Plan and manage costs for Microsoft Foundry

Managing Microsoft Foundry costs effectively starts with planning. This article shows you how to estimate expenses before deployment, track spending in real-time, and set up alerts to avoid budget surprises.

What you'll learn:

• Estimate costs using the Azure pricing calculator
• Monitor actual spending across different model types
• Create budgets and alerts to control expenses
• Understand billing differences between Azure-hosted and partner models

You use Foundry Tools in Foundry portal. Costs for Foundry Tools are only a portion of the monthly costs in your Azure bill. You're billed for all services and resources used in your Azure subscription, including third-party services. You can also review forecasted costs and identify spending trends to find areas where you might want to act.

Prerequisites

To view and analyze costs, you need:

• An Azure account with read access to Cost Management data
• One of the supported Azure account types

Need to grant access? See how to assign access to Cost Management data.

Estimate costs before using Foundry Tools

Use the Azure pricing calculator to estimate costs before you add Foundry Tools.

1. Search for and select a product, such as Azure Language in Foundry Tools, in the Azure pricing calculator.

2. Select more than one product to estimate costs for multiple products. For example, search for and select Azure AI Search to add potential costs.

As you add new resources to your project, return to this calculator and add the same resource here to update your cost estimates.

Costs associated with Foundry

When you create a Foundry resource, you pay to use services like Azure OpenAI, Speech, Content Safety, Vision, Document Intelligence, and Language. Costs vary for each service and for some features within each service. Find more details on the Foundry Tools pricing page.

Understand the billing model for Foundry Tools

Foundry Tools run on Azure infrastructure that accrues costs when you deploy the new resource. It's important to understand that extra infrastructure can accrue cost. You need to manage that cost when you make changes to deployed resources.

When you create or use Foundry Tools resources, you're charged based on the services that you use. Two billing models are available for Foundry Tools:

• Serverless API: With serverless API pricing, you're billed according to the Foundry Tools offering you use, based on its billing information.

• Commitment tiers: With commitment tier pricing, you commit to using several service features for a fixed fee, so you have a predictable total cost based on the needs of your workload. You're billed based on the plan you choose. For information on available services, how to sign up, and considerations when buying a plan, see Quickstart: Purchase commitment tier pricing.

Understand the billing model for Foundry Models

Token-based pricing

Language models understand and process inputs by breaking them down into tokens. For reference, each token is roughly four characters for typical English text. Models that can process images or audio break them down into tokens too for billing purposes. The number of tokens per image or audio content depends on the model and the resolution of the input.

Costs per token vary depending on which model series you choose, but in all cases, models deployed in Foundry are charged per 1,000 tokens. For example, Azure OpenAI chat completions model inference is charged per 1,000 tokens with different rates depending on the model and deployment type. For most models, pricing is now listed in terms of 1 million tokens.

Token costs are for both input and output. For example, suppose you have a 1,000-token JavaScript code sample that you ask a model to convert to Python. You pay for approximately 1,000 tokens for the initial input request sent, and 1,000 more tokens for the output that is received in response for a total of 2,000 tokens.

In practice, for this type of completion call, the token input/output isn't perfectly 1:1. A conversion from one programming language to another can result in a longer or shorter output depending on many factors. One such factor is the value assigned to the max_tokens parameter.

Models sold directly by Azure

Models sold directly by Azure (including Azure OpenAI) are charged directly. They appear as billing meters under each Foundry resource. Microsoft handles this billing directly. When you inspect your bill, you see billing meters that account for inputs and outputs for each consumed model.

Fine-tuned models

Azure OpenAI fine-tuning models are charged based on the number of tokens in your training file. For the latest prices, see the official pricing page.

Once your fine-tuned model is deployed, you're also charged based on:

• Hosting hours.
• Inference per 1,000 tokens (broken down by input usage and output usage).

The hosting hours cost is important to be aware of because after a fine-tuned model is deployed, it continues to incur an hourly cost regardless of whether you're actively using it. Monitor deployed fine-tuned model costs closely.

HTTP Error response code and billing status

If the service performs processing, you're charged even if the status code isn't successful (not 200). For example, a 400 error due to a content filter or input limit, or a 408 error due to a timeout.

If the service doesn't perform processing, you aren't charged. For example, a 401 error due to authentication or a 429 error due to exceeding the rate limit.

Monitor costs

As you use Foundry, you incur costs. Azure resource usage unit costs vary by time intervals (seconds, minutes, hours, and days) or by unit usage (bytes, megabytes, and so on). You can see the incurred costs in cost analysis.

When you use cost analysis, you view costs in graphs and tables for different time intervals. Some examples are by day, current and prior month, and year. You also view costs against budgets and forecasted costs. Switching to longer views over time can help you identify spending trends so you can see where overspending might occur. If you create budgets, you can also easily see where they're exceeded.

