Azure gets more expensive in February – what SMEs should check before then

On 1 February 2027, Microsoft raises prices for many virtual machines and storage services in seven Azure regions, including West Europe in Amsterdam and North Europe in Dublin, two regions where many Swiss companies run their servers. On the same day, the option to freely exchange existing reservations ends. Those who check now have just under three months to lower the bill instead of simply accepting it in February.

What changes on 1 February

Microsoft informed affected customers in early October through an Azure Service Health notice. The increases apply to pay-as-you-go prices and, depending on the contract, to Enterprise Agreements and Microsoft Customer Agreements as well:

• North Europe (Dublin): up 17 per cent
• France Central and France South: up 11 per cent
• West Europe (Amsterdam): up 9 per cent
• Norway East and Norway West: up 9 per cent

Southeast Asia in Singapore rises by 8 per cent. The two Swiss regions, Switzerland North and Switzerland West, are not on the list, and neither is Germany West Central.

Not everything is affected. According to the notice, the oldest VM series (v1 and v2), the newest v7 generation and certain storage services such as standard blob storage, queues and tables are excluded. Everything else in these regions becomes more expensive, which by this list includes the widely used v3, v4 and v5 series.

The notice is not public. It only appears in the Service Health of your own Azure account and is visible to people with at least reader rights on the subscription. In many SMEs nobody sees it, because the account was set up by a service provider years ago and no one inside the company receives these notices.

Reservations: one last chance to exchange

Many companies lower their Azure costs with reservations: they commit to a specific size for one or three years and get a substantial discount in return. Until now, these reservations could be exchanged when needs changed.

According to Microsoft, that ends on 1 February 2027 for all services that a savings plan can also cover. These include virtual machines, App Service and database services such as Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Cosmos DB.

• Bought before 1 February: Each reservation keeps the right to one final exchange, even after the cut-off. After that, it is fixed.
• Bought from 1 February: These reservations can no longer be exchanged.
• What stays: The cancellation rules do not change, and existing reservations can still be traded in for a savings plan, which applies more flexibly across VM sizes and regions.

For an SME this means the next reservation should match future needs, not today's. If you plan to modernise or consolidate servers in the next twelve months, choose the target size or a savings plan now.

Old servers are not a way to save

At first glance it seems reassuring that the old v1 and v2 series are excluded from the increase. That is misleading. Microsoft is retiring these generations: the D, Ds, Dv2 and Dsv2 series retire on 1 May 2028, and Av2, B (first generation), F, Fs and Fsv2 on 15 November 2028. Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3 and Esv3 also have an end date, 15 November 2029.

Restrictions already apply. Since July 2026, Microsoft no longer approves additional capacity for these series, new subscriptions cannot use them at all, and new reservations for them are no longer sold. Staying on an old series means paying the full pay-as-you-go price once the reservation expires, and still having to move before the end date.

Our view

A 9 per cent increase is annoying, but it is rarely the largest item on an Azure bill. In the SME environments we see, oversized servers, machines running needlessly at night and at weekends, and forgotten test resources usually cost more. The increase is a good reason to clean exactly that up.

Moving to a Swiss region can make sense, for example because of where the data is stored. But it should not happen because of this increase alone: prices, available services and VM series differ by region, and a move takes effort of its own. If you are modernising anyway, choose the region deliberately rather than keeping it out of habit. Our guide to Azure migration in Switzerland shows how such a migration works.

What to do now

• Find the notice: Have someone search Service Health in the Azure portal for the pricing notice, and decide who in your company receives these notices from now on.
• List affected resources: Which servers and storage services run in West Europe or North Europe, and on which VM series? That gives a realistic estimate of the extra cost.
• Clean up before reserving: Right-size, delete unused resources, limit running times automatically. Only then reserve.
• Plan the last exchange: Review existing reservations before 1 February and decide whether an exchange or a savings plan better fits the next few years.
• Replace old series: If you still run v1, v2 or v3 machines, plan the move now rather than under time pressure before the end date. Our cloud services page shows how we can help.