud Pricing Tool, you can:  Compare costs across providers Switch between AWS, Azure, and GCP to view service-specific pricing and see how costs differ across vendors. Filter by region, reservation term, and instance type Narrow down your estimate using real-world pricing variables—like geographic region, commitment model, or specific compute needs. Customize your view Select which columns to display, filter by vCPU, memory, storage, or processor type, and explore detailed pricing for specific instances. Export your results Use the CSV download feature to save your pricing view and share it with teammates or stakeholders.  How to Compare Cloud Pricing  The Cloud Pricing Tool is designed for users who already know what service or instance type they want to explore, allowing them to move quickly from selection to insight. Here’s how to use it: Step 1: Choose your provider Select from AWS, Azure, or GCP. You can toggle between providers at the top of the tool to compare pricing structures across clouds. Step 2: Select the service and region Choose a service like EC2, then select your region (e.g., US East, Europe, etc.). Pricing varies by geography and cloud, so this helps ensure an apples-to-apples comparison. Step 3: Apply filters based on your needs Narrow the results by instance type, vCPU, memory, storage, or processor architecture. You can also choose a reservation plan (e.g., On-Demand, 1-year, 3-year) and cost type (e.g., hourly). Step 4: Customize your view Use the column selector to show or hide fields like clock speed, network performance, or Linux pricing. This lets you tailor the table to what matters most for your workload. Step 5: Export your results Click the CSV button to download your filtered view. You can save it for internal reviews, budget planning, or vendor comparisons. Example: Filter for a VM with 4 vCPUs and 16 GB RAM in the US East region. Then switch between AWS, Azure, and GCP to instantly compare how each cloud provider prices that configuration. Who It’s For This tool was built for anyone who needs pricing transparency, fast: FinOps practitioners evaluating vendor strategy Engineers building multi-cloud applications MSPs pricing out new customer environments Founders planning startup infrastructure Anyone wondering, “How much would this cost in Azure vs AWS?” Try It Now The Cloud Pricing Tool is now available and free to use.  Compare real-time pricing across AWS, Azure, and GCP in just a few clicks.  Try the Cloud Pricing Tool Want to learn more? Book a demo with our expert team now! 

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Making informed financial decisions is hard when your cost data is scattered. That’s why we built Bring Your Own Data (BYOD): a flexible way to consolidate all your spend into one view, whether it comes from a billing system, a spreadsheet, or a custom export. Cloud financial management is effective with full visibility, which evolves as your business grows. BYOD equips your team to adapt and evolve with your organization, structuring legacy systems and transitioning from manual tracking to automated insights. And it’s available in your Umbrella account to try right now! Why We Built BYOD Here’s a common FinOps problem (that you may relate to): “I can track this MCP fine. It’s the SaaS, internal tools, and custom reports that complicate a unified view.”  Tools like Salesforce, NetSuite, or internal cost tracking systems often don’t integrate directly with your cloud cost tooling, which means important expenses can fall through the cracks. For FinOps teams, budget owners, and CFOs alike, understanding tech spend requires a comprehensive view of all services, not just those residing in a single cloud. BYOD offers that unified view  You can upload cost data from non-native sources using our simple, standardized format. Once uploaded, the data appears in your multi-cloud dashboard.  It’s fast, secure, and removes the blind spots holding you back from fully understanding your budget.   What You Can Do with BYOD   Once your external data is in Umbrella, here’s what you can do with it: Import cost data from anywhere: Upload data from third-party clouds, internal finance tools, or SaaS platforms in a simple format that Umbrella understands. Example: Add Zoom or Adobe bills to the same dashboard where you’re already monitoring AWS, Azure, or GCP. View all your spend in one place: Whether it came from Google Cloud or a spreadsheet, all your data lives in your Umbrella dashboard and is ready to report, analyze, and share. Example: You can now view AWS usage, GCP invoices, and your manually uploaded Salesforce costs together in one unified dashboard. Secure, controlled access: Each account gets a private upload path, so only authorized users can view or update data. Example: A finance manager can upload NetSuite exports, while engineering retains access only to their cloud usage data, showing teams see exactly what they need and nothing more. Move from spreadsheets to strategy: Instead of emailing Excel files back and forth, your team gets live, centralized insights you can act on immediately. Example: You can replace monthly reconciliation spreadsheets with a daily data feed into Umbrella for shared visibility. BYOD transforms what used to be manual, fragmented, and difficult to share into something structured, accessible, and ready for informed FinOps decisions.    