Microsoft Azure
azure.com · 2 records in Compute · JSON
Records 2
- ★ qualifiesMicrosoft Azure Spot
Computeno free tieridentity cardphoneevidence inferredstale on 2026-12-03
- caveatMicrosoft Azure GPU VMs
Computeidentity cardphonelimit request-rateevidence reportedstale on 2026-11-17
Microsoft Azure Spot
Compute- Free allowance
- The answer to the ten-minute-checkpoint question, computed from published inputs rather than measured.
- Verdict
- ★ qualifiesusable as stated; the read path was probed
- Cost
- no price stated
- Identity
- cardcard required, phone required
- Binding limit
- noneno named constraint binds
- Evidence
- inferred20 sources; reasoned from other evidence
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-12-03checked 2026-11-02 (live); stale on 2026-12-03
| Free tier | The answer to the ten-minute-checkpoint question, computed from published inputs rather than measured. Take a checkpoint interval of 10 minutes, so the expected work lost per preemption is 5 minutes. With a preemption rate of 2.3 per cent an hour, the overhead is 0.19 per cent and the effective A100 80 GiB rate is USD 0.680 an hour. At 4.1 per cent an hour the overhead is 0.34 per cent and the rate is USD 0.681. Even at AWS's reported 17.5 per cent an hour for p4d, the overhead is 1.46 per cent, which raises USD 5.7337 to USD 5.8173. Survival of a one-hour run is 97.7 per cent at 2.3 per cent an hour, 96.0 per cent at 4.1 per cent, and 83.9 per cent at 17.5 per cent; over ten hours the same three are 79.5, 66.4 and 17.4 per cent. unit hours; metered on wall-clock; none |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Binding | none Checkpointing every ten minutes makes preemption overhead a rounding error on every lane measured, so the discount is real rather than eaten by restarts; what breaks a run is the absence of a resume path, not the interruption rate. |
| Identity | card a phone number, a credit or debit card that is not prepaid, and a Microsoft account or a GitHub account. 'We don't charge your credit card or debit card anything when you sign up for Azure, but you may see a one-dollar (or equivalent) verification hold'; the hold 'is removed within three to five days'. The offer page adds 'Your card will not be charged initially except for a temporary authorization hold', and 'We do not accept prepaid or virtual credit cards'. |
| Egress | not stated |
| Interface | unknown inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed |
| Tooling | not stated |
| Composes with | This closes the loop between the discount and the checkpoint: a 10-minute checkpoint turns a 5.41 times discount into a 5.40 times discount, so the interruption risk costs almost nothing and the rate is the whole finding. |
| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
| Notes | No provider publishes a run-survival figure. Azure publishes a per-hour eviction probability per SKU and region through Resource Graph over 28 trailing days, and GCP publishes a preemption rate through advice.capacityHistory, but neither is a survival curve and the two are not the same statistic: GCP divides preempted VMs by VMs that stopped running, which counts user-caused stops in the denominator and so understates the rate a long job experiences. GCP also publishes an estimated uptime in three buckets only (60 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 minute) from advice.capacity, which is the closest thing to a published survival figure and is coarse. The numbers above use third-party rates as the probability input, so the finding is inferred, not measured. qualifies-with-caveat via a05-spot; fails-identity via a05-spot; qualifies-with-caveat via a05-spot. The one recorded is the better-evidenced. |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 20
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-22 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | the A100 80 GiB spot and on-demand rates used as the price inputs: 0.67877 and 3.673 in eastus |
| 2026-10-22 | introl.com/blog/spot-instances-preemptible-gpus-cutting-ai-c | a third-party analysis of 10 million spot instance hours reports A100 at 2.3 per cent hourly interruption, V100 at 0.8 per cent, H100 at 4.1 per cent, weekend rates 40 per cent lower, and us-east-1 3x higher than us-west-2 |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/spot-vms | the vendor defines its eviction rate as a per-hour probability, which is the rate the overhead formula needs, quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | a query for armSkuName eq 'Standard_NC24ads_A100_v4' with priceType Consumption and productName containing Linux returns 78 rows; eastus Spot is 0.67877 and eastus on-demand is 3.673, both unitOfMeasure '1 Hour' |
| 2026-10-22 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | the same 78-row set shows Spot at 0.67877 in eastus, eastus2, westus2 and westus3, and at 1.357541 in brazilsouth, so the discount is regional rather than flat |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/how-to-mana | NC_A100_v4 starts with 'a default of zero cores', quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | filter armRegionName eq 'eastus' and armSkuName eq 'Standard_NC24ads_A100_v4' returns meterName 'NC24ads_A100_v4 Spot' Linux at 0.67877 and the same SKU on-demand at 3.673, both unitOfMeasure '1 Hour' |
| 2026-10-22 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | the same query returns 'NV6ads A10 v5 Spot' Linux at 0.083899 against on-demand 0.454, and 'NC4as T4 v3 Spot' Linux at 0.149174 against on-demand 0.526 |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/spot-vms | supported offer types are Enterprise Agreement, pay-as-you-go 003P, and Sponsored 0036P and 0136P, quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/how-to-mana | 'Specialized VM families like NCasT4_v3, NC_A100_v4, or NDv2 series start with a default of zero cores. GPUs also default to zero cores', quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/spot-vms | Spot supports only Enterprise Agreement, pay-as-you-go 003P and Sponsored offer types, quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/offers/ms-azr-0017g | the free account gives USD 200 of credit usable within the first 30 days, and the account must be upgraded to pay-as-you-go to continue, quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/spot-vms | eviction happens 'with 30-seconds notice', scheduled-event delivery is 'best effort', and the eviction rate is quoted as a probability per hour, quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/spot-vms | pricing history for 90 days and eviction rates for 28 trailing days are queryable through Azure Resource Graph in the SpotResources table, with a sample KQL query |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/azure-acc | the signup hold is USD 1 or the local equivalent and is removed on verification |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/azure-acc | signup places a verification hold and no charge |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/offers/ms-azr-0017g | debit and credit cards are accepted; prepaid and virtual cards are refused |
