Estimating Azure costs - easier said than done

Estimating the cost you will incur for a solution deployed to Azure needs work as there are a variety of factors (availability of Azure Services in a desired region, compliance, price plan etc) & possibilities (hardware spec, VNET peering or Site-to-Site VPN etc) involved.

There are multiple ways to check prices -

• Azure Pricing Calculator
• Azure Product Pricing page - example: Azure VM Pricing
• Azure Portal
• Azure APIs
• AzurePrice.net

As the prices change dynamically and new Services may be introduced, one or more of the above resources have to be consulted as all the required info may not be conveniently available at one place

My grouse with Azure Pricing Calculator -

• It may not have the most up to date info (that other official sources provide)
• For scenarios involving multiple Azure Services (like Azure Site Recovery), the Pricing Calculator doesn't consolidate all costs involved & help in understanding true cost
• Some fields may not be validated for applicability & correctness