How BYOD Works   Here’s how to get started with BYOD: Create a BYOD account in the Umbrella platform. You’ll find the option under Cloud Accounts. Each account you create will have its secure upload path. Export your cost data in a standardized file format based on FOCUS FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification) is a structured, column-based format required for cost data ingestion. You can convert exports from SaaS tools, financial systems, or internal billing reports to match this format. Upload the file to your secure Umbrella upload location. Each organization receives private upload credentials to manage access and maintain data security. Your data will automatically appear in your multi-cloud dashboard. Once processed, the imported data becomes part of your existing Umbrella environment, available for analysis and reporting. This setup allows you to integrate external cost data into your existing workflows without necessitating significant changes to your internal systems. Step-by-Step: Uploading Your Own Cost Data We’ve made the BYOD onboarding process as straightforward as possible so you can start seeing your external cost data right away: Quick note before you begin Before getting started, set up a daily process to generate your cost file in the required format. This could be as simple as exporting a CSV from your finance system or SaaS tool, then uploading it to the secure location we provide. (You can do this manually each day or automate it with a script if your team prefers!) Step 1: Create the Account In Umbrella, go to Cloud Accounts and choose Bring Your Own Data. Give your account a name; this is how it will be displayed in your dashboard. Select a vendor from our list (or add your own if it’s not there). Umbrella will create a secure location for you to upload your files. Step 2: Get Your Upload Keys We’ll give you a one-time link to download the secure info you’ll need to upload your files. These keys can be used for all your BYOD accounts moving forward. If you misplace them, just reach out to our support team for help. Step 3: Upload Your Files Use your credentials to upload the file to the location we assigned. Once uploaded, your data will appear in your Umbrella dashboard, alongside your existing cloud costs. The data will appear in the same view as your cloud costs. Best part? No extra steps required! What Format Does BYOD Support? To make sure your cost data is processed correctly in Umbrella, it must follow a standardized structure based on FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification) developed by the FinOps Foundation. For instance, if you're importing cost data from a custom usage report or an internal billing tool, you’d just map your existing columns to match the FOCUS structure. FOCUS is an open industry standard designed to help teams consistently normalize and analyze cloud and SaaS spend across various tools and providers. Umbrella uses this format so your imported data can be recognized and organized just like your native cloud costs. If your export tool doesn’t support FOCUS directly, you can still upload; you’ll just need to reformat the file to match the FOCUS structure. Helpful Upload Tips If your system splits cost data into multiple files, upload them together in a single folder so they’re processed as a single batch. Reuploading a file with dates we’ve already processed will replace the old data with the new version. Make sure your column names match the ones we provide—Umbrella checks them during upload to make sure everything lines up. FOCUS Format: Field Matching Guide These field names must be exact—no spaces, no typos. If something doesn’t match, the file won’t process correctly. What BYOD Makes Possible for FinOps As your infrastructure grows more complex, BYOD adapts. It provides a scalable way to maintain visibility across new tools, teams, and spending categories. It provides FinOps teams with a practical way to bring structure to one of the most complex areas of tech spend: all expenses that fall outside traditional cloud billing. BYOD helps unify cloud-native charges with SaaS costs, internal systems, and legacy records without requiring teams to change how they already work. Instead of chasing down spreadsheets or reconciling disconnected reports, you get one place to track, analyze, and share your full cost picture. And that is not just about convenience. It enables faster, better-informed decisions with shared context and fewer blind spots. Need Help Getting Started? BYOD is available now in your Umbrella account. Just log in, head to Cloud Accounts → Bring Your Own Data, and follow the setup steps. Want to learn more about how Umbrella helps you manage, monitor, and reduce your cloud and SaaS spend? Explore the platform here.