Configure permissions to view costs

You need the AI User role and Cost Management Reader role at the resource group of subscription level to view the costs.

Or you can create the following custom rules:

• Microsoft.Consumption/*/read
• Microsoft.CostManagement/*/read
• Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/read
• Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/AIServices/usage/read

To create a custom role, use one of the following articles:

• Azure portal
• Azure CLI
• Azure PowerShell

For more information about custom roles, see Azure custom roles.

To create a custom role, construct a role definition JSON file that specifies the permission and scope for the role. The following example defines a custom Foundry Cost Reader role scoped at a specific resource level:

{
    "Name": "Foundry Cost Reader",
    "IsCustom": true,
    "Description": "Can see cost metrics in Foundry",
    "Actions": [
        "Microsoft.Consumption/*/read",
        "Microsoft.CostManagement/*/read",
        "Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/read",
        "Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/AIServices/usage/read"
    ],
    "NotActions": [],
    "DataActions": [],
    "NotDataActions": [],
    "AssignableScopes": [
        "/subscriptions/<subscriptionId>/resourceGroups/<resourceGroupName>/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/<foundryResourceName>"
    ]
}

Replace <subscriptionId>, <resourceGroupName>, and <foundryResourceName> with your actual values.

Monitor in Foundry portal

1. Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is off. These steps refer to Foundry (classic).
   Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is on. These steps refer to Foundry (new).
   
2. Use the sections below to monitor costs.

Agent costs

1. Select Operate in the upper-right navigation.
2. Select Overview in the left pane.
3. At the top of the page, select the subscription, one or more projects, and a date range.
4. The Estimated cost tile shows estimates of all the agents for the selected project(s) for the selected dates. These estimates do not currently include prompt agent and non-Foundry agent costs.

For individual agent estimates:

1. Select Assets in the left pane
2. Select the Agents tab.
3. The Estimated costs column shows monthly estimates based on the agent configuration and usage patterns.

For more details of an individual agent:

1. Select Build in the upper-right navigation.
2. Select Agents in the left pane.
3. Select an agent.
4. Select the Monitor tab for the agent.
5. Set the date range in the upper-right corner.
6. Operational metrics show the token cost and usage for the given range.

Model deployment costs

1. Select Build in the upper-right navigation.
2. Select Models in the left pane.
3. Select a model.
4. Select the Monitor tab.
5. Select the date range in the upper right corner. You see the total cost along with an estimated cost chart for the given range.

When you select the View More Details or the Azure Cost Management link, you are directed to the Azure portal under the Cost Management section. The costs displayed there reflect the aggregated charges for the entire Cognitive Services account. These differ from the costs shown here, which are specific to the selected model only. These costs are only available in USD only and not in the user's billing currency.

Monitor in Azure portal

Here's an example of how to monitor costs in the Azure portal. The costs are used as an example only. Your costs vary depending on the services that you use and the amount of usage.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal

2. You can view costs for a resource group or for an individual Foundry resource.

   Tip

   To open your Resource group:

   1. Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is off. These steps refer to Foundry (classic).
      Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is on. These steps refer to Foundry (new).
      
   2. Select your project, then select Management center from the left menu.
   3. Under the Resource heading, select Overview.
   4. Under the Resource properties, select the link to open it directly in the Azure portal.

   Tip

   To open your Foundry resource in Azure portal:

   1. Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is off. These steps refer to Foundry (classic).
      Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is on. These steps refer to Foundry (new).
      
   2. Select Operate from the upper-right navigation.
   3. Select Admin.
   4. Select the link for the parent resource in the second column.
   5. Select Manage this resource in the Azure portal under the View resource heading in the upper-right.

3. In the Azure portal, for either your resource group or Foundry resource, select Cost analysis under Cost Management.

4. You see the cost overview. You can also add filters such as deployment level tags and user defined tags. For example, to see the costs based on model deployment:

   

5. Select Costs by resource > Resources to open the Cost analysis page.

6. You can see cost of your Foundry resource and the split of that cost across multiple model deployments under that resource.

   

Understand cost breakdown by meter

To understand the breakdown of the cost, use the Cost Analysis tool in Azure portal. Follow these steps to understand the cost of inference:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal and select the resource group that contains the project you want to monitor.

   Tip

   To open your Resource group:

   1. Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is off. These steps refer to Foundry (classic).
      Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is on. These steps refer to Foundry (new).
      
   2. Select your project, then select Management center from the left menu.
   3. Under the Resource heading, select Overview.
   4. Under the Resource properties, select the link to open it directly in the Azure portal.

