I am being charged storage cost when not using Azure actively.

Question

I am being charged storage cost when not using Azure actively.

Million, Samson 100

I have not used Azure last month (November) but I was charged storage costs. What do I need to do to minimize cost when not using Azure? Below are my Azure usage in November.

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Bharath Y P 2,805 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-01T20:11:30.9866667+00:00
Hello Million, Samson, You mentioned that you didn’t use Azure in November but still incurred storage charges. This happens because Azure bills for provisioned resources and stored data, even if compute services (VMs, apps) are stopped.

Even when you don’t actively use services, if you have resources provisioned, like VMs and storage accounts, you may still incur charges. These can include:

Managed Disks: Charged even if VM is stopped or deallocated.

Snapshots: Costs based on stored data size.

Make sure you know the difference between the VM states:

Stopped: VM powered off but still incurs compute charges.

Deallocated: Compute charges stop, but disk storage charges remain.

You can refer this document for more details: Understand Azure Disk Storage billing - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn

Recommendations to minimize cost

Deallocate VMs when not in use to avoid compute charges.

Delete or detach disks to stop storage charges.

Scale down or pause SQL DB (serverless tiers) or delete if not needed.

Move infrequently accessed data to Cool or Archive tiers.

Use Azure Cost Management to track and set budgets.

References

Quickstart - Start using Cost Analysis - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn

Select a disk type for Azure IaaS VMs - managed disks - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn

Hope this helps, if you have any further questions, please do let us know, thanks
Bharath Y P 2,805 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-03T02:44:35.7266667+00:00

Hello Million, Samson, I just wanted to kindly follow up to check if you had a chance to review my earlier response. I hope the information shared was helpful. Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions or need further clarification. If the answer addressed your query, it would be great if you could accept it and up-vote. This not only helps us but also makes it easier for other community members who might face the same issue. Thanks
Million, Samson 100 Reputation points

2025-12-09T13:33:23.5566667+00:00

I have removed storage component which has reduced the daily cost of Azure. However, I am still being charged for IP. How do I remove IP charges?

Answer accepted by question author

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Your answer

Bharath Y P 2,805 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-01T20:11:30.9866667+00:00

Hello Million, Samson, You mentioned that you didn’t use Azure in November but still incurred storage charges. This happens because Azure bills for provisioned resources and stored data, even if compute services (VMs, apps) are stopped.

Even when you don’t actively use services, if you have resources provisioned, like VMs and storage accounts, you may still incur charges. These can include:

Managed Disks: Charged even if VM is stopped or deallocated.

Snapshots: Costs based on stored data size.

Make sure you know the difference between the VM states:

Stopped: VM powered off but still incurs compute charges.

Deallocated: Compute charges stop, but disk storage charges remain.

You can refer this document for more details: Understand Azure Disk Storage billing - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn

Recommendations to minimize cost

Deallocate VMs when not in use to avoid compute charges.

Delete or detach disks to stop storage charges.

Scale down or pause SQL DB (serverless tiers) or delete if not needed.

Move infrequently accessed data to Cool or Archive tiers.

Use Azure Cost Management to track and set budgets.

References

Quickstart - Start using Cost Analysis - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn

Select a disk type for Azure IaaS VMs - managed disks - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn

Hope this helps, if you have any further questions, please do let us know, thanks
Bharath Y P 2,805 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-03T02:44:35.7266667+00:00

Hello Million, Samson, I just wanted to kindly follow up to check if you had a chance to review my earlier response. I hope the information shared was helpful. Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions or need further clarification. If the answer addressed your query, it would be great if you could accept it and up-vote. This not only helps us but also makes it easier for other community members who might face the same issue. Thanks
Million, Samson 100 Reputation points

2025-12-09T13:33:23.5566667+00:00

I have removed storage component which has reduced the daily cost of Azure. However, I am still being charged for IP. How do I remove IP charges?

Answer 1

Bharath Y P 2,805 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello Million, Samson, Could you please let us know if the solution provided addressed your query. If you have any other questions or need further support, please feel free to contact us. Thanks

Answer 2

VasimTamboli 5,535 MVP

Hi @Million, Samson,

Good Day!, Well even you are not using azure your data is still consmuing azure disk, You can still reduce storage cost by using cool tier, Also you can refer below blog which explain how you can reduce the storage cost.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/cloud-computing/optimizing-costs-with-azure-blob-storage/

Please let me know how it goes.

Also please close this thread by accepting answer if it helps.

Answer 3

Hello Million, Samson

You are seeing charges for Public IP – Standard IPv4 because Standard Public IPs continue to incur cost even when no resources are actively running.

In Azure, a Standard SKU Public IP is billable as long as it exists, regardless of whether a VM or service is attached to it.

To stop the IP charges:

Sign in to Azure Portal
In the top search bar, type “Public IP addresses”
Open the Public IP addresses blade
Look for the IP address with SKU = Standard
Click on it to open the resource
Inside the Public IP resource:
1. Go to Configuration
2. Check the field Associated to
  - If it shows None → safe to delete
  - If it shows a VM/NIC/Load Balancer, you must detach it first.
If Associated, Detach It: For a VM/NIC:
1. Go to Virtual Machines → Select the VM
2. Go to Networking
3. Select the Network Interface
4. Click the IP configuration
5. Remove the Public IP (set Public IP = None)
6. Save
7. For a Load Balancer:
  - Remove it under Frontend IP configuration.
Delete the Public IP:
1. Go back to the Public IP resource
2. Click Delete
3. Confirm deletion
Once deleted, billing for that IP stops immediately.

Standard Public IPs are always charged, even when not attached.

If you have any other questions, please do let us know.

Thanks,

Suchitra.

Suchitra Suregaunkar 4,045 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-10T14:45:48.86+00:00

Hello Million, Samson,

Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, please don’t forget to click "Accept the answer" which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query, please do let us know.

Thanks,

Suchitra.

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I am being charged storage cost when not using Azure actively.

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