microsoft reporting services cost

Power BI pricing

Compare business intelligence plans and pricing, free account.

• Included in Microsoft Fabric free account
• No credit card required
• Upgrade to Pro or Premium to share reports                         

Power BI Pro

• Publish and share Power BI reports
• Included in Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5
• Available to buy now with a credit card 1                                                     

Power BI Premium Per User

• Includes all the features available with Power BI Pro
• Access larger model sizes
• More frequent refreshes
• Available to buy now with a credit card 1                                                                    

Power BI Embedded

• Brand Power BI reports as your own
• Automate monitoring, management, and deployment
• Reduce developer overhead

Fabric Capacity Reservation

• Annual purchase, saving 40.5% over pay-as-you-go prices
• Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment eligible
• Per-user licenses required for certain activities 5

Fabric Capacity Pay-As-You-Go

• Dynamically scale up or down and pause capacity
• Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) eligible

Power BI Premium in Microsoft Fabric

• Includes all the features available in Power BI Premium per user
• Use  autoscale  to respond to occasional, unplanned overage spikes in capacity 4
• Power BI Premium capacity is being retired soon— learn more

 Explore Power BI Plans

Learn about Power BI licensing

Take the next step

Start using Power BI for free

Contact Sales

Request we contact you

Prices shown are for marketing purposes only and may not be reflective of actual list price due to currency, country, and regional variant factors. Your actual price will be reflected at checkout. All offers are subject to product service limits. Contact a Microsoft representative to learn more about enterprise pricing and offers.

Academic, government , and nonprofit pricing are available.

Power BI is available in China operated by 21Vianet .

[1]  Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium per user subscriptions are available for self-service purchase, as well as through the Microsoft 365 admin center. Purchasing Microsoft Fabric requires access to the Microsoft 365 admin center. Learn more about available Power BI purchasing and licensing options. 

[2]  A  $10.00  per user/month add-on is available for users with Power BI Pro, Microsoft 365 E5, and Office 365 E5 licenses to step up to Power BI Premium per user. Learn more about purchasing Power BI Premium per user. 

[3]  Power BI Pro license is required for all Power BI Premium (“P”) and Fabric Capacity (“F”) SKUs to publish Power BI content to Microsoft Fabric. Enabling content consumers to review and interact with Power BI reports without additional paid per-user licenses is available at P1 and above (and F64 and above). 

[4]   Autoscale is an optional add-on that requires Power BI Premium per capacity (Gen2) and Azure subscriptions. Limits can be preset with autoscale to control costs, such as thresholds on vCore scaling or total subscription charges. 

[5]  A capacity-based license (P1 or F64 and above only) allows Pro or PPU users to create and save content in Fabric or Premium capacity workspaces. They can then share that workspace with colleagues who have any license type including a free account. Only users with Pro or PPU licenses can create and save content in Premium capacities, and only if their organization purchased Premium capacity. 

[6]  Representative of features available in general availability (GA) status.

[7]   Power BI Desktop is the data exploration and report authoring experience for Power BI, and it is available as a free download.

[8]  Power BI report consumption without paid per-user licenses applies to Fabric SKUs F64 and above, and Power BI Premium per capacity SKUs P1 and above.

[9]  See the Power BI model memory size limit capacity and SKUs .

[10]  For storing Power BI data sets only.

Follow Power BI

• Chat with sales
• Contact sales

Available M-F 6 AM to 3 PM PT.

18 December 2018

72,954 views

SSRS Reporting Basics: When is SSRS the Right Tool?

SSRS has undergone a number of changes over the past few versions. It remains a very popular reporting tool in companies large and small. In this article, Eugene Meidinger recounts the history of SSRS and explains when it’s the best tool to use. This is the first article of a series on SSRS.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based reporting tool, ideal for paginated reports. It represents a centralized approached to data governance, with all of your report files located on a central server. However, there are some self-service features available, such as users being able to fill in parameters, run reports on demand, and even create their own reports.

By default, reports in SSRS are displayed using the HTML 5 rendering engine, which Microsoft added back in 2016. Despite the rendering being web-based, you can export reports to a number of file formats, including PDF, CSV, Word, and Excel. These files can be scheduled to go out in a regular email or to be saved to a file share.

Future articles will cover topics like how to build and format your reports, visual controls, advanced features, security, and deployment. Before talking about how to use SSRS, I’ll spend some time reviewing the Microsoft reporting landscape, which has changed dramatically over the past four years. Deciding which tool to use has become a more complex proposition.

Microsoft Reporting Landscape

Currently, there are four primary tools for rendering reports within the Microsoft ecosystem:

• SSRS Mobile Reports (formerly Datazen)

Each of these tools has an ideal use case, but there is significant overlap in capabilities among all of them. Your choice in a reporting tool is going to depend on your existing skillset, the type of users you are supporting, and how those users wish to consume the reports.