   Tip

   To open your Foundry resource in Azure portal:

   1. Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is off. These steps refer to Foundry (classic).
      Sign in to Microsoft Foundry. Make sure the New Foundry toggle is on. These steps refer to Foundry (new).
      
   2. Select Operate from the upper-right navigation.
   3. Select Admin.
   4. Select the link for the parent resource in the second column.
   5. Select Manage this resource in the Azure portal under the View resource heading in the upper-right.

2. In Azure portal, select Cost analysis under Cost Management.

3. By default, cost analysis is scoped to the selected resource group.

   Important

   Scope Cost Analysis to the resource group where you deployed the Foundry resource. The cost meters associated with Models from Partners and Community display under the resource group instead of the Foundry resource.

4. Modify Group by to Meter. You can now see that for this particular resource group, the source of the costs comes from different model series.

   

Models sold directly by Azure

Models sold directly by Azure (including Azure OpenAI) are charged directly. They appear as billing meters under each Foundry resource. Microsoft handles this billing directly. When you inspect your bill, you see billing meters that account for inputs and outputs for each consumed model.

Monitor costs by resource

You can get more detailed billing information by grouping costs by resource:

1. In Cost Analysis, select View > Cost by resource.

   

2. Now you can see the resources generating each of the billing meters. To understand the breakdown of what makes up that cost, it can help to modify Group by to Meter and switching the chart type to Line.

3. Azure OpenAI models and Microsoft models are displayed as meters under each Foundry Tool resource.

4. Some providers' models are displayed as meters under Global resources. The word Global isn't related to the SKU of the model deployment (for instance, Global standard). If you have multiple Foundry Tool resources, your bill contains one entry for each model for each Foundry Tool resource. The resource meters have the format [model-name]-[GUID] where [GUID] is an identifier unique an associated with a given Foundry Tools resource. You notice billing meters accounting for inputs and outputs for each model you consumed.

   

It's important to understand scope when you evaluate costs associated with Foundry Tools. If your resources are part of the same resource group, you can scope Cost Analysis at that level to understand the effect on costs. If your resources are spread across multiple resource groups, you can scope to the subscription level.

When scoped at a higher level, you often need to add more filters to focus on Azure OpenAI usage. When scoped at the subscription level, you see many other resources that you might not care about in the context of Azure OpenAI cost management. When you scope at the subscription level, navigate to the full Cost analysis tool under the Cost Management service.

Here's an example of how to use the Cost analysis tool to see your accumulated costs for a subscription or resource group:

1. Search for Cost Management in the top Azure search bar to navigate to the full service experience, which includes more options such as creating budgets.
2. If necessary, select change if the Scope: isn't pointing to the resource group or subscription you want to analyze.
3. On the left, select Reporting + analytics > Cost analysis.
4. On the All views tab, select Accumulated costs.

The cost analysis dashboard shows the accumulated costs that are analyzed depending on what you specified for Scope.

If you try to add a filter by service, you can't find Azure OpenAI in the list. This situation occurs because Azure OpenAI has commonality with a subset of Foundry Tools where the service level filter is Cognitive Services. If you want to see all Azure OpenAI resources across a subscription without any other type of Foundry Tool resources, instead scope to Service tier: Azure OpenAI:

Create budgets

Prevent cost overruns with automated alerts. Create budgets that track your spending limits and set up alerts to notify you when costs approach or exceed thresholds.

Best practice: Create budgets and alerts for Azure subscriptions and resource groups as part of an overall cost monitoring strategy.

Create budgets with filters for specific resources or services in Azure if you want more granularity in your monitoring. Filters help ensure that you don't accidentally create new resources that cost more money. For more about filter options when you create a budget, see Group and filter options.

Export cost data

You can export your cost data to a storage account. Exporting data is helpful when you or others need to do additional data analysis for costs. For example, finance teams can analyze the data by using Excel or Power BI. You can export your costs on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule and set a custom date range. Exporting cost data is the recommended way to retrieve cost datasets.

Other costs that might accrue

Enabling capabilities such as sending data to Azure Monitor Logs and alerting incur extra costs for those services. These costs are visible under those other services and at the subscription level, but aren't visible when scoped just to your Foundry resource.

Using Azure Prepayment

You can pay for Models Sold Directly by Azure charges with your Azure Prepayment (previously called monetary commitment) credit. However, you can't use Azure Prepayment credit to pay for charges for other provider models because they're billed through Azure Marketplace.

For more information, see Azure pricing calculator.

Related content

• Foundry management center
• Foundry status dashboard
• Learn how to optimize your cloud investment with cost management.
• Learn more about managing costs with cost analysis.
• Learn about how to prevent unexpected costs.
• Take the Cost Management guided learning course.