Add Cost Awareness & Warnings for VM Resize in the User Self-Service Portal

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Phil Hurley

Description:
In the current User Self-Service Portal, when an end user resizes their VM (for example, to a larger SKU), there’s no indication that this change may increase their compute costs.

In large organisations where cost optimisation is important, this lack of visibility can lead to unintended expenses, confusion, or unnecessary escalations back to administrators.

Providing users with a little more context during the resize process would improve transparency and help avoid surprises.

Feature Request:
We’d like to see one of the following implemented (or both):

  1. Warning Message:
    When a user selects a different VM size, display a clear message such as:

    “Changing to this size may incur higher costs. Please speak to your administrator for further details.”

  2. Optional Cost Comparison:
    If feasible, display a simple cost comparison: for example, showing the approximate hourly rate for the user’s current VM size versus the selected size. This could use either static pricing tables or integrate with Azure’s pricing APIs.

Why This Matters:

  • Gives users better awareness before they make a change.
  • Reduces accidental overspending.
  • Avoids confusion and unnecessary support tickets.
  • Builds trust in the self-service experience by being transparent.
  • Supports cost-conscious operations for enterprise environ
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Comments (4 comments)

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Carl Long
Thank you for submitting your feature request—we truly value input from our community.

Next steps:
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     • If any clarification is needed, we'll follow up with you directly in the comments.

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Raul Morales

Hi Phil, thank you for the submission.
Regarding the warning message, we support adding custom messaging within the self-service portal.
This could be an appropriate method to communicate these types of disclaimers to customers.

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Phil Hurley

Hi Raul, thanks for the response but I think this misses the core of the request.
Why would we rely on a static message when the portal can dynamically present relevant information based on the selected SKU?
More importantly, expecting admins to manually configure static warnings across 100+ pools isn’t scalable or practical.
You already have access to the cost data, the portal knows what’s deployed and what each resource costs per hour. So why not use that to dynamically warn users when their selection will increase costs? Even something simple like red text showing the new hourly rate compared to the current one would go a long way in improving transparency.
This isn’t just about messaging it’s about empowering users to make informed decisions and avoiding unnecessary escalations.
Here is what I currently do, and I believe it's ignored most of the time - not to mention unhelpful and raises unnecessary questions.


 

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Raul Morales

Hi Phil,

I certainly agree that dynamic cost awareness would be ideal. I wanted to ensure you were aware of the messaging options, which you are leveraging very nicely!
Regarding surfacing costs, these will vary from customer to customer, depending on whether they are utilizing reserved instances or savings plans (and will also depend on contract lengths) with Azure. 
Would surfacing pay-as-you-go costs suffice?

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