On 1 August, fifteen of the twenty-two deployable H100 regions cut spot by exactly 20.0%, the same move Azure made on 1 July. Then on 20 August something happened that had not happened in three months of daily snapshots: two regions changed price in the middle of the month, and both went up. We snapshot spot prices and eviction bands daily across ~1,500 SKU-region combinations. Here is the August picture for the five VMs you would actually run AI inference on, including the full tables.
Same ground rules as July's report: the five NC-series SKUs that matter for inference, NC40ads and NC80adis (1x and 2x H100) and NC24/48/96ads (1x, 2x and 4x A100). Linux pricing, 22 deployable regions and 31 daily snapshots.
The standing honesty note: the eviction figures are Azure's own published estimates, read daily and averaged at band midpoints. They are Azure's risk statement, not our counted interruptions. Treat the report as a map from one instrument, and if your experience in a region differs from what the data shows, we genuinely want to hear it.
Four findings this month.
1. The monthly reset held, for the third month running
Azure holds GPU spot prices flat for a calendar month and rewrites the list on the first. August delivered it again: fifteen regions cut by precisely 20.0% on 1 August, five did not move at all, and two moved by odd amounts (Germany West Central by 12.4%, East US by 8.1%). Both of the odd ones have the same explanation, covered in finding 3.
Three consecutive months of the same synchronised cut is no longer a curiosity. It is the shape of the product. If you are modelling Azure GPU spot as a live auction that responds to demand hour by hour, the data says otherwise.
2. Then it broke, and the cheap regions got more expensive
On 20 August, mid-month, Malaysia West rose by exactly 10.0% and Central India by exactly 5.0%, on both H100 sizes. Nothing like it had appeared in June or July, where no tracked combination moved inside the month.
Malaysia West is worth watching because it was June's value pick: the cheapest H100 on the map at $1.5093, unchanged through July, and one of the calmest at a 0-5% band. It went to $1.6595 on 20 August, then to $1.8253 on 2 September. That is a 21% rise in two weeks for a region that had not moved in three months.
Two mid-month rises, both in cheap regions, both in round percentages, is a small sample. But the direction is worth noting: the regions that were quietly the best value are the ones being repriced, and they are being repriced upward. We will know by the end of September whether this is the new normal or a one-off.
3. East US has fallen three months running and appears to have hit a ceiling
East US has now cut its H100 spot price in three consecutive months:
| June | July | August | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.7541 | $1.4030 | $1.2899 |
| Discount | 74.9% | 79.9% | 81.5% |
| Eviction band | 15%+ on 24 of 26 days | 0-5% all month | 0-5% all 31 days |
It is the cheapest H100 on the map and sits in Azure's lowest published eviction band on every single day of the month, which is the second month running that the cheap-means-risky rule does not hold.
The interesting part is the 81.5% figure. Five regions now sit at exactly 81.5% off, and none of the 22 is above it. It looks like a cap on the discount rather than a floor on the price, which is also why East US only fell 8.1% in August instead of the standard 20%: it hit the cap. From here, East US spot can only get cheaper if the pay-as-you-go price falls.
The spread narrowed as a result. The same H100 hour costs $1.2899 in East US and $5.9634 in West US, a 4.6x spread, down from 5.3x in July.
4. On A100s, the bigger box is now worse almost everywhere
July found that A100 eviction rises with box size, the opposite of the H100 pattern. August makes it emphatic: of the 19 A100 regions with band data on all three sizes, the 4x box sits in a worse band than the 1x in 18 of them, and in no region is the bigger box better.
| Region | 1x A100 | 2x A100 | 4x A100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| east us | 14.8% | 22.5% | 22.5% |
| east us 2 | 8.1% | 19.6% | 22.3% |
| west us 2 | 7.5% | 16.7% | 22.5% |
| south centralus | 2.7% | 2.5% | 15.2% |
H100 still runs the other way: the 2x box sat in a lower band than the 1x in 13 of 22 regions, and in several the gap is large (UK South 17.3% against 6.9%, Central India 22.5% against 8.0%).
Same month, same method, opposite sizing advice per family. It is only visible because the history is retained.
What to do with this if you run GPUs on Azure
- Check prices on the first of the month. That is still when the list is rewritten, three months running.
