Azure-Pricing

# Azure Pricing Skill

Use this skill to retrieve real-time Azure retail pricing data from the public Azure Retail Prices API. No authentication is required.

When to Use This Skill

- User asks about the cost of an Azure service (e.g., "How much does a D4s v5 VM cost?")

- User wants to compare pricing across regions or SKUs

- User needs a cost estimate for a workload or architecture

- User mentions Azure pricing, Azure costs, or Azure billing

- User asks about reserved instance vs. pay-as-you-go pricing

- User wants to know about savings plans or spot pricing

API Endpoint

GET https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices?api-version=2023-01-01-preview

Append `$filter` as a query parameter using OData filter syntax. Always use `api-version=2023-01-01-preview` to ensure savings plan data is included.

Step-by-step Instructions

If anything is unclear about the user's request, ask clarifying questions to identify the correct filter fields and values before calling the API.

1. **Identify filter fields** from the user's request (service name, region, SKU, price type).

2. **Resolve the region**: the API requires `armRegionName` values in lowercase with no spaces (e.g. "East US" → `eastus`, "West Europe" → `westeurope`, "Southeast Asia" → `southeastasia`). See [references/REGIONS.md](references/REGIONS.md) for a complete list.

3. **Build the filter string** using the fields below and fetch the URL.

4. **Parse the `Items` array** from the JSON response. Each item contains price and metadata.

5. **Follow pagination** via `NextPageLink` if you need more than the first 1000 results (rarely needed).

6. **Calculate cost estimates** using the formulas in [references/COST-ESTIMATOR.md](references/COST-ESTIMATOR.md) to produce monthly/annual estimates.

7. **Present results** in a clear summary table with service, SKU, region, unit price, and monthly/annual estimates.

Filterable Fields

| Field | Type | Example |

|---|---|---|

| `serviceName` | string (exact, case-sensitive) | `'Functions'`, `'Virtual Machines'`, `'Storage'` |

| `serviceFamily` | string (exact, case-sensitive) | `'Compute'`, `'Storage'`, `'Databases'`, `'AI + Machine Learning'` |

| `armRegionName` | string (exact, lowercase) | `'eastus'`, `'westeurope'`, `'southeastasia'` |

| `armSkuName` | string (exact) | `'Standard_D4s_v5'`, `'Standard_LRS'` |

| `skuName` | string (contains supported) | `'D4s v5'` |

| `priceType` | string | `'Consumption'`, `'Reservation'`, `'DevTestConsumption'` |

| `meterName` | string (contains supported) | `'Spot'` |

Use `eq` for equality, `and` to combine, and `contains(field, 'value')` for partial matches.

Example Filter Strings

# All consumption prices for Functions in East US
serviceName eq 'Functions' and armRegionName eq 'eastus' and priceType eq 'Consumption'

# D4s v5 VMs in West Europe (consumption only)
armSkuName eq 'Standard_D4s_v5' and armRegionName eq 'westeurope' and priceType eq 'Consumption'

# All storage prices in a region
serviceName eq 'Storage' and armRegionName eq 'eastus'

# Spot pricing for a specific SKU
armSkuName eq 'Standard_D4s_v5' and contains(meterName, 'Spot') and armRegionName eq 'eastus'

# 1-year reservation pricing
serviceName eq 'Virtual Machines' and priceType eq 'Reservation' and armRegionName eq 'eastus'

# Azure AI / OpenAI pricing (now under Foundry Models)
serviceName eq 'Foundry Models' and armRegionName eq 'eastus' and priceType eq 'Consumption'

# Azure Cosmos DB pricing
serviceName eq 'Azure Cosmos DB' and armRegionName eq 'eastus' and priceType eq 'Consumption'

Full Example Fetch URL

https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices?api-version=2023-01-01-preview&$filter=serviceName eq 'Functions' and armRegionName eq 'eastus' and priceType eq 'Consumption'

URL-encode spaces as `%20` and quotes as `%27` when constructing the URL.

Key Response Fields

{
  "Items": [
    {
      "retailPrice": 0.000016,
      "unitPrice": 0.000016,
      "currencyCode"