As a simple example, more and more users are consuming reports outside of the office or on their mobile devices. That trend is going to impact which solution you choose. Here is a review of the options available.

SSRS was originally released in 2004 as an add-on for SQL Server 2000. Since then it has gone through many changes and enhancements. Fundamentally, however, it is the same product at its core. SSRS is a canvas-based reporting tool where you add reporting objects (tables, charts, text, images) to a blank canvas until you have your final report.

SSRS reports are traditionally accessed via a central web portal. Permissions can be specified on a site-wide level, folder level or even on individual reports. This allows for a granular set of permissions, which can be important if you are dealing with financial data or audited reports.

SSRS Mobile Reports

Even though SSRS Mobile Reports are ostensibly part of SSRS, I think of them as a different product. Partly because they serve a completely different use case and because they initially were a different product! SSRS Mobile Reports were originally a product called Datazen. In 2015, Microsoft acquired the product from ComponentArt and rolled the software into SSRS.

The primary use case of SSRS Mobile Reports is self-explanatory. Optimizing SSRS reports, which are rigid and document-oriented, for mobile devices can be quite the challenge. Instead, SSRS Mobile Reports takes a grid-based approach with charts that are fluid and work at a variety of sizes.  

If SSRS is now entering its teenage years, Power BI is practically a toddler. Power BI was initially a loosely related set of Excel add-ins: Power Pivot, Power Query, Power View, and Power Map. However, in 2014 the tool was combined and rebranded as a cloud-based product. While the underlying data engines are the same, Power BI today is an entirely different product from the Excel 2010 add-ins.

It can be a struggle at times to explain what use case Power BI was designed to solve. That’s because it was not so much designed and as it was rapidly iterated. Power BI represents a new Microsoft, releasing changes every single month and responding directly to customer feedback. Gone are the days of releasing a new version of a product every 2 years.

If I were forced to explain what Power BI is about, I would say this: Power BI is a full reporting pipeline, aimed at business users and BI developers alike. It is a cloud-first SaaS (software as a service) product designed to cheaply support business intelligence throughout the organization. It excels at analytic, interactive reporting.  

Excel is an incredibly popular spreadsheet tool included in the Microsoft Office suite. If your business users work with data, there is a good chance that they use Excel. Excel is perfect for manipulating and organizing numbers in a spreadsheet and has a powerful formula language behind it. It also has robust charting and graphing capabilities.

If SSRS represents a centralized approach to reporting, Excel represents the opposite. Excel is file-based, and those files have a tendency to proliferate. Sometimes, these files are pejoratively referred to as “spreadmarts,” when company data is stuck in flat files instead of a relational database. That being said, it is quite possible to centralize your Excel reports using SharePoint or OneDrive.

What are the Benefits of SSRS?

I’m going to ask you a dumb question: could you use a fork to spread butter on toast? In my mind, the answer is “Maybe? Sort of?”

It’s important to make sure that you pick the right tool for the right job. SSRS has a specific set of things it is very good at and a specific set of things it isn’t. First, take a look at the areas where SSRS shines.

Pixel Perfect Control

More than any other Microsoft reporting tool, SSRS gives you a significant amount of fine-grained control over your report outputs. You have control over exactly where each report component is located. You can also control formatting details such as font, size, color and background color.

If you need something to print just right, SSRS is an ideal solution. This lends it to operational documents such as invoices, workorders, and anything else that might get mailed out to a customer.

Extracting Data

SSRS makes it very easy for you to get data out to your end users. If you have a line-of-business application with limited built-in reporting, you can get a report running against it in minutes. Once you’ve created the report, users can extract the data to whatever format they need (Word, Excel, PDF, etc.). I should note that in large-scale operations, running reports directly against an OLTP system is not advisable for performance reasons.

Data Governance

SSRS makes it easy to control who has access to your reports and data. It is possible to specify permissions on the whole server, specific folders of reports or on a single report. Permissions inherit down, like a regular file system, unless you explicitly break inheritance to specify custom permissions.

In addition to permissions, you have a central server to house and control your reports. This is critical when you need an authoritative source of truth for your reporting. Users can trust that they are reading the latest version of any given report.

In addition to the administrative side of things, SSRS provides a powerful development environment with SSDT. SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is based on Visual Studio, a very popular Integrated Developer Environment or IDE. SSDT makes it incredibly easy to store your reports in source control since your reporting artefacts are just XML files. Source control makes it possible to collaborate on a team or rollback to earlier versions of a report. This is a capability that is not available with Excel or Power BI reports.  

