Monitor and Optimize Azure Spending

Beginner8 minTrending

Query current costs, set budgets with alerts, and identify cost-saving opportunities using Azure CLI cost management commands.

Prerequisites

-Azure CLI installed
-Cost Management Reader role or higher

Steps

View current month costs by resource group

Shows a breakdown of costs by resource for the current billing period.

$ az consumption usage list --start-date 2026-03-01 --end-date 2026-03-11 --query "[].{Name:instanceName, Cost:pretaxCost, Currency:currency}" --output table

Create a monthly budget

Sets a $500 monthly budget scoped to a specific resource group.

$ az consumption budget create --budget-name monthly-limit --amount 500 --time-grain Monthly --start-date 2026-03-01 --end-date 2026-12-31 --resource-group myapp-rg

List active budgets

Displays all configured budgets and their current spend.

$ az consumption budget list --output table

Get cost optimization recommendations

Azure Advisor surfaces actionable cost-saving recommendations such as resizing or shutting down underutilized resources.

$ az advisor recommendation list --category cost --output table

Review advisor recommendations weekly for the biggest savings opportunities.

Check reservation recommendations

Shows recommended reserved instance purchases based on your usage patterns.

$ az consumption reservation recommendation list --scope Shared --output table

Full Script

full-script.sh

# Monitor and optimize Azure costs
az consumption usage list --start-date 2026-03-01 --end-date 2026-03-11 --query "[].{Name:instanceName, Cost:pretaxCost, Currency:currency}" --output table
az consumption budget create --budget-name monthly-limit --amount 500 --time-grain Monthly --start-date 2026-03-01 --end-date 2026-12-31 --resource-group myapp-rg
az consumption budget list --output table
az advisor recommendation list --category cost --output table
az consumption reservation recommendation list --scope Shared --output table

FAQ

Discussion

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# Monitor and optimize Azure costs az consumption usage list --start-date 2026-03-01 --end-date 2026-03-11 --query "[].{Name:instanceName, Cost:pretaxCost, Currency:currency}" --output table az consumption budget create --budget-name monthly-limit --amount 500 --time-grain Monthly --start-date 2026-03-01 --end-date 2026-12-31 --resource-group myapp-rg az consumption budget list --output table az advisor recommendation list --category cost --output table az consumption reservation recommendation list --scope Shared --output table