We just got back from FinOps X 2025 in sunny San Diego, and wow, this space is moving fast! Compared to last year, the energy was different. More focused. More expansive. And a lot more crowded (in the best way possible). Between new vendors on the exhibit floor, the updated FinOps Framework, and deep conversations about AI workloads and MSP ecosystems, it’s clear: FinOps is growing up fast. [caption id="attachment_17600" align="aligncenter" width="540"] The Umbrella team - Ray Edwards, John Porter, and Ranjan Mehera - enjoying a meal with fellow FinOps enthusiasts.[/caption] Here are the top 7 takeaways from the event, straight from the Umbrella team that attended, who live and breathe this stuff every day: 1. FinOps Isn’t Just About Cloud Anymore There’s a real shift happening: FinOps is no longer boxed into public cloud. This year’s update to the FinOps Framework added "Scopes" that cover SaaS, private cloud, data centers, and licensing, and yes, even AI. That tells you everything you need to know. This isn't just about EC2 and S3 anymore. If you’re managing any kind of tech spend, chances are you’re going to need FinOps principles to do it well.   2. AI spend is getting real AI and GenAI workloads were mentioned everywhere. But many companies still don’t know how to track or manage that spend. Token-based pricing, new usage models, it’s complex stuff. But the demand is real. The models are complex, and the costs can sneak up fast. Teams need better visibility. If you're not building FinOps practices around AI yet, you're already behind. (On that note, at Umbrella, we’re already ahead of the curve. We’ve baked natural language AI into our platform to help business leaders ask real questions and get real answers about spend.) 3. So many vendors, so little focus Walking the expo floor, I saw more new vendors than I expected. That’s normal when a category starts to heat up. But it also makes it harder for buyers. We’ve seen this before: the innovation trigger brings the gold rush, but then comes the shakeout. My advice to customers?  Pick a vendor that’s stable and focused on this space. not one trying to bolt FinOps onto something else. [caption id="attachment_17603" align="aligncenter" width="540"] FinOps X 2025 - San Diego[/caption] 4. MSPs Are Having a Moment I had some solid talks with our MSP partners at the event. The opportunity for them is clear. Cloud providers are pushing MSP programs, and FinOps is the natural next step. With hyperscalers like AWS and Azure rolling out new MSP programs, it presents a huge opportunity from them. That’s also why I’m excited about our new Distributor Edition at Umbrella—it’s purpose-built for complex multi-tier MSPs and Distributors.   5. Unified cost data is picking up steam The FOCUS 1.2 standard was getting a lot of attention at the event. And for good reason. It helps bring together billing data from across cloud and SaaS providers into one clean view. That means more reliable reports, easier comparisons, and faster answers. If you’ve ever tried to piece this stuff together manually, you know how big a deal that is.   6. Optimization and waste reduction are still king Despite all the excitement around AI and SaaS, the basics haven’t changed. People still want to cut waste and tune their environments. What’s new is where they’re focusing. It’s not just VMs and storage anymore, it’s unused SaaS licenses and idle GPU clusters. Visibility is step one, but action is where the savings come from. [caption id="attachment_17599" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Ranjan Mehera and John Porter enjoying the views outside the conference center - FinOps X 2025[/caption] The Umbrella team - Ray Edwards, John Porter and Ranjan Mehera enjoying dinner with industry friends. 7. San Diego Wins On a lighter note, props to the FinOps Foundation for choosing San Diego this year. The weather was perfect, the food didn’t disappoint, and the two-day format was just the right length. There was less chaos, making meeting people and having real conversations easier. I’ll take that over Vegas or San Francisco any day. FinOps X 2025 made one thing clear: we’re no longer in niche territory. This is an enterprise-scale, cross-domain solution, and it's only getting bigger. I’m excited about where it’s headed—and proud to be part of the team at Umbrella that’s building for what’s next. Want to save on cloud costs and bring more control to your spend? Talk to our experts and see what Umbrella can do for you.

