Azure AI Foundry / OpenAI

Azure AI Foundry & Azure OpenAI — PTU commitment brief

Data sourced: March 2026. Verify current figures at the Azure Pricing Calculator.

Scope note

Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI PTU commitments are unified under a single reservation product: Microsoft Foundry Provisioned Throughput Reservations. There is no separate Azure OpenAI reservation — a single PTU reservation covers any mix of Foundry Models sold directly by Microsoft, including GPT-4o, o1, DeepSeek, Llama, and others. Reservations are model-independent: you commit to PTU count and deployment type, not to a specific model.

Coverage summary

PTU reservations apply to provisioned throughput deployments only — Global Provisioned, Data Zone Provisioned, and Regional Provisioned. The hourly billing model (no commitment) is available for short-term or testing scenarios. Term discounts of up to ~64% (1-month) and ~70% (1-year) vs. the hourly rate are available via Azure Reservations. Reservations and deployments are decoupled — purchasing a reservation does not create a deployment and does not guarantee capacity.

What is covered: PTU-billed deployments across Global, Data Zone, and Regional Provisioned deployment types. All Foundry Models sold directly by Microsoft. Partial-hour deployments are pro-rated by the minute.

What is not covered: Standard token-based pay-as-you-go deployments, fine-tuning hosting, Batch API usage, storage, networking. The legacy Commitment model (PTU-C / Provisioned Classic) is a separate mechanism and is not covered by the new Reservation model. Capacity availability is not guaranteed by purchasing a reservation.

Azure Hybrid Benefit

Not applicable. PTUs are a model-independent compute unit with no SQL Server or Windows Server licensing component.

Deployment type / SKU coverage

Deployment type	Reservation	Savings plan	1-month discount	1-year discount	Notes
Global Provisioned	✅ Yes	❌ No	~64%	~70%	Routes globally. Not interchangeable with Data Zone or Regional reservations.
Data Zone Provisioned	✅ Yes	❌ No	~64%	~70%	Data stays within a geographic zone (e.g. EU). Reservation must match Data Zone type.
Regional Provisioned	✅ Yes	❌ No	~64%	~70%	Strictest data residency. Reservation scoped to region + deployment type.
Standard (token PAYG)	❌ No	❌ No	—	—	No commitment instrument. Batch API offers 50% discount for latency-tolerant workloads.
Legacy Commitment (PTU-C)	⚠️ Legacy	❌ No	varies	varies	Not available to new customers or models post-Aug 2024. Migrate to Hourly/Reservation model.

1-month vs. 1-year reservation

1-month reservation: Up to ~64% off the hourly rate. Lowest commitment risk — ideal for workloads that are ramping, models that may change, or where regional capacity availability is uncertain. Renews monthly.

1-year reservation (max savings): Up to ~70% off the hourly rate. Best for stable production workloads with a predictable PTU baseline. Because reservations and deployments are decoupled, you can change models freely during the term without re-purchasing. No Compute Savings Plan equivalent exists for PTUs — the Reservation is the only commitment instrument.

Critical: deploy first, reserve second

PTU capacity availability is dynamic and not guaranteed by quota. Always create your deployments before purchasing a reservation. If you buy a reservation for more PTUs than you can deploy due to regional capacity constraints, you are paying for committed units you cannot use. Reservations are not interchangeable across deployment types — Global, Data Zone, and Regional each require a separate reservation purchase.

Legacy commitment migration

Customers on the old Commitment model (PTU-C / Provisioned Classic) can continue using it alongside the new Hourly/Reservation model, but it is not available for new customers and does not support models introduced after August 2024. Microsoft recommends migrating to the Reservation model for all new deployments.

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Sources

• Microsoft Learn — Save costs with Microsoft Foundry Provisioned Throughput Reservations

• Microsoft Learn — PTU costs and billing (Microsoft Foundry)

• Microsoft Learn — What is provisioned throughput?

• Microsoft Tech Community — Unveiling Azure OpenAI PTU reservations and hourly pricing

⚠️ Discount percentages (~64% monthly, ~70% annual) are based on GPT-4o Global Provisioned pricing as of January 2025. Actual savings vary by model, region, and deployment type. Always verify with the Azure Pricing Calculator.