Understanding Azure Key Vault Cost and Pricing

Azure Key Vault cost can be a bit overwhelming, especially for those new to the platform. You can store up to 32,767 versions of a secret in a single key vault.

To understand Azure Key Vault cost, you need to know how it's charged. Azure Key Vault is charged based on the number of storage units used, with each storage unit costing $0.000022 per hour.

Each storage unit is 512KB, so you can store a lot of data in a single unit. The cost of accessing a secret is $0.0000004 per 10,000 requests, which can add up quickly if you're making a lot of requests.

Azure Key Vault also charges for data transfer out, with a cost of $0.000004 per GB. This can be a significant cost if you're transferring large amounts of data.

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Azure Key Vault cost can be complex, but understanding the basics can help you make informed decisions. Actual cost cannot be calculated exactly, but you can estimate it by analyzing your usage pattern.

To estimate costs, you should consider the type of operations performed within the Key Vault. Audit logs, for example, depend solely on the number of operations on secrets or keys. This means that even if you have 1000 secrets, if nobody is accessing them, you won't generate many logs.

The cost of enabling diagnostic settings with log retention periods is mainly influenced by the size of the logs. Most cost will come from Audit logs, which can be calculated by enabling logs for one day and measuring the size of the logs. This can give you a rough estimation of the cost.

Azure Key Vault pricing is based on the number of operations and the amount of storage used. There are two pricing tiers: Standard and Premium. The Standard tier is designed for testing and development, while the Premium tier is designed for production.

The cost of Key Vault itself is primarily determined by the operations performed within the Key Vault, such as retrieval and storage of secrets. The number or size of the Key Vaults does not directly influence the cost. However, the number of Key Vault specific Azure policies enabled can also impact the cost.

Here's a rough breakdown of the cost factors:

Keep in mind that these factors can vary depending on your specific use case, and actual cost may differ from estimated costs.

To estimate the monthly cost of Azure Key Vault, you need to consider the number of keys, the type of keys, and the expected number of transactions. The cost will depend on the service tier you choose, which can be either Standard or Premium.

The Standard tier supports software-protected keys and charges based on the number of transactions, such as $0.03 per 10,000 transactions for secrets operations. In contrast, the Premium tier supports both software-protected keys and Hardware Security Module (HSM)-protected keys, which incur additional costs.

To get a more accurate estimate, use the Azure pricing calculator, which takes into account your specific usage patterns. You can also enable diagnostic settings and store logs in Log Analytics to monitor your usage and costs.

Enabling diagnostic settings will mainly incur costs for Audit logs, which depend on the number of operations on the secrets/keys. If you have a high volume of secrets but infrequent access, your costs will be lower. Conversely, if you have fewer secrets but frequent access, your costs will be higher.

To estimate your costs, consider enabling logs for one day and calculating the size of the logs. This will give you a rough idea of your costs and help you plan for the future.

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