Our cloud cost management platform isn’t just about dashboards for FinOps or cost savings (though delivering clear visibility and reducing cloud waste are things we do exceptionally well). It’s about giving enterprises and MSPs the peace of mind that their data is protected, governed, and secure. That’s why we’re proud to share that Umbrella has officially achieved SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II compliance just weeks into our launch. It’s the first of many steps we’re taking to build a cloud cost platform that enterprise teams can trust not just today but long term. Here’s what you need to know about this new compliance and why enterprises and MSPs should be excited about it.    Why We Did This As enterprises and MSPs FinOps departments increasingly rely on third-party platforms to manage their cloud costs and financial operations, trust and transparency are non-negotiable. Our customers operate in regulated environments and manage critical financial and operational data in the cloud. It was important to show they’ve been tested, verified, and consistently effective in practice to support their internal audits, procurement requirements, and compliance processes. That’s why we pursued SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II compliance just weeks after launching.  Here’s what that means: SOC 1 Type II confirms that Umbrella’s internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) are effective, giving our customers and auditors confidence that their cloud cost data is accurate, complete, and well-managed. SOC 2 Type II verifies that our platform meets rigorous security, availability, and confidentiality standards over time, which results in customer data being protected and securely handled. These certifications weren’t just about passing a test. We wanted to represent independent verification of our internal controls so our enterprise customers and their compliance teams can have a smoother onboarding during procurement and vendor risk assessments and a stronger foundation for secure, reliable cloud cost management. Who Conducted the Evaluation?  We partnered with Ernst & Young (EY), a global leader in audit and assurance, to closely examine how Umbrella operates. Their team reviewed our internal processes, from how we secure customer data to how our systems support accurate financial reporting. They didn’t just look at the documentation. They observed how our controls work over time. That makes Type II audits different. They assess whether your practices hold up day after day, not just during a one-time review. At the end of the process, EY confirmed that we’ve been building toward a cloud cost platform that meets the highest trust, transparency, and operational excellence standards. “Achieving both SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliance is a significant milestone for Umbrella. It underscores our commitment to providing our clients with the highest standards of security, availability, and financial integrity.” Elisha Ben Zvi, VP R&D and Co-founder of Umbrella   SOC 1 & SOC 2 Compliance Adds to Our Momentum These latest compliance milestones are not standalone achievements. They reflect a pattern of continued growth and credibility. In the past year, Umbrella was named a Visionary in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Financial Management Tools, and a Leader in the MSP Use Case in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report. These recognitions highlight our focus on building secure, scalable cloud cost solutions for the real-world needs of enterprises and service providers. SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II compliance further reinforce that commitment, offering our customers added confidence in our technology and operations.   Our Compliance Certification Secures Your Data SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II compliance mark an important milestone. In the eyes of an independent third party, we’ve built our cloud cost platform to meet rigorous standards for keeping cost data accurate, consistent, and secure. Umbrella is a cloud cost management platform built to offer FinOps departments more than just insights; We're here to deliver action, clarity, and control across every corner of cloud cost management. Whether you're an enterprise navigating complex multi-cloud environments or an MSP managing costs across multiple client accounts, we’re with you. We will continue to put our platform to the test to ensure it remains the most reliable cloud financial management solution available. “In a space where only a few cloud financial management platforms meet these standards, our compliance reinforces our dedication to operating at the highest level of accountability. This recognition continues the path Umbrella started, investing dedicated resources to develop a best-in-class product and system with our customers’ data security as our top priority.” David Drai, CEO and Co-founder of Umbrella   Read the full press release to learn more about Umbrella’s latest compliance achievement.

