Effective unit price calculation for Azure plan consumption
Appropriate roles: Billing admin
The effective unit price
The effective unit price is calculated at the meter level (as opposed to the resource level), and is adjusted daily according to meter usage.
We calculate the effective unit price using the following three factors:
- Consumption, which is monitored daily throughout the billing cycle
- Billable cost for the meter
- Tiering (if applicable)
Because we monitor consumption daily throughout the billing cycle, the effective unit price will fluctuate. The final price for a given billing cycle will be available after we stop the consumption calculation and close the billing period. You’ll see most changes in consumption after the fourth or fifth decimal place.
Find out whether your meter uses tiered pricing
If you don’t know whether your meter uses tiered pricing, use the procedure below to find out.
Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Pricing tile.
Select Azure plan pricing.
Locate your meter by ID, and then download your pricing data.
Sample calculation
The table below gives an example of how we calculate the effective unit price during the open period.
In the table, the following values apply:
UP = Unit price of the resource/hour = 0.868
BCU = Billable consumption unit for the meter
BC = Billable cost for the meter = BCU * UP * 0.85, which reflects an adjustment for the 15% PEC discount. We then use the lower limit of the function to limit the value to two digits after the decimal point, in order to charge the minimum amount.
Effective unit price = BCU/BC
Note
The meter in this example does not have tiers in pricing or other discounts—the Effective Unit Price factors in discount percentages and other adjustments.
| Date | BCU (Billable consumption unit) | BC (Billable cost) | Effective unit price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Aug | 29 | 21.39 | 0.737586206896552 |
| 10-Aug | 210.950039 | 155.63 | 0.737757626107858 |
| 25-Aug | 555.950039 | 410.17 | 0.737782122900436 |