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Understand how the virtual machine software reservations (VMSR) - Azure Marketplace discount is applied

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After you buy a virtual machine software reservation, the discount is automatically applied to deployed plan that matches the reservation. A software reservation only covers the cost of running the software plan you chose on an Azure VM.

To buy the right virtual machine software reservation, you need to understand the software plan you want to run and the number of vCPUs on those VMs.

Discount applies to different VM sizes

Like Reserved VM Instances, virtual machine software reservation purchases offer instance size flexibility. So, your discount applies even when you deploy a VM with a different vCPU count. The discount applies to different VM sizes within the virtual machine software reservation.

For example, if you buy a virtual machine software reservation for a VM with one vCPU, the ratio for that reservation is 1 and using a two vCPU machine. It covers 50% of the cost if the ratio is 1:2. It's based on how the software plan was configured by the publisher.

Prepay for virtual machine software reservations (VMSR)

When you prepay for your virtual machine software usage (available in the Azure Marketplace), you can save money over your pay-as-you-go costs. The discount is automatically applied to a deployed plan that matches the reservation, not on the virtual machine usage. You can buy reservations for virtual machines separately for more savings.

You can buy a virtual machine software reservation in the Azure portal. To buy a reservation:

  • You must have the owner role for at least one Enterprise or individual subscription with pay-as-you-go pricing.
  • For Enterprise subscriptions, the Reserved Instances policy option must be enabled in the Azure portal. If the setting is disabled, you must be an EA Admin for the subscription.
  • For the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program, the admin agents or sales agents can buy the software plans.

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Next steps

To learn more about Azure Reservations, see the following articles: