Missing Commitment Tier for High-Volume Foundry Tools (Azure AI Services)

For resources with steady, high monthly volume, Microsoft offers commitment tiers: a fixed monthly fee that includes a usage quota at a lower effective rate than Standard pricing, with overage billed at the tier's overage rate.

Resources typically stay on Standard pricing because usage grows gradually from a pilot and the pricing tier is never revisited, or because the workload runs on a multi-service Foundry resource, which cannot use commitment tiers at all. Azure Advisor raises 'Consider using a commitment tier' recommendations for Speech, Translator, Language, Computer Vision, Form Recognizer (Document Intelligence) and LUIS resources whose past 30 days of usage would justify one.

Standard pricing

Pay-as-you-go billing per unit of usage, with no commitment

Commitment tier

Fixed monthly fee for a usage quota at discounted rates, charged on the first day of each calendar month

Overage

Usage above the tier's quota, billed at the overage rate stated for that tier

Commitment period

One calendar month; the first month is prorated, the plan can't be changed mid-month and is non-refundable once purchased

• Review Azure Advisor cost recommendations titled 'Consider using a commitment tier for ... resource' for Cognitive Services accounts
• For each Speech, Translator, Language, Vision or Document Intelligence resource, pull 30 to 90 days of usage from Azure Monitor metrics or Cost analysis (group by meter) and compare monthly volume with the quotas and effective rates of the commitment tiers on the Foundry Tools pricing pages
• Identify high-volume usage running through multi-service Foundry or AI services resources, which are not eligible for commitment tiers
• For resources already on a commitment plan, compare monthly usage with the included quota to catch plans that are oversized or no longer needed before the next renewal

• Purchase the commitment tier that matches steady monthly usage from the resource's Commitment tier pricing blade, choosing auto-renewal; the plan starts immediately with a prorated first month
• Move high-volume, steady workloads from multi-service resources to single-service resources (for example a dedicated Speech or Translator resource) so they can use commitment pricing
• Keep spiky, seasonal or declining workloads on Standard pricing, since unused quota in a month is still paid for
• Review usage monthly and select a different tier for the next calendar month, or set Do not auto-renew before midnight UTC on the last day of the month to return to Standard pricing
• Use connected container commitment plans for on-premises container usage, and treat disconnected container plans separately since they have an annual commitment

• Use Foundry Tools with commitment tier pricinglearn.microsoft.com
• Cost recommendations - Azure Advisorlearn.microsoft.com
• Plan and Manage Costs - Microsoft Foundrylearn.microsoft.com
• Foundry Tools pricingazure.microsoft.com