What are the Downsides of Using SSRS?

At my prior employer, we used SSRS exclusively for a long time. It is a mature tool capable of covering a large number of needs. That being said, it’s not a one-size-fits-all tool. Now take a look at some areas where SSRS is a bit weaker.

Interactivity and Data Exploration

SSRS is much better at printing or exporting than it is at direct interactivity. There are some ways to get around this by using parameters, drill-through reports or action links; however, your options are still quite limited. Compare this to Power BI, where, by default, if you click on a visual, all of the other visuals automatically cross-highlight or cross-filter.

Because of the limited interactivity, SSRS is not ideal for data exploration. You have limited options for slicing and dicing the data. SSRS makes more sense when you know what you want the end result to look like. If you to play around with the data, you are much better off with Excel or Power BI.

Learning Curve

While SSRS isn’t difficult to learn, it can be a bit unintuitive. Getting started is very easy, with a wizard guiding you through each step. After that, it’s not difficult to drag and drop new objects and change properties to existing objects. Going beyond the basics can be a struggle, however.

What I found most challenging when learning SSRS was dealing with container objects and grouping. For example, it took me quite a while to understand how to add summary rows versus detail rows. As another example, where something is placed on the report dramatically affects which dataset it is pulling from or if you are displaying detail information or summary information.

Initial Pricing

Whether SSRS’s pricing is a strength or a weakness depends a lot on context. Compared to tools like Qlikview or Tableau, SSRS can be quite cheap. Instead of paying per user, you are paying per core just like SQL Server. SQL Server 2017 costs $1,859 per core for Standard or $7,128 per core for Enterprise edition.

If you have a lot of low-frequency users or can reuse an existing SQL Server, then this can be the way to go. That being said, most organizations will host SSRS on its own server for performance reasons. This means you can easily be paying $7,500 just for SSRS licensing.

If you are looking to start small and grow out organically, Power BI might be a better fit. Power BI is licensed by user at $10 per user, per month. Even Excel is pretty affordable with an Office 365 E3 license costing $25 per user per month, which is often already paid for by organizations.

When Should You Use SSRS?

Given these pros and cons, when does it make sense to use SSRS? As I said before, you can’t just look at what the tool can do. You also must consider if it is a good fit for your organization.

Printed Documents

If you need to print something out, SSRS is a no-brainer. While I’ve seen people use Excel for creating invoices, I wouldn’t advise it. For anything that requires branding, strong formatting control, or printing control, SSRS comes out on top.

SSRS has support for more advanced printing features as well, such as footers, headers, watermarks, and page numbers. You can easily configure the margins and layout of your report to get it exactly the way you want.

Detail Heavy Reporting

SSRS is excellent for displaying lots of textual and numerical data. You can format information to be quite readable. SSRS is an ideal fit for any operational reporting. Think anything that needs printed on a daily basis: workorders, invoices, purchase orders, etc.

Excel, by contrast, is great for displaying lots of numbers but the formatting and layout piece can get messy quickly. Finally, Power BI just wasn’t designed for this kind of work. While it does have table and matrix controls, it is optimized for displaying charts and for interactive reporting.

Strong SQL Skills

If your organization has strong T-SQL and SQL Server skills, SSRS is a good fit. This is because SSRS is licensed the same as SQL Server and is administered as a SQL Server component. Additionally, there is an active SQL community and plenty of resources to learn more about it.

Simple Mobile Reports

Up until 2016, SSRS was a poor choice for mobile reports. While it was always possible to expose the web portal to the outside internet, trying to read SSRS reports on a small mobile browser was a pain.

With the acquisition of Datazen, that changed. Now it is easy to quickly take a shared dataset and create something that looks good on a phone or tablet. Additionally, the SSRS Mobile tooling provides dummy data so you can start with your report design and work your way backwards.

This article briefly reviewed the reporting tools available in the Microsoft space. It covered the strengths and weaknesses of SSRS and wrapped up with ideal use cases for it.

Ultimately, SSRS is great if you need to get data out of your system or need to have fine-grained control over your reporting documents. If you are looking to create interactive reporting, or to start cheap, Excel or Power BI are a better fit.

In the next article, I will show you how to get up and running with SSRS as quickly as possible.

Subscribe for more articles

Fortnightly newsletters help sharpen your skills and keep you ahead, with articles, ebooks and opinion to keep you informed.

