5 Azure Resources That Are Probably Wasting Your Money Right Now

We've analyzed thousands of Azure resources across hundreds of subscriptions. These five resource types are the most common sources of wasted spend — and most teams don't even know they're paying for them.

1. NAT Gateways ($32/mo each, even idle)

Azure NAT Gateways charge a flat $32/mo plus data processing fees — whether or not any traffic passes through them. They're often created during VNet setup, then forgotten when workloads move or architectures change.

CostBeacon rule: UnusedNatGatewayRule (NET-002) — flags NAT Gateways with zero traffic for 14+ days.

2. Stopped (not deallocated) VMs (full price!)

This catches everyone at least once. You "stop" a VM from Windows or Linux, thinking you've stopped the billing. But Azure keeps the compute allocated and charges full price. You need to deallocate from the Azure portal to actually stop billing.

A D4s_v5 VM costs ~$140/mo. If you have 5 stopped-but-allocated VMs, that's $700/mo for nothing.

CostBeacon rule: StoppedNotDeallocatedVmRule (IDLE-004) — detects VMs in "Stopped" power state.

3. Old-generation VM SKUs (15-30% overpaying)

Azure regularly releases newer VM generations that are cheaper and faster than their predecessors. If you're still running Dv2 or Dv3 series VMs, you're paying 15-30% more than necessary. The Dv5 series delivers better performance at a lower price point.

CostBeacon rule: OldGenerationVmRule (RIGHT-008) — flags VMs on v2/v3 series SKUs.

4. Stale disk snapshots ($5-150/mo each)

Disk snapshots are cheap individually, but they accumulate. A snapshot of a 512GB disk costs the same as storing 512GB of data — every month. Teams create snapshots before risky changes, then never clean them up.

We regularly see subscriptions with 50+ snapshots older than 90 days. That can easily be $500-$1,000/mo in snapshot storage alone.

CostBeacon rule: StaleSnapshotRule (STOR-002) — flags snapshots older than 30 days.

5. Unattached managed disks ($5-150/mo each)

When you delete a VM, Azure keeps the disk by default. These orphaned disks sit in your subscription billing monthly. A single P30 (1TB) disk costs ~$135/mo. Multiply that by every VM you've ever deleted...

CostBeacon rule: UnattachedDiskRule (STOR-001) — flags disks with no I/O for 14+ days.

How much are you wasting?

The average Azure subscription has $500-$2,000/mo in waste just from these five resource types. For organizations with 10+ subscriptions, that adds up to $60,000-$240,000/year.