SQL Azure Reporting Pricing - Outrageous!!

Question

Microsoft,

I have just discovered the cost of SQL Reporting and I just couldn’t quite believe my eyes. Are you serious? At first I assumed the instance hours referred to the time reports are actually running but boy was I mistaken!

We are a loyal BizSpark start-up having been on the Azure wagon since early 2010 and developed our applications reports for SQL Reporting while still in CTP with the absolute sincere expectation that you would price it similarly to the rest of your services.

This is absolutely outrageous. $650 per month to run a few reports? This is at least twice the cost of all our other Azure services combined.

So what are we supposed to do now? Grin and bear it? Not likely as we simply cannot afford an additional $8k bill per annum.

The most frustrating thing is the fact that you simply brush it off with: “Our initial work on SQL Reporting is focused on customers that need significant throughput and modular pricing” What about the rest of us(!!) whose applications serve up a handful of reports per day?

Please have one of the SQL Reporting team respond to this thread. I expect I speak for a lot of early stage companies here, where this is going to have a significant impact.

Thank you.

P.

Answer 1

Please send your feedback on http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/forums/100417-sql-azure-reporting-feature-voting

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Answer 2

I completely agree. Our case is 100% similar to yours (running just a very small handful of reports of day) even though we are a Fortune 500 company. This pricing is absolutely shocking. We bet a lot on Azure in our organization and will serioulsy consider alternatives if this pricing is not quickly revised by Microsoft. As an early adopter of Azure, we now simply feel "cheated" by Microsoft.

The fact that there is no response from Microsoft here (or the many other threads where this matter is discussed) just add to the frustration.

Answer 3

Agree. Consider me disappointed!

Answer 4

http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/forums/100417-sql-azure-reporting-feature-voting

Returns 404: Page Not Found.

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-- Jozef Izso (MCPD)

Answer 5

You are correct; their pricing model is not only outrageous, but I believe it to be malicious. I contacted Microsoft roughly a month or so ago regarding this issue. It was passed up the "chain of command" and I got a hold of a support manager who was completely unaware of the pricing. When they realized the pricing is as you stated, they couldn't believe it and said it didn't make any sense. I was told they were going to "investigate" yet I haven't seen or heard any results.

It's unfortunate as Azure is great for small businesses, yet when you go to create reports to support your business, they nail you for hosting a single report (as you would up to 200) per hour for a rough cost of $650/mo. It's simply the most invasive and backhanded cost Azure has for its users.

Answer 6

I also agree that the pricing of reporting is really high compared to other Azure products.

I also do not understand why. It is much cheeper to run a reporting server within a virtual machine, you then have a reporting server for around 80 euro's a month.

Also the software for the reporting server is almost the same with the existing reporting service that you can install with SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2012. In the Express versions it is even installable for free.

Answer 7

Five months after your experience and they are still ripping people off.  They got me for $633.  I have no company and was just trying the service out, expecting to have an inexpensive metered reporting service that maybe I could find a use for.  My punishment, $633 for not reading the fine print.