Eugene Meidinger

Eugene is an independent business intelligence consultant, currently focusing on Power BI and SSRS. Eugene has worked in reporting and business intelligence for the past 7 years. He started in the industry by applying for a C# job that ended up being 10% C# and 90% SQL. He has several Power BI courses on Pluralsight and co-leads the Pittsburgh Power BI user group. Follow his blog at http://www.sqlgene.com/

Follow Eugene Meidinger via

View all articles by Eugene Meidinger

Load comments

Related articles

PowerBI premium capacity administration: dataset monitoring and tuning

Best practices , Databases

7 Things You Need To Know about SQL Azure Reporting

By Microsoft Azure

Posted on November 18, 2010 3 min read

[This article was contributed by the SQL Azure team.]

Microsoft SQL Azure Reporting is a cloud-based reporting platform that provides comprehensive reporting functionality for a variety of data sources. SQL Azure Reporting includes a complete set of tools for you to create, manage, and deliver reports, and APIs that enable developers to integrate or extend data and report processing in custom applications.  Microsoft SQL Azure Reporting lets you use the familiar on-premises tools you’re comfortable with to develop and deploy operational reports to the cloud. There’s no need to manage or maintain a separate reporting infrastructure, which leads to the added benefit of lower costs (and less complexity). Your customers can easily access the reports from the developer portal, through a web browser, directly from the cloud reporting server, or embedded within your applications.

It’s Based on SQL Server Reporting Services

SQL Azure Reporting provides many of the features you know from SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 to create your reports with tables, charts, maps, gauges, matrixes, and more using the familiar Business Intelligence Development Studio, and deploy them on-premises or in the cloud.  If you are looking for Business Intelligence Development Studio to build your reports it comes as part of the free download of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express with Advanced Services (download it here).

Report Execution Happens in the Cloud

SQL Azure Reporting is server-side reporting and the servers are located in the Windows Azure Platform data centers. When the report executes the query or generates the graphics for the charts, it all happens in Microsoft’s data center.

If you have used the Microsoft Report Viewer control to embed reports into a web application, you know that you can have local processing (.rdlc) where the report is generated on your web site or remote processing (.rdl) where report generation is done on the on-premise SQL Server. With SQL Azure Reporting, the report viewer control is in the remote processing mode.

SQL Azure Reporting is Part of the Windows Azure Platform

Being part of the Windows Azure Platform means you are getting all the same tools as you use for Windows Azure and SQL Azure, along with the scalability that you expect. Benefits include quick provisioning in the data center, and it’s integrated into Azure Developer Portal.

The Data Source is SQL Azure

SQL Azure Reporting allows you to execute reports against SQL Azure Databases in the cloud – that means the Data Source the report is using for generating reports point to SQL Azure Database. If you are using shared data sources currently, you can just redirect them to SQL Azure once you have uploaded your data.

Reports Are Exactly the Same Format

The reports you deploy to SQL Azure Reporting are exactly the same as the reports that you deploy to an on-premises SQL Server Reporting Services – all that is different is the data source. This means that you can leverage all the reports that you have already written for SQL Server Reporting Services and can directly deploy them to SQL Azure Reporting. It also means you continue using Business Intelligence Development Studio to author reports.

There is Nothing New to Download and Install

Since you are using the same tools to develop the reports as your used previously, and you are executing the reports in the cloud – there is nothing additional you need to install on your local machine. If you are looking for Business Intelligence Development Studio to build your reports it comes as part of the free download of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express with Advanced Services (download it here).

You Can Access SQL Azure Reporting With a Browser

From anywhere you can enter in your SQL Azure Reporting URL, login and password and view the reports, and download them as PDF or Excel files. You don’t need to deploy a web site with the embedded report viewer control to view the reports from anywhere. Unlike an on-premises SQL Server where you would have to open the firewall to have this kind of access, SQL Azure Reporting comes Internet ready.

Getting Started

View Introduction to SQL Azure Reporting by Nino Bice, Yi Liao as a pre-recorded video from PDC 2010.

To learn more about SQL Azure Reporting and how to sign up for the upcoming CTP, visit:

To learn more about authoring reports, visit these resources on SQL Server Reporting Services and Business Intelligence Development Studio, see: Working with Report Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio

Let us know what you think of Azure and what you would like to see in the future.

Provide feedback

Build your cloud computing and Azure skills with free courses by Microsoft Learn.