- But do not assume the price you checked will hold. August broke that rule twice, and both moves went up.
- East US is the current value pick on H100, cheapest and in the lowest band, and it is at the discount cap so it has little further to fall.
- Size A100s and H100s by different rules. On A100 the small box is the calm one, almost everywhere. On H100 the bigger box still buys stability.
- Verify at deploy time. Bands are Azure's published statements, prices reset monthly, and as of August they can move mid-month too.
Appendix: the August H100 table
Single-GPU H100 (NC40ads), Linux, all 22 deployable regions. Prices are each month's modal value and eviction is the mean band midpoint over 31 August snapshots.
| Region | July $/hr | Aug $/hr | Change | Discount | Eviction (mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| east us | 1.4030 | 1.2899 | -8.1% | 81.5% | ~2.5% |
| indonesia central | 1.5093 | 1.5093 | 0.0% | 81.5% | ~21.2% |
| malaysia west* | 1.5093 | 1.5093 | 0.0% | 81.5% | ~2.5% |
| north europe | 1.5479 | 1.5479 | 0.0% | 81.5% | ~3.1% |
| uk south | 2.0582 | 1.6464 | -20.0% | 81.1% | ~17.3% |
| germany westcentral | 1.9146 | 1.6769 | -12.4% | 81.5% | ~2.5% |
| canada central | 2.1131 | 1.6905 | -20.0% | 80.3% | ~22.5% |
| central us | 2.1471 | 1.7179 | -20.0% | 80.0% | ~22.5% |
| south eastasia | 2.2785 | 1.8230 | -20.0% | 79.9% | ~6.7% |
| australia east | 2.7225 | 2.1780 | -20.0% | 78.5% | ~8.1% |
| spain central | 2.7975 | 2.2376 | -20.0% | 75.3% | ~2.5% |
| sweden central | 3.3447 | 2.6759 | -20.0% | 70.5% | ~3.3% |
| korea central | 3.3489 | 2.6790 | -20.0% | 71.6% | ~8.1% |
| switzerland north | 3.3866 | 2.7088 | -20.0% | 72.9% | ~7.5% |
| south centralus | 4.1783 | 3.3428 | -20.0% | 60.1% | ~7.5% |
| japan east | 4.6638 | 3.7306 | -20.0% | 63.1% | ~4.4% |
| east us 2 | 5.0256 | 4.0205 | -20.0% | 42.4% | ~16.5% |
| west us 2 | 5.0256 | 4.0205 | -20.0% | 42.4% | ~11.7% |
| central india* | 4.5029 | 4.5029 | 0.0% | 53.9% | ~22.5% |
| west us 3 | 4.7087 | 4.7087 | 0.0% | 32.5% | ~14.6% |
| west europe | 6.5376 | 5.2301 | -20.0% | 42.4% | ~18.0% |
| west us | 7.4543 | 5.9634 | -20.0% | 34.3% | ~3.1% |
* Malaysia West and Central India both changed price on 20 August. The figure shown is the modal value for the month, which is the price that stood for most of it. Malaysia West ended August at $1.6595 and Central India at $4.7277.
The A100 tables and every other SKU we track live on the spot pricing map.
Method
Prices come from the Azure Retail Prices API (Linux, Spot consumption meters), snapshotted daily. The August value shown is the month's modal price. Unlike June and July, August was not flat within the month: four tracked SKU-region combinations changed price on 20 August, all of them rises. Discount is calculated against the same region's pay-as-you-go price from the same API. Eviction comes from Azure's published eviction-rate band via Resource Graph, aggregated over 31 daily August snapshots at band midpoints. Regions priced in the API but absent from the Resource SKUs list, or never reporting an eviction band, are excluded as non-deployable: the same phantom-region screen as June and July, which excluded the same regions again.
Why this is a monthly report
Azure rewrites this price list on the first of each month, and in August it also rewrote part of it on the twentieth. September is already showing a less uniform reset than July or August did, which we will cover next month.
This is 5 of the ~1,500 SKUs we track daily. The full August tables and the live spot map cover every SKU and region we watch.
Want spot prices and recorded eviction history for any Azure SKU, no sign-up? Try the Caleta spot pricing tool. Optimising a bigger Azure GPU bill? Run a free Cost Review.