Azure Cost Analysis for 100+ Subscriptions

Overseeing expenses across numerous Azure subscriptions can feel akin to conducting a symphony where every musician plays a different tune. For both small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and larger enterprises with intricate cloud structures, analysing costs is not merely about managing expenses—it’s about making informed decisions, optimising resource allocation, and remaining competitive in an increasingly cloud-centric environment.

The Complexity of Multi-Subscription Cost Management

When dealing with over 100 Azure subscriptions, conventional cost management quickly loses efficacy. Each subscription may cater to various business units, development environments, regions, or project teams. Without adequate oversight, you may find yourself navigating through:

• Disjointed cost visibility across different business units
• Inconsistent naming and tagging
• Unmonitored shadow IT spending
• Resource proliferation across environments
• Complicated interdependencies among subscriptions

The risks are considerable. Research indicates that organisations lacking structured cost governance may overspend by 20–30% on cloud services compared to those with it.

Establishing Your Cost Analysis Framework

1. Create a Clear Management Structure

Begin by implementing Azure management groups that reflect your organisational layout. This isn’t merely a technical configuration—it fosters accountability.

Example hierarchy:

Root management group

• Production group
• Non-production group
• Business unit groups (finance, marketing, R&D)
• Regional groups (US-East, EU-West, APAC)

This framework allows you to consolidate costs at a higher level while retaining visibility into specific details.

2. Employ a Consistent Tagging Strategy

Tags serve as your essential tool for cost analysis across multiple subscriptions. Without them, you’re working with incomplete information.

Essential tags to implement:

• Cost Centre – links spending to accountability
• Environment – production, development, testing, staging
• Project – identifies the specific workload or initiative
• Owner – the responsible individual
• Business Unit – identifies the department or division
• Application – specifies the relevant app or service
• Compliance – adheres to regulatory standards

Utilise Azure Policy to enforce tagging. Flagging or even blocking non-compliant resources may be necessary.

3. Standardise Subscription Naming

Implement a naming convention that instantly clarifies the function of each subscription. A structure like {BusinessUnit}-{Environment}-{Region}-{Purpose}-{Sequence} makes reports straightforward to interpret.

Advanced Cost Analysis Techniques

1. Leverage the Azure Cost Management API

With a multitude of subscriptions, the Azure portal alone won’t suffice. The API allows you to:

• Extract cost data programmatically
• Create custom dashboards based on business segments
• Automate alerts for unusual spending patterns
• Generate tailored reports for various stakeholders

Consider setting up daily scripts to feed your BI tools, consolidating your data for a single source of truth.

👉 Interested in further details? Explore this blog on using Power BI for Azure cost analysis.

2. Conduct Cross-Subscription Resource Analysis

Insights can often emerge by examining patterns across subscriptions rather than in isolation. Look for:

• Similar workloads that could be centralised
• Underutilised VMs, storage, or databases
• Duplicated services among teams
• Seasonal workloads that might benefit from auto-scaling or deactivation

3. Provide Business-Friendly Cost Views

Business leaders prefer insights over technical jargon. Present them with easily digestible views:

• Product Profit & Loss views – allocate infrastructure costs per product
• Customer views – analyse infrastructure costs per customer
• Campaign/project views – monitor short-term budgets
• Geographic views – assess expenditure by region

Enhanced Monitoring and Alerting

1. Implement Predictive Cost Alerts

Shift from static thresholds to predictive alerts that account for usage patterns and trends:

• Forecast end-of-month expenses based on current usage
• Flag anomalies that may indicate security breaches
• Alert changes in cost-per-user or cost-per-transaction
• Notify when projects near their budget limits well in advance

2. Set Specific Budgets for Subscriptions

Each subscription serves a distinct purpose—budgets should reflect this. For instance, development environments may require stricter controls than production.

Effective alerting can be tiered:

• 50% – informational alert
• 75% – warning alert, acknowledgement required
• 90% – critical alert, possible auto-governance initiated
• 100% – escalation to leadership

3. Identify Anomalies Across Subscriptions

Monitor trends that may indicate issues across your portfolio, such as:

• Sudden spikes in compute costs across several subscriptions
• Gradual increases in storage costs with no corresponding business growth
• Emergence of new resource types (possibly indicating shadow IT)
• Shifts in costs away from historical baselines

Governance and Optimisation

1. Establish Regular Review Processes

Implement structured review sessions that involve both technical and business teams:

• Weekly technical reviews – focus on resource optimisation
• Monthly business reviews – assess ROI alignment
• Quarterly strategy reviews – revisit overarching cloud objectives

2. Automate Optimisation

Manual optimisation is unsustainable for managing over 100 subscriptions. Aim to automate wherever feasible:

• Deactivate unused development resources
• Adjust virtual machines according to usage
• Advise on reserved instance purchases
• Implement cost-reduction policies for non-production workloads

3. Establish a Cost Management Centre of Excellence

A Centre of Excellence (CoE) helps with:

• Upholding best practices and standards
• Training and assisting subscription owners
• Building and maintaining dashboards
• Facilitating knowledge-sharing across business units

Turbo360: Tailored for Azure Cost Management

Should you prefer not to develop your own system, Turbo360 is an Azure-native platform suited for extensive multi-subscription environments.

Key Features Include:

• Unified cost dashboard for over 100 subscriptions
• Monitoring for tagging compliance and governance
• AI-powered forecasting and anomaly detection
• Business-oriented reporting suitable for executives and teams
• Automated optimisation recommendations

Advantages of Multi-Subscription Use:

• Cross-subscription resource correlation
• Subscription-level budgets with summations
• Automated cost distribution
• Real-time alerts for anomalies
• Integration of Azure Policy for governance

Why choose Turbo360? Instead of spending months developing custom tools, it provides enterprise-ready features off the shelf—empowering your teams to concentrate on optimisation and delivering business value.

Conclusion

Effectively analysing costs across multiple Azure subscriptions requires more than tools; it necessitates a robust strategy, disciplined processes, and a culture of accountability.

Organisations that succeed in this endeavour not only reduce expenses—they make quicker decisions, operate with assurance, and leverage cost management as a competitive edge.

Begin by laying solid foundations: establish a clear hierarchy, implement consistent tagging, and develop monitoring strategies. Create processes for ongoing reviews and optimisation. Foster a culture of cost awareness across all roles, not solely within finance.

Your extensive subscriptions shouldn’t be a source of disarray. With the appropriate strategy, they can drive efficiency and facilitate smarter cloud investments.

The optimal moment to initiate this transformation is now—methodically, step by step. Your future self (and your CFO) will express gratitude.