Explore Azure learning

Related posts

Azure Cosmos DB , Databases , Events , Industry trends

Start your AI journey with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB—compete for $10K   chevron_right

AI + Machine Learning , Azure AI , Azure AI Studio , Customer stories , Databases , Thought leadership

The Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform—Unleash your data and accelerate your transformation   chevron_right

Announcements , Databases

Redis license update: What you need to know   chevron_right

AI + Machine Learning , Databases , DevOps , Developer Tools , How to , Industry trends , Microsoft Learn , Thought leadership

Develop Microsoft Azure skills with 30 Days to Learn It   chevron_right

• Microsoft Power BI  vs.  Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Microsoft Power BI vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services comparison

• + Microsoft Power BI (28)
• + Tableau (18)
• + Oracle OBIEE (26)
• + IBM Cognos (14)
• + QlikView (21)
• + Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (14)
• + TIBCO Jaspersoft (11)
• + SAP Crystal Reports (6)
• + Zoho Analytics (12)
• + Adaptive Insights (5)
• + Google Data Studio (5)
• + Sisense (4)
• + Zendesk (5)
• + ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus (2)
• + Plotly (3)
• + Pentaho Business Analytics (4)
• + RStudio Connect (1)
• + Board (3)
• + Redwood Reporting - Report2Web (1)
• + Kyvos (1)
• + ComponentOne ActiveReports (0)
• + Knowage (0)
• + Windward Core (0)
• + Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer (0)
• + OpenText Magellan BI & Reporting (0)
• + XLCubed (0)
• + Longview Analytics (0)
• + Syncfusion Report Platform (0)
• + Yellowfin (0)
• + Targit Decision Suite (0)
• + Birst (0)
• + Panorama Necto (0)
• + icCube (0)
• + Infogram (0)
• + Klipfolio (0)
• + INX +BI (0)
• + JReport (0)
• + Entrinsik Informer (0)
• + GNU Enterprise (0)
• + Anvizent (0)
• + CA Deliver (0)
• + Procurify (0)
• + InetSoft Style Report (0)
• + InetSoft Style Intelligence (0)
• + Profitbase InFront (0)
• + OZ Report (0)
• + eCourier (0)
• + CA Report Facility (0)

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

More Microsoft Power BI Pros →

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Pros →

More Microsoft Power BI Cons →

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Cons →

• "There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."
• "MS BI comes with all the tools and it is, to the best of my knowledge, the most affordable solution."
• "All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."
• "I would advise that Microsoft BI products are rightly priced and the licensing is easy to follow and to fulfill."
• "Remove the cost of a licence to show a dashboard within SharePoint. Why should readers of a dashboard have to pay to view? ​"
• "Make it low in cost. It is a no-brainer!"
• "Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost."
• "Paid for itself in the first month."

More Microsoft Power BI Pricing and Cost Advice →

• "The price is pretty good."
• "The solution is expensive."
• "The solution is cheaper than its alternatives."
• "The solution is free to use for developers."
• "The tool's licensing costs are expensive."
• "Value-wise, the solution's pricing is good for the price that we pay."
• "The product pricing is reasonable in terms of suitable features for business."

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Pricing and Cost Advice →

Valuable Features

Room for improvement, use of solution, customer service and technical support, other advice.

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

We do business in 170 countries and are made up of 114,000 passionate employees dedicated to fulfilling our mission of helping you and your organization achieve more.

Microsoft Power BI is ranked 1st in Reporting with 297 reviews while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is ranked 7th in Reporting with 16 reviews. Microsoft Power BI is rated 8.0, while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Power BI writes "A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with python and R, and support of DAX and Power Query (M languages)". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services writes "Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered". Microsoft Power BI is most compared with Tableau, Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo and Oracle OBIEE, whereas Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is most compared with TIBCO Jaspersoft, Tableau, SAP Crystal Reports, Oracle OBIEE and IBM Cognos. See our Microsoft Power BI vs. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report .

See our list of best Reporting vendors.

We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.

This browser is no longer supported.

Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.

Get started with Cost Management reporting

• 2 contributors

Cost Management includes several tools to help you understand, report on, and analyze your invoiced Microsoft Cloud and AWS costs. The following sections describe the major reporting components.

The Connector for AWS in the Cost Management service retires on March 31, 2025. Users should consider alternative solutions for AWS cost management reporting. On March 31, 2024, Azure will disable the ability to add new Connectors for AWS for all customers. For more information, see Retire your Amazon Web Services (AWS) connector .

Cost analysis

Cost analysis should be your first stop in the Azure portal when it comes to understanding what you're spending and where you're spending. Cost analysis helps you:

• Visualize and analyze your organizational costs
• Share cost views with others using custom alerts
• View aggregated costs by organization to understand where costs occur over time and identify spending trends
• View accumulated costs over time to estimate monthly, quarterly, or even yearly cost trends against a budget
• Create budgets to provide adherence to financial constraints
• Use budgets to view daily or monthly costs and help isolate spending irregularities

Cost analysis is available from every resource group, subscription, management group, and billing account in the Azure portal. If you manage one of these scopes, you can start there and select Cost analysis from the menu. If you manage multiple scopes, you may want to start directly within Cost Management:

Sign in to the Azure portal > select Home in the menu > scroll down under Tools and select Cost Management > select a scope at the top of the page > in the left menu, select Cost analysis .

