Operational expenses (OpEx) can be impacted by factors such as: - Resource type - Consumption - Maintenance - Geography - Subscription type - Azure Marketplace There are different payment models such as Pay-as-you-go where you are only charged for resources used within a single billing cycle. Additionally, you can reserve resources ahead of time in return for discounted pricing that can range up to 72 percent. The reservation periods typically range from one to three years. If resources are reserved and usage is expected to exceed the reserved amount, then you pay for the additional resources used making this approach flexible. The **pricing calculator** and the **total cost of ownership (TCO)** calculator are two calculators that help you understand potential Azure expenses. Pricing Calculator: Designed to give an estimated cost for provisioning resources in Azure. Focused on cost of provisioned resources in Azure. The TCO calculator is designed to help compare costs of running on-prem infrastructure vs Azure cloud infrastructure. With the TCO calculator, you enter your **current infrastructure configuration**, including servers, databases, storage, and outbound network traffic. The TCO calculator then **compares the anticipated** costs for your current environment with an Azure environment supporting the same infrastructure requirements.