New year, new budget cycle. If you haven't reviewed your Azure costs recently, now is the perfect time. Here's the checklist we use.
1. Check Azure Advisor Recommendations
Start with the free stuff. Go to Azure Advisor → Cost and work through the recommendations.
- Right-sizing opportunities identified
- Unused resources flagged
- RI recommendations reviewed
Even if you've checked before, new recommendations appear as usage patterns become clearer.
2. Review Reserved Instance Coverage
Pull up your RI utilisation:
- Current RI utilisation (aim for 95%+)
- Expiring RIs in next 90 days
- Opportunities for new RI purchases
- Any unused/expired RIs still showing
If RIs are underutilised, you're paying for commitment you're not using. If coverage is low, you're missing savings.
3. Find Orphaned Resources
The silent budget killers:
- Unattached managed disks
- Unassociated public IPs
- Orphaned NICs
- Old snapshots
- Empty resource groups
Use Azure Resource Graph queries to find these systematically.
4. Audit Dev/Test Environments
Development environments are often the biggest waste:
- Are dev VMs running 24/7?
- Is auto-shutdown configured?
- Can dev use smaller VM sizes than prod?
- Are there old test environments still running?
- Can anything use Dev/Test subscription pricing?
A dev environment running 24/7 instead of business hours costs 3-4x more than necessary.
5. Review Storage Tiers
Hot storage is expensive:
- What percentage of blob storage is in Hot tier?
- Are lifecycle management policies configured?
- Are old backups still in Hot tier?
- Can anything move to Cool, Cold, or Archive?
We regularly find 10TB+ of backup data in Hot tier that should be in Archive.
6. Check Hybrid Benefit Usage
Free money if you have Windows Server licenses with SA:
- List all Windows VMs
- Check Hybrid Benefit status on each
- Enable where missing
- Confirm license compliance
Hybrid Benefit saves ~40% on Windows VMs. Many organisations have inconsistent application.
7. Review Spending by Tag
If you have good tagging:
- Cost by environment (prod vs non-prod split)
- Cost by project/cost centre
- Cost by team
- Untagged resource spend
If you don't have good tagging, that's your first priority.
8. Check for Anomalies
Look at the trend over the last 12 months:
- Any unexpected spikes?
- Gradual creep that hasn't been investigated?
- Resources that have grown significantly?
Anomalies often indicate waste (or at least warrant investigation).
9. Review Subscriptions
Subscription sprawl adds complexity and hides costs:
- Are all subscriptions still needed?
- Is there clear ownership for each?
- Are there test/dev subscriptions with production workloads?
- Can any be consolidated?
10. Plan for the Year
Based on your review:
- Identify quick wins (implement this month)
- Plan medium-term improvements (Q1)
- Set cost targets for the year
- Schedule quarterly reviews
Quick Win Priority
If you can only do a few things, prioritise:
- Auto-shutdown dev environments - Immediate 60-70% savings on non-prod compute
- Enable Hybrid Benefit - Quick toggle, 40% savings on Windows VMs
- Delete orphaned disks - Pure waste, no reason to keep them
- Buy obvious RIs - For stable production workloads running 24/7
These four actions alone can save 20-30% in most environments.
Want help with your Azure cost review? Our free savings snapshot covers all of this and identifies exactly where to focus.