For more information about cost analysis, see Explore and analyze costs with cost analysis .

While cost analysis offers a rich, interactive experience for analyzing and surfacing insights about your costs, there are times when you need to build more extensive dashboards and complex reports or combine costs with internal data. The Cost Management template app for Power BI is a great way to get up and running with Power BI quickly. For more information about the template app, see Analyze Azure costs with the Power BI App .

Need to go beyond the basics with Power BI? The Cost Management connector for Power BI lets you choose the data you need to help you seamlessly integrate costs with your own datasets or easily build out more complete dashboards and reports to meet your organization's needs. For more information about the connector, see Connect to Cost Management data in Power BI Desktop .

Cost details and exports

If you're looking for raw data to automate business processes or integrate with other systems, start by exporting data to a storage account. Scheduled exports allow you to automatically publish your raw cost data to a storage account on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. With special handling for large datasets, scheduled exports are the most scalable option for building first-class cost data integration. For more information, see Create and manage exported data .

If you need more fine-grained control over your data requests, the Cost Details API offers a bit more flexibility to pull raw data the way you need it. For more information, see Cost Details API .

Invoices and credits

Cost analysis is a great tool for reviewing estimated, unbilled charges or for tracking historical cost trends, but it may not show your total billed amount because credits, taxes, and other refunds and charges not available in Cost Management. To estimate your projected bill at the end of the month, start in cost analysis to understand your forecasted costs, then review any available credit or prepaid commitment balance from Credits or Payment methods for your billing account or billing profile within the Azure portal. To review your final billed charges after the invoice is available, see Invoices for your billing account or billing profile.

Here's an example that shows credits on the Credits tab on the Credits + Commitments page.

For more information about your invoice, see View and download your Microsoft Azure invoice

For more information about credits, see Track Microsoft Customer Agreement Azure credit balance .

Microsoft Azure mobile app

With the Azure app, you can keep track of the status of your Azure resources, such as virtual machines (VMs) and web apps, from your mobile device. The app also sends alerts about your environment.

You can also use the Azure app to track the status of subscription or resource group cost. You can see your current cost, last month’s cost, forecasted cost, and view your budget usage.

The app is available for iOS and Android .

Related content

• Explore and analyze costs with cost analysis .
• Analyze Azure costs with the Power BI App .
• Connect to Microsoft Cost Management data in Power BI Desktop .
• Create and manage exported data .

Was this page helpful?

Coming soon: Throughout 2024 we will be phasing out GitHub Issues as the feedback mechanism for content and replacing it with a new feedback system. For more information see: https://aka.ms/ContentUserFeedback .

Submit and view feedback for

Additional resources

The Cost of Adding a Reporting Server

“We’d like to offload our reporting queries to a separate SQL Server.”

The first costs are fairly obvious.

Hardware and storage – even if you’re running it in a virtual machine, you need to account for the costs of say, 4 cores and 32GB RAM. Not only will you need storage for the databases, but you’ll also need to decide whether this server gets backed up, and copied to a disaster recovery data center.

Software licensing – Standard Edition is ~$2k per core, and Enterprise Edition is ~$7k per core. Toss in Windows (especially now that it’s licensed per-core), your management/backup/antivirus tools, and your monitoring software.

Project planning – you’ll need to design how to get the data from production to the reporting server, like with Always On Availability Groups, log shipping, or transactional replication.

App modifications – the app running reporting queries will need a new connection string. Even with Always On Availability Groups, reads aren’t automatically offloaded to readable replicas – you have to use the connection string parameter ApplicationIntent = ReadOnly to tell SQL Server that you promise not to try to write anything. If you have a single app that does both reads and writes, and you only want to offload some of the queries, you’ll need to go through the code to switch those queries over to the new connection string.

The rest of the costs are surprises.

Adding a troubleshooting process – sooner or later, the data replication process will break. Depending on the method (AGs, log shipping, replication) and failure type, it’ll fail in different ways – maybe all of the data is old, maybe just some of it is, or maybe the reports aren’t accessible at all. You’ll want to list out the failure methods and explain what symptoms will look like. This helps business users recognize when their reports are wrong, and react appropriately. If you don’t do this step, then after the first failure, people are just always going to expect that there’s a bug in the report data.

Prepare for failure – for each of those failure methods, decide how you’re going to react. For example, if AG replication breaks and reports are out of date, will you point reports at the primary until the problem is resolved, or will users just have to deal with unavailable reports while you troubleshoot or resync the replicas? If you don’t do this step, then you’re going to be winging it every time, and you’ll look unprepared while reports are wrong or down.

Set realistic expectations for RPO and RTO – based on your process and preparation, make sure the business users understand how long their reports will be down when things break.