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So, you're new to the cloud or just starting off with Azure. You're probably starting your first project and using the Azure Calculator to help estimate your monthly run rate. The problem is that Azure, like all clouds, has hidden costs. So why does the cloud have hidden costs? Well, while we call them hidden costs, it’s really more a matter of unexpected costs or unknown costs. Basically, apart from the main “expected” costs, we also have additional charges that newbies will often be surprised by. These could be charges for extra usage beyond a certain included threshold, costs associated with resources that are mandatorily created as part of a deployment, and additional charges for services such as a disk added to a VM or things like backups and monitoring that were not factored into the original estimate. So I’m going to try to list some of the top hidden (unexpected) costs that you should factor into your run rates. Data Transfer For Outbound traffic or in its official Azure name “Bandwidth”, like most clouds, you pay for both outbound traffic and inter-region traffic. Now this does make sense as if you think about it you're not paying for an ISP, so rather than paying for an ISP or Bandwidth speed you're simply charged for actual usage based on outbound traffic. → Outbound traffic = traffic that leaves the data center for the public internet. → Inter-region traffic = traffic that is leaving the data center to a data center in a second region. Azure allocates each tenant a quota of 100GB a month of outbound internet traffic for no charge. Once you pass that 100GB Mark you are charged $0.087 per GB for the first 10TB and from there the prices continue to drop.   Now here is where things get interesting. While many people are aware of this traffic charge they are not aware of additional traffic charges. These include: Inter Zone traffic. So while a zone is technically in the same region, if you deploy a zone redundant configuration you are charged for traffic that flows between these zones.   Peering traffic, now this is an annoying one. You create two virtual networks (VNets) in the exact same region and in the exact same zone. Now let's say for instance that in each virtual network, you had a VM with a public IP, any communication between these two would be free as it is within the region. However, if you peer the networks together there is a charge for all traffic over the peer. This is charged at $0.01 per GB in both directions. If the peering is between two Virtual Networks in different regions, known as Global VNet Peering, then that charge will increase to between $0.035 to $0.09 depending on the zone. This is hidden in the Azure calculator under Virtual Network   Finally, we have private links. Private links are a way of assigning a private IP and encapsulating a PaaS service within a VNet. Now while the private link has a fixed price of around $7 to $8 per month you are also charged for all traffic over that private link and this is priced at $0.01 per GB  and will drop if you exceed 1PB per month. So this now means that all traffic let's say between a VM and a managed DB will now be charged! So to summarise based on your network architecture including the use of regions, zones, peerings & private links you could find yourself paying a lot of money for data transfer. This can be a large unexpected charge that could cost you thousands more per month than your initial estimate if not factored in correctly.  Azure Backups   Azure Backup for VMs has a fairly simple pricing model. You pay once for the backup service itself and then you pay for the storage consumed by the backup itself. However there is a catch, the price of backing up a VM (not including the storage) is $5 for a VM under 50GB and $10 for up to 500GB. So what happens if the VM is more than 500GB? That's right, you guessed it you pay an additional $10 for each 500GB increment. So if you have a VM with let's say 2.2TB you are going to pay each month $50 to back it up and that's not including consumed storage.  When you realize that that works out at $600 a year it’s an expensive solution.   Azure Storage   So you want to store large amounts of data in Azure (blob) storage. Makes sense that's what it’s there for. So you of course choose the required tier, could be Hot, Cool, Archive… and maybe set up a lifecycle policy to automatically cycle tiers based on usage.  Now you may think that the cost is just for stored data, WRONG! There are many costs associated with Azure storage beyond the actual stored data costs.  You will be charged for all operations performed on the storage account such as read, write, delete etc.  The cost of these operations changes based on the storage tier. So while using the hot tier has the highest data stored costs it also has lower costs for operations, while the cool tier has higher costs for operations.  