> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.archera.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.archera.ai/help-center/azure-faq/billing-subscription-and-scope.md). # What Is the Billing Subscription for Azure Reservations and Savings Plans? When you view Archera's Commitment Inventory, each Azure reservation or savings plan shows a **subscription**. This is the **billing subscription** — the Azure subscription where the commitment was purchased and where its cost appears on your bill. It is not necessarily the subscription where your workloads are running. This distinction matters: a commitment's billing home and the subscriptions it actually covers are two separate things in Azure. ## The Billing Subscription Every Azure reservation and savings plan must be purchased through a specific Azure subscription. That subscription becomes the billing subscription for the commitment. It: * Is where the reservation or savings plan cost appears on your Azure invoice and cost exports * Determines who receives billing notifications for the commitment * Must be an eligible subscription type: Enterprise Agreement (EA), Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), Pay-as-you-go, or CSP * Is what Archera displays in the **Commitment Inventory** as the subscription associated with each commitment The billing subscription is a financial and administrative anchor. It does not limit which resources receive the discount. ## Scope Controls Where the Discount Applies When a reservation or savings plan is purchased, a separate setting called **scope** determines where the discount is actually applied. Scope and billing subscription are independent of each other. Azure offers four scope options: | Scope | Where the discount applies | | ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Shared** | All eligible subscriptions in the same EA enrollment or MCA billing profile | | **Management group** | All subscriptions within a management group that are also in the same billing scope | | **Single subscription** | Resources in one designated subscription | | **Resource group** | Resources in a specific resource group within a single subscription | **Shared scope is the most common configuration** for organizations with multiple subscriptions. With shared scope, Azure automatically finds matching resources anywhere across the enrollment or billing profile and applies the discount — regardless of which subscription those resources run in. You get maximum utilization without having to manually assign the commitment to a specific subscription. ## What This Means in Archera In Archera's Commitment Inventory, the subscription shown next to a commitment is always the billing subscription — it is where the commitment was purchased, not necessarily where the savings are being applied. A practical example: if a reservation was purchased through a central billing subscription (such as `sub-hub`) and is set to shared scope, it will actively cover matching Virtual Machines in `sub-production`, `sub-dev`, `sub-staging`, or any other subscription under the same EA enrollment. Archera shows `sub-hub` because that is where the commitment resides — not because usage coverage is limited to that subscription. This is expected and correct behavior. It reflects how Azure separates commitment ownership (billing subscription) from commitment coverage (scope). ## How to Verify What a Commitment Is Covering You can see exactly which subscriptions and resources a commitment's discount is being applied to directly in Archera: 1. Navigate to **Commitment Inventory** 2. Click on the commitment row to open the **Commitment Details** view 3. The details view shows a coverage breakdown by subscription, service, region, and resource type — listing the actual resources that received the discount and how much of the commitment's utilization each group accounts for This breakdown answers the question directly: even if the billing subscription shown in the inventory is `sub-hub`, the coverage breakdown may show utilization attributed to `sub-production`, `sub-dev`, or any other subscription in the enrollment. ## Changing Scope After Purchase Scope can be updated at any time — it is not a commercial change and does not restart or shorten the commitment term. If a reservation is scoped to a single subscription but your workloads have since spread to other subscriptions, widening to shared scope will improve utilization without any cost penalty. Contact if you need help reviewing or adjusting scope on an existing commitment. ## Related Resources * [What does Azure RI 'Instance Size Flexibility' Mean?](/help-center/azure-faq/instance-size-flexibility.md) * [Does Archera Rely on Azure Exchanges or Returns Policy?](/help-center/azure-faq/exchanges-returns-policy.md) * [Commitment Inventory](/help-center/user-guide/commitment-inventory.md) --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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