Measure the overhead of replication – AGs and transactional replication can add performance slowdowns beyond what the reports used to cost. For example, if you were only running a few reports an hour, and only hitting a subset of the data, then suddenly replicating every individual delete/update/insert operation can have a huge overhead.

Add monitoring – you need to start monitoring how far behind the reporting server is, and how performance is doing on both. Performance troubleshooting becomes a lot harder, too – for example, when you’re doing index tuning, you have to combine data across both the primary and the reporting servers in order to find the right mix of indexes across the board.

Are you sure you really need to offload reporting?

Before you embark on this expensive project, ask:

• What’s the primary wait type that we’re facing? (Find out with sp_BlitzFirst @SinceStartup = 1)
• What’s the cheapest/easiest way to reduce that wait type?

Time and again, I see people facing PAGEIOLATCH waits (which mean waiting to read data pages from a data file), and they’re juggling a 1TB database with 16-32GB RAM. Don’t spend tens of thousands of dollars to fix that problem – buy $1,000 of RAM and spend some time doing index tuning.

9 Comments . Leave new

Hopefully this doesn’t fall under the “embarrassing questions” category, but this post brought up something I’ve always wondered.

The licensing question’s answer is always ‘If you query it, you license it’ – so can you have the website *application* portion of SSRS on a different server (ServerB) than the ReportServer databases (ServerA) without having licensing for ServerB? The database lives on fully-licensed ServerA, so that’s where the queries are being executed against.

The if you query it you license it doesn’t apply to the BI functions SSRS and SSAS. Servers containing those also have to be licensed separately. In one case we have to license our SSRS using enterprise licenses as we do a scale out deployment.

Correct, anywhere SSRS, SSIS, or SSAS runs needs to be licensed (unless it’s a passive secondary, but that’s another story.)

Great article, Brent! I’m a DBA for a big public school system and have been pushing for a reporting server due to performance issues when Cognos reports run. This definitely opens my eyes to the associated costs, which matter when you are operating on limited tax dollars! Sounds like we may be better off tuning the reports to run more efficiently. Thanks, Nate

We have 3 Servers in an AAG (2 fully licensed at primary site, 1 at DR). Overnight we generate 1000’s of reports that get emailed out to staff and customers. Is it possible to load balance the 2 servers on our primary site so that we can get the reports out quicker (assuming it would be quicker)? The business wants all reports out within 30 minutes and it’s getting a bit tight and our second server is currently sitting close to idle (the primary server is also basically idle except for running reports).

Performance Tuning never hurts !

For true comparison you need to deduct the cost of resolving\remediating the issues that have led you to consider a reporting server. We have some non sql proficient report writers that have locked up the production server a number of times and that liability has prompted the move to a reporting db. We also could have invested in training but since those users are external to our department it becomes a more involved issue.

Hi Brent, Revisiting this old post to ask a new question: Licensing from Microsoft often changes dramatically between versions of SQL and know some of the basics such as downgrade rights still fall under the licensing scheme that is applicable to the the original purchase. One area that’s less clear is what the client can legitimately install with respect to a vm or physical server. Is (or was) it the case that a client is allowed to install each main component one single time from the media even if it spans multiple servers? If this held/holds true then the database engine could legitimately get installed to server A and SSRS can get installed to server B. In one particular piece of software I consult on, the data retrieval time may be in the second(s) whereas the time processing and rendering is longer making SSRS more ideal to erode a separate environment.

Thanks, Tony

Tony – Google for the SQL Server Licensing Guide, and it addresses this really well.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Don't subscribe All new comments Replies to my comments Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

Post Comment

Hi! I’m Brent Ozar.

I make Microsoft SQL Server go faster. I love teaching, travel, cars, and laughing. I’m based out of Las Vegas. He/him. I teach SQL Server training classes , or if you haven’t got time for the pain, I’m available for consulting too.

Want to advertise here and reach my savvy readers?

• Subscribe *

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

• Sustainability
• Thought leadership

Leverage AI to simplify CSRD reporting  

• By Shefy Manayil Kareem, General Manager, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability
• Azure OpenAI Service
• Microsoft Fabric
• Microsoft Industry Clouds
• Microsoft Sustainability Manager
• Content type

Organizations around the world are navigating complex reporting frameworks to meet sustainability goals. For companies working in—or with—the European Union, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is a sweeping set of requirements to provide non-financial public disclosures on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics. CSRD rules began rolling out in 2024, requiring over 11,000 companies to disclose non-financial information. An increase of an additional 50,000 companies that are incorporated, listed, or doing business in the European Union is estimated. As companies are working to comply, allocating the time and resources is a challenge. Microsoft is developing solutions to address the diverse reporting needs of our customers and investing in our partners to create a variety of options that organizations can engage. 

