Forum Discussion
Advocate IIIFabric billing
Hi msprog ,
Fabric billing for Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) capacities is based on runtime, not actual usage. As long as the capacity is running, you are billed, regardless of how much of the allocated compute you consume. The only way to stop charges is to pause the capacity.
When you purchase a PAYG capacity, you’re provisioned a fixed number of Capacity Units (CUs), and billing occurs per minute based on the CU allocation, not usage. This means even if your workload only uses a small fraction of the capacity, you're still billed for the full provisioned amount as long as it's active.
For reference, here is a reddit thread with a similar inquiry from another user. In this thread, this concept is confirmed by a Microsoft Employee: https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftFabric/comments/1f9o6nu/fabric_capacity_usage_costs_if_i_dont_pause_it/If this helped, please mark it as the solution so others can benefit too. And if you found it useful, kudos are always appreciated.
Thanks,Samson
Super UserHi msprog ,
Fabric billing for Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) capacities is based on runtime, not actual usage. As long as the capacity is running, you are billed, regardless of how much of the allocated compute you consume. The only way to stop charges is to pause the capacity.
When you purchase a PAYG capacity, you’re provisioned a fixed number of Capacity Units (CUs), and billing occurs per minute based on the CU allocation, not usage. This means even if your workload only uses a small fraction of the capacity, you're still billed for the full provisioned amount as long as it's active.
For reference, here is a reddit thread with a similar inquiry from another user. In this thread, this concept is confirmed by a Microsoft Employee: https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftFabric/comments/1f9o6nu/fabric_capacity_usage_costs_if_i_dont_pause_it/
If this helped, please mark it as the solution so others can benefit too. And if you found it useful, kudos are always appreciated.
Thanks,
Samson
Advocate IIIThanks SamsonTruong I was thinking it's based on usage. Thanks for the clarification so if we are paying regardless of usage, just wondering what's the point of per minute billing? If we. have F2 , we have to pay for the F2 allocation. Why then there is per minute billing? Thanks
- SamsonTruong
Hi msprog ,
With Fabric capacity, you have two options: Reserved or Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG). The per-minute billing applies specifically to PAYG capacities.
The key benefit of PAYG is flexibility, you can pause the capacity from the Azure Portal when it's not in use. While the capacity is paused, you are not billed. This is where per-minute billing matters: you're only charged for the minutes the capacity is active, rather than a flat daily or monthly rate.
So even though you're billed for the full allocation (e.g., F2), you're only charged for the time it’s running, not 24/7, which can lead to savings if you're able to pause during idle periods. Hope this adds some clarity!