| 2026-11-02 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/mana | prepaid and stored-value cards are not valid payment instruments |
| 2026-11-02 | learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/trou | the hold is removed within three to five days |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/offers/ms-azr-0017g | nothing is charged at signup except the temporary authorisation |
More fields 2
| facets | {"class": "spot-arbitrage","free_tier_kind": "none","shape": {"vcpu": 24,"ram_gib": 220,"gpu_class": "A100-80GiB","gpu_count": 1}} |
|---|---|
| payment methods | {"card_at_signup": "yes","debit": "accepted","prepaid": "refused","virtual": "refused","hold_amount": "USD 1 (or equivalent)","hold_detail": "'a one-dollar (or equivalent) temporary authorization charge may be placed on your card and then removed upon verification'; 'The hold is temporary and will be removed', and 'This hold is removed within three to five days'. The offer page adds 'Your card will not be charged initially except for a temporary authorization hold', and 'We do not accept prepaid or virtual credit cards.'","identity": "a phone number, a non-prepaid credit or debit card, and a Microsoft or GitHub account","source_url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/azure-account","read_on": "2026-11-02"} |
Unknown values 7
- egress metered: egress metering was not published
- egress terms: a source was read and is silent on this field
- interface: the access interface was not established
- per object cap stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- reliability note: nothing of this kind was observed
- retention stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- tooling: a source was read and is silent on this field
Microsoft Azure GPU VMs
Compute- Free allowance
- not published
- Verdict
- caveatusable, with a named limit or an unprobed read path
- Cost
- not stated
- Identity
- cardcard required, phone required
- Binding limit
- request-rateAzure GPU series are billed per second at the published retail rate; the 750-hour free allowance names B2ts v2, B2pts v2 and B2ats v2 only
- Evidence
- reported7 sources; a third party said so
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-11-17checked 2026-11-02 (live); stale on 2026-11-17
| Free tier | not published unit none; metered on wall-clock |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
|
| Identity | card A phone number, a credit card or a debit card (non-prepaid) and a Microsoft account or a GitHub account are all required, and the vendor states the phone and the card are used for identity verification. The free account is available in the 140 countries and regions the vendor lists and the offer is not available in a country that is not on it; only credit cards are accepted in Hong Kong and Brazil. |
| Egress | not stated |
| Per-object cap | not stated |
| Retention | not stated |
| Interface | unknown |
| Tooling | not stated |
| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
| Evidence note | reported the retail-prices API was read on 2026-10-22 but is a JSON price feed with no free-tier statement. The record's claim that a GPU has no free tier is consistent with the Windows VM page's 750-hour allowance, which names burstable B-series only, but this record's own page does not state it, so the rung stays reported |
Evidence 7
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-02 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | not published |
| 2026-10-22 | prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices | the Azure retail-prices API was read on 2026-10-22 and returns JSON price records rather than a page; the free-tier position for a GPU is unchanged and is set by the VM pages, which state that GPU series carry no free allowance |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/ | the free account needs a phone number, a credit or debit card and a Microsoft or GitHub account, so the card is the strongest gate |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/ | the phone number and the card are used for identity verification of a real person, so both are required |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/ | a country that is not listed cannot take the offer |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/ | only credit cards are accepted in Hong Kong and Brazil |
| 2026-11-02 | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/ | the phone, the card and the Microsoft or GitHub account are the signup requirements |
More fields 5
| keep rate basis | no field in the source |
|---|---|
| billing model | unclassified |
| shape | {"vcpu": null,"ram": null,"disk": null,"gpu_class": "varies by series","gpu_count": null,"note": "the retail API is the price source; there is no free GPU row"} |
| session cap | {"wall_clock_min": null,"idle_reap_s": null,"restart_required": false,"note": "no free GPU allowance; a GPU VM bills until deallocated"} |
| free tier kind | none |
Unknown values 9
- chaining: a source was read and is silent on this field
- egress metered: egress metering was not published
- egress terms: a source was read and is silent on this field
- interface: the access interface was not established
- per object cap stated: a source was read and is silent on this field
- reliability note: nothing of this kind was observed
- retention notes: the field may be stated in a source that was not read
- retention stated: a source was read and is silent on this field
- tooling: a source was read and is silent on this field