To address this growing need, Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric (preview) can help organizations take sustainability data in any format, organize, and normalize the data for sustainability regulatory reporting. This quantitative data reporting approach is complemented by a joint solution from Accenture and Avanade that leverages generative AI to provide qualitative insights. This enables organizations to manage workflows associated with multiple sustainability reporting frameworks globally, including CSRD, Global Report Initiative (GRI), and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Organizations can optimize both quantitative data from Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solutions and qualitative data with Accenture and Avanade’s generative AI-powered solution. 

The solution integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Sustainability Manager , offering a comprehensive platform for managing sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) across different frameworks. The solution’s collaborative features, generative AI-enhanced insights, and streamlined data integration can help organizations simplify compliance-related processes. Meanwhile, the improved richness of its sustainability reporting enables organizations to take more effective actions to achieve their ESG targets.  

Sustainability data solutions in Fabric

Unique capabilities that provide prebuilt and preconfigured Fabric resources

Navigate the complexities of reporting frameworks

All ESG reporting frameworks carry their own complexities. However, the CSRD has been top of mind in 2024 for organizations in and outside of the European Union as they begin to gather, analyze, and report the required data. This is no simple task—the CSRD encompasses 12 standards and 82 reporting requirements, which amounts to approximately 500 KPIs and over 10,000 underlying data points. In addition to managing this large array of ESG data, companies face other significant challenges associated with CSRD compliance and data management including reporting on the entire value chain versus only on their own organization. The evolving nature of sustainability criteria and metrics further complicates the reporting process. 

Navigating the intricacies of a multitude of reporting frameworks and intricate regulations necessitates extensive data gathering and assimilation. The process of ESG reporting often engages various departments and resources within an organization, introducing its own set of risks and costs. The more manual a process, the more opportunities there are for errors to occur, and the complexities of each reporting framework require time, diligence, and accuracy. A proficient solution can help simplify the process and effectively aid in the generation of accurate reports with fewer resources required. 

Accenture and Avanade’s generative AI-powered solution allows users to select from different reporting frameworks and adapts to the specific requirements of the chosen framework, displaying relevant categories and reporting structures. Users can access the breadth and depth of their data and translate it into the necessary reporting frameworks. This flexibility is crucial for organizations that are subject to multiple reporting obligations or need to adhere to international standards beyond local mandates. 

Streamlining data management using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service

Accenture and Avanade’s solution addresses the dual challenges of qualitative and quantitative data in sustainability reporting, utilizing Azure OpenAI for enhancing its reporting capabilities, especially for qualitative data input. Using Azure OpenAI to create an AI assistant, Accenture and Avanade’s solution offers a unified platform for sustainability reporting, simplifying the process of compiling CSRD reports, making it easier for users to interact with data and generate reports quickly.  

• Qualitative data management : Leveraging Azure OpenAI integration, Accenture and Avanade’s solution assists in drafting responses to qualitative questions, such as detailing a company’s sustainability policies, practices, and goals. This AI assistant ensures that responses are not only in keeping with reporting standards but also reflective of best practices and forward-thinking sustainability strategies.  
• Quantitative data management : The integration of Microsoft Sustainability Manager allows for the automatic import of calculated quantitative metrics. This means that insights or recommendations provided by Accenture and Avanade’s solution is informed by the data in the user’s ESG platform. The AI assistant enables identification of trends and patterns in both qualitative and quantitative data sources, aiding in a more holistic analysis.   

An enhanced collaborative workflow  

One of the biggest pain points that companies have related to ESG reporting is managing the approval workflow with multiple process and approval steps. It’s important to have a trail of accountability, which depending on organization size, can exist across several departments and users. Accenture and Avanade’s solution enables organizations to assign responsibility and accountability, thereby streamlining the process of preparing the report and its associated approval processes.   

Importantly, team members can work on the same sections of the report simultaneously and the platform maintains comprehensive audit trails of all changes made to the report. This transparency is vital for accountability, enabling team leaders to monitor progress and ensure that all contributions align. 

Learn more about sustainability solutions

By facilitating clear communication, structured workflows, and shared access to data in Microsoft Sustainability Manager , Accenture and Avanade’s generative AI-powered solution enables teams to work together toward their sustainability reporting goals. 

To learn more about Accenture and Avanade’s generative AI-powered solution and how it can be customized for your industry and region, register for a complimentary workshop .  

Related posts

Futureproof the mining industry with AI and digital innovation  

Migrate to innovate: How governments are modernizing in advance of AI  

AgPilot: Enhancing productivity and efficiency with AI for smarter farming  

Optimize sustainability data management across your value chain