This is also the reason why you should never store data under the cool tier that is being frequently accessed as your access and operation charges will run higher than if you were on the hot tier.  You should also be careful of the data retrieval charge when accessing data from Cool, cold and archive tiers as this ranges from $0.01 to $0.03 per GB. Oh and you want to enable SFTP in your storage account? Well that's another $220 per month.  Log Analytics   Log Analytics is as its name suggests a place to store and analyze your logs. Now Azure offers you 45 days of built in metrics for all services but if you want a longer retention period then you need to send those metrics to Log analytics. Also when setting up AKS (Kubernetes) there is a check box to enable container logs and this will also be sent to log analytics. Now I’m sure you know where I’m getting with this? Log Analytics costs $2.30 a month per GB. So when container logs, or any other log for that matter, start pouring in you can easily find yourself with thousands of dollars a month in charges for the service.   Wastage   While not really a hidden cost waste is still one of the biggest issues with cloud bills. From oversized VMs, or any other resource that can be downsized to save money to resources that can just be deleted, especially leftover disks after a VM is deleted to underutilized reservations. That's right, you purchased a 1-year reservation to save money on your VM, and then when that VM got deleted you're still paying for the reservation, so now rather than save you money you're actually paying for a reservation that isn’t even in use.  So always take care, to clean up your environment, the use of infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform is also always a good idea, and keep a lookout for those hidden costs. I hope this blog article will help you. Want a proof of concept? Talk to us to learn how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.

So we all have commitment issues. Let's face it, “commitment” is probably one of the most scary words in the English lexicon. Jokes aside, what does it actually mean when we talk about cloud commitments? What Are Cloud Commitments and How Do They Work?   Well, basically it’s a model where you can commit to the cloud vendor either for a particular resource or an amount of spend. The commitment will usually be for a term of 1 or 3 years and based on both the size of the commitment and term, you will receive a discount. These discounts usually vary from around 30%-70%. Now just to be clear, this is not a negotiated contract discount. While there are such things between large cloud consumers and vendors, what we are discussing here are predefined (by the vendors) commitments that are public knowledge. All discounts are published on the cloud vendors website and available to be purchased on demand via the cloud vendors portal. So as mentioned, there are generally two main types of commitment: Resource-based Spend based Resource based   Resource based, also commonly referred to as a reservation or reserved instance (RI) is a commitment that is based on a certain resource type such as a certain SKU of a VM or managed DB, X amount of managed cores or any other number of resource types that varies based on the Cloud Vendor.  You are basically committing to a certain type of resource in a certain region. The commitment will be for 1 or 3 years, depending on your preferences, with the 3 year commitment offering you a higher discount. In Azure this offering is referred to as an Azure Reservation. In GCP Resource-based committed use discounts. And in AWS as Standard or Convertible reserved instances. Azure allows purchasing of reservations for the following resource types: VM, Blob, Files, Cosmos DB, Data Factory, SQL Database, Synapse Analytics, Databrick, App Service stamp Fee, Database for MySQL, Database for PostgreSQL, Database for Maria DB, Data Explorer, Cache for Redis, Dedicate Host, Disk Storage, Backup Storage, OR Software Plans (SUSE Linux, RedHat, RedHat OpenShift).¹ GCP allows purchasing of reservations for the following resource types: Compute Engine, Software Licenses (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SLES for SAP, RHEL for Linux and RHEL for SAP images), OR GPUs and local SSDs with Capacity Reservation. AWS supports the purchasing of reservations for the following resource types: EC2, RDS, ElasticCache, OpenSearch, Redshift, and DynamoDB. Or in the case of convertible reserved instances just for EC2.   Differences between cloud reservations   So now you're asking yourselves are there any differences between the different clouds other than cost? The answer is a firm YES. AWS as you noticed has two models   Standard reserved instances are non-refundable or exchangeable but can be sold via the AWS marketplace to other users. Convertible Reserved Instances are exchangeable and can be exchanged for another convertible reserved instance. Based on this the convertible reserved instance discount is lower and it is also only available for EC2 instances.  