Best Azure Billing Tools for 2022

Azure billing incorporates all aspects of how you process your Azure cloud payments. It involves making payments, managing invoices, monitoring costs, and more. Azure allows users to create multiple billing accounts to match various needs.

Azure Billing tools will not only facilitate smooth payment processing; they can also send payment alerts, estimate usage, and even forecast your future spending. While cost optimization involves managing all resources, billing focuses on the payment aspects of the cloud.

Best Microsoft Azure Billing Tools

Azure billing is a complex process. Cloud users encounter various challenges while they are in the billing process, such as rejected credit cards, exfiltration of sensitive data, and failed payment gateways. This article highlights the six best Azure billing tools you can use to overcome most of these challenges in 2022.

Azure Cost Management and Billing

Azure’s internal billing functionalities should be your primary tool if you want to ensure a smooth billing process. You can access the cost management and billing dashboard from the Azure portal. Under the Invoices menu, users can view and download invoices for previous billing periods. Microsoft also sends a monthly billing invoice. You can also view all transactions performed in the billing account on this dashboard. Azure users can also utilize the Payment History section to view all billing activities.

The Reservation transactions section is where you view all billing activities related to Azure Reservations. To help eliminate bill shock, you can view recurring bills under the recurring charges section. Another vital component is the Azure subscriptions menu. On the Azure subscriptions screen, you will find all subscribed products from both Microsoft and Azure marketplace. The Billing profiles section contains details of the account owner who receives the bills.

Cloud Ctrl

Cloud Ctrl is an Azure solutions provider focusing on simplifying cloud expenditure.This tool lets users view all figures and costs on one screen. You can also view billing information in your local currency. Other key billing features include:

• Azure users can use Cloud Ctrl to allocate chargebacks
• Use Cloud Ctrl to integrate other Azure Managed Service Providers for easier collaboration
• You can use this tool to share billing information with other team members
• Most importantly, Cloud Ctrl can help you forecast future spending

Corz Cloud

Corz is another handy Azure Billing tool. With Corz, Azure users can save time by automating most billing operations. Corz dives deep into metrics that can help you make important billing decisions. For example, you will get notifications when a cost spikes, you near your budget limit, when bills exceed certain thresholds, and much more.

Other key features include:

• Corz can give more profound recommendations that reduce your cloud bill
• With Corz on your tech stack, you can allocate bills to various departments
• New Azure users can assess their bill health through easy-to-digest summaries
• Subscribers also get recommended tools that can help reduce cloud bills

Corz is a no-code platform helping new cloud users automate billing operations. However, users have to upgrade to a paid plan for more automated functionalities.

DRYiCE MyCloud

Azure is the leading provider of Hybrid cloud solutions. Unfortunately, you will not find several billing tool options for a hybrid cloud. DRYiCE combines the best of both on-premise data centers and the public cloud. Since on-premise networks need lots of licensing and paperwork, DRYiCE helps users of the hybrid cloud to manage their Sales Level Agreements.

The most important feature is reporting, where users do not need separate tools to monitor the private and public cloud. DRYiCE MyCloud has several offerings utilizing Artificial Intelligence for unified reporting. DRYiCE Lucy, for example, is a cognitive service management robot that automates transactional services, which is a good billing tool for the Hybrid cloud.

CloudZero

CloudZero has been one of the leading Azure service providers for quite some time. This tool goes beyond robotic automation to help users partner with a FinOps coach. If you have a more sophisticated infrastructure, consider using this tool.

nOps

nOps is a leading Azure solutions provider. nOps has a wide array of billing capabilities for Azure users. Key features include:

• nOps saves 18%-20% off the bill with automatic cost optimization insights.
• nOps quantifies Azure alerts, helping you estimate bill savings when you take certain actions.
• nOps allows users to group their bills by various labels, whether it is by business unit, workload, or users. This way, you can manage the most dominant cost centers.

With frequent feature updates, nOps subscribers get the latest technology in managing their cloud bills.

The Bottom Line

With so many options available, choosing the best Azure billing tool can be a huge challenge. All you need is to ensure that your ideal billing software has the right capabilities to get the job done.

nOps provides a wide range of cost optimization capabilities, from billing and resource planning to rightsizing instances. If you are looking for streamlined billing and top features such as chargeback and showback, you can rely on nOps.

Start your free nOps trial today, or schedule a demo!