What are the cost impact of increasing storage for databases in Azure SQL Elastic Pool

Question

What are the cost impact of increasing storage for databases in Azure SQL Elastic Pool

Palash Mathur 130

We’re using Azure SQL Databases in an Elastic Pool configuration with General Purpose: Standard-series (Gen5), 6 vCores, and I’m trying to understand how the cost is calculated for the elastic pool, especially regarding storage usage.

My current understanding is that we are not charged based on the data space used by individual databases within the pool. Instead, the cost is tied to the configuration of the elastic pool itself, meaning the number of vCores and the maximum storage allocated to the pool.

Is that correct?

Or does Azure consider the total actual storage used by all databases in the pool when calculating cost?

Sai Raghunadh M 4,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-13T17:31:20.2866667+00:00

Hi @ Palash Mathur

Just checking in to see if the below answers helped. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Palash Mathur 130 Reputation points

2025-06-13T18:22:02.9133333+00:00
Thank you for confirming the pricing details.

As mentioned earlier, we use Azure SQL Database (in Elastic Pools) to store data. We’ve observed that Azure SQL tends to use more space than the original input data. For example, when we upload a 14.3 MB file into a table using a bulk insert operation, the reported database size increases to approximately 30.59 MB.

Given that total storage in an elastic pool is shared across databases, this overhead means we can accommodate fewer databases per pool, potentially forcing us to:

Add an additional elastic pool, or

Upgrade the configuration of the existing pool.

Both options can quickly become costly and less scalable for us.

So my question is:

Are there any compression techniques or best practices we can apply in Azure SQL Database to reduce the storage of tables, without impacting performance?

Also, please note:

Some of our tables have indexes, so we are looking for a solution that works well even in the presence of indexing.

We’re hoping to optimize storage usage without having to scale horizontally or vertically too soon. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Sai Raghunadh M 4,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-13T19:34:25.5233333+00:00

You can refer for Data compression for compression techniques or best practices.

Accepted answer

1 additional answer

Your answer

Sai Raghunadh M 4,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-13T17:31:20.2866667+00:00

Hi @ Palash Mathur

Just checking in to see if the below answers helped. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Palash Mathur 130 Reputation points

2025-06-13T18:22:02.9133333+00:00

Thank you for confirming the pricing details.

As mentioned earlier, we use Azure SQL Database (in Elastic Pools) to store data. We’ve observed that Azure SQL tends to use more space than the original input data. For example, when we upload a 14.3 MB file into a table using a bulk insert operation, the reported database size increases to approximately 30.59 MB.

Given that total storage in an elastic pool is shared across databases, this overhead means we can accommodate fewer databases per pool, potentially forcing us to:

Add an additional elastic pool, or

Upgrade the configuration of the existing pool.

Both options can quickly become costly and less scalable for us.

So my question is:

Are there any compression techniques or best practices we can apply in Azure SQL Database to reduce the storage of tables, without impacting performance?

Also, please note:

Some of our tables have indexes, so we are looking for a solution that works well even in the presence of indexing.

We’re hoping to optimize storage usage without having to scale horizontally or vertically too soon. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Sai Raghunadh M 4,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-13T19:34:25.5233333+00:00

You can refer for Data compression for compression techniques or best practices.

Answer 1

Hi @ Palash MathurThank you for your question about Azure SQL Elastic Pool pricing. Your understanding is correct. cost is primarily based on the number of vCores and the maximum storage allocated to the pool, rather than the actual storage used by individual databases.Storage pricing is based on the maximum data size configured for the pool, regardless of actual usage.

Increasing vCores will raise costs, as pricing scales with compute resources.

Even if databases do not use the full allocated storage, the billing is based on the configured storage limit.

For a more accurate estimate, I recommend using the Azure Pricing Calculator to model different configurations

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

Answer 2

Balmukund 176 Microsoft Employee

That's correct.

In the general purpose tier, you are charged for Azure premium locally redundant storage that you provision. Storage can be configured between 5 GB and 4 TB with 1 GB increments.

Refer https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/azure-sql-database/elastic

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What are the cost impact of increasing storage for databases in Azure SQL Elastic Pool

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