AWS also offers a full upfront payment option, partial upfront or no upfront with the discount being slightly larger for upfront payments. Azure offers up to $50,000 a year of refunds, allowing you to refund any remaining commitment up to the $50,000 mark a year. Aure also offers an exchange, allowing you to exchange an existing reservation for a new reservation and this exchange will not count against your refund limit. Just so long as the new reservation costs more, even by a single dollar, than the previous remaining reservation. Azure also offers both upfront or no upfront purchasing options however with no difference in discount. GCP does not allow for any cancellations or refunds. GCP billing is all monthly with no upfront charges.   Things to look out for   Once a commitment covers a service, on-demand pricing no longer takes effect. So, shutting down an instance will not pause charges as you have already prepaid for the resource via the commitment plan. Spend Based   Spend based also commonly referred to as Saving plans (AWS & Azure) is a commitment plan based on actual spend.  You basically commit to a certain level of monthly spend in $ for a term of 1 or 3 years and receive a flat discount on all of your spend. However the spend commit is scoped to certain resource types and is not for your entire cloud spend and unlike reservations there is no commitment to a certain region. There is also no commitment to a certain cloud service/resource type, with the exception of the AWS EC2 instance savings plan that is scoped to just certain EC2 instances and is also limited to a single region. In Azure this offering is referred to as Azure Savings plan for Compute In GCP this offering is referred to as GCP Spend-Based Committed Use Discounts In AWS as EC2 Instance savings plan or AWS Compute Savings Plan. Azure Savings plan covers VM (with exceptions), App Service (with exceptions), Functions, Container Instances, OR Dedicated Host GCP Spend based Commit covers: Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Run, Cloud Spanner, Cloud SQL, Compute Engine, Cloud VMware Engine, Kubernetes Engine, Memorystore for Redis OR Memorystore for Memcached AWS Compute Saving plan covers: Compute (EC2, Lambda, Fargate) Or EC2 instance savings plan that covers only EC2 (with a slightly higher discount than compute savings plan) Differences between cloud Spend Commits   Well unlike reservations here there are much less differences. None of the Cloud Vendors allow refunding of the commitment. With the slight exception of AWS allowing a cancellation within 7 days of purchase as long as the commitment is below $100 an hour ($73,000 a month). Things to look out for Another gotcha is that the spend is calculated on an hourly basis. So you can't just go ahead and look at your entire monthly spend on eligible services as you might have peak and low points based on scaling and other load requirements, so you are going to want to commit to your low points. In other words, you are committing to an hourly level of spend and not a monthly or yearly amount. You will also need to take into account that you need to commit to the spend after discount and not the spend pre-commit, so you need to work out your exact hourly spend, how much discount you will receive, and then commit based on that number. Using Umbrella’s advanced Saving Plan Simulator can help you analyze your exact usage and recommend the best savings plan configuration for your environment, allowing you to apply an aggressive savings plan without over-committing. Conclusion   So we’ve covered the basics of the three major hyperscale cloud providers' commit plans. We’ve seen that there are two main models:  Resource commit - Scoped to a specific resource type in a specific region. Spend commit - Scoped to an array of compute services with no region limits. So while committing to a certain resource type will provide a higher discount, using a spend commit will offer you a bit more flexibility and less management overhead. One last thing, if you have both types of commitments in place then the resource-based commit will apply first then the spend commit on any left over uncovered resources. And this is usually the best practice for maximum savings. Cover what you can with a resource reservation then cover 70-80% of the rest with a savings plan. We always leave 20%-30% without commitment to allow for maximum flexibility. And always, and I mean always check out the latest information published by the Vendor. Prices and terms are being updated constantly so keep an eye out for changes and updates. Want a proof of concept? Talk to us to learn how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.