# Blob Storage

## Azure Blob Storage — commitment brief

> **Data sourced**: March 2026. Verify current figures at the [Azure Pricing Calculator](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/).

### Coverage summary

Azure Blob Storage supports reserved capacity for storage consumption on Standard GPv2 and Blob Storage accounts, across Hot, Cool, and Archive access tiers and all redundancy types (LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS, RA-GRS, RA-GZRS). Reservations are purchased in 100 TiB/month or 1 PiB/month blocks — larger blocks deliver higher discounts. The headline savings is up to \~38% off pay-as-you-go at 3-year for 1 PiB Hot LRS. Neither the Azure Compute Savings Plan nor any other Azure-wide savings plan covers storage capacity.

**What is covered**: Storage capacity consumption (GB) for Block Blobs and Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 data on Standard GPv2 and Blob Storage accounts.

**What is not covered**: Operations/transactions (read, write, list, delete), bandwidth/egress, metadata storage, early deletion fees (Cool tier: 30-day minimum, Archive: 180-day minimum). Reservations are scoped per region, per access tier, and per redundancy type — they cannot be applied cross-tier or cross-redundancy. Premium storage accounts, GPv1 accounts, page blobs, Queue Storage, and Table Storage are not eligible.

### Azure Hybrid Benefit

> Not applicable. Azure Hybrid Benefit covers OS/software licenses for compute services and has no applicability to storage capacity billing.

### SKU / tier coverage

| SKU / Tier                               | Reservation | Savings Plan | 1-yr discount       | 3-yr discount       | Notes                                                  |
| ---------------------------------------- | ----------- | ------------ | ------------------- | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Hot — LRS/ZRS/GRS/GZRS (100 TiB blocks)  | ✅ Yes       | ❌ No         | \~18–30%            | \~34–38%            | Most common tier for active data                       |
| Cool — LRS/ZRS/GRS/GZRS (100 TiB blocks) | ✅ Yes       | ❌ No         | \~19%               | \~35–38%            | 30-day minimum storage period applies                  |
| Archive — LRS/GRS (100 TiB blocks)       | ✅ Yes       | ❌ No         | \~11–17%            | \~17–18%            | 180-day minimum storage period; lower discount ceiling |
| All tiers — 1 PiB blocks                 | ✅ Yes       | ❌ No         | higher than 100 TiB | higher than 100 TiB | 1 PiB blocks deliver highest discount tier             |
| Premium storage accounts                 | ❌ No        | ❌ No         | —                   | —                   | Not eligible for reserved capacity                     |
| GPv1 accounts                            | ❌ No        | ❌ No         | —                   | —                   | Not eligible; upgrade to GPv2                          |
| Page blobs                               | ❌ No        | ❌ No         | —                   | —                   | Not covered by Block Blob reservations                 |

### Reservation vs. savings plan

**Reservation**: The only commitment instrument available for Blob Storage capacity. Scoped to region, access tier, and redundancy type. Must be purchased in 100 TiB or 1 PiB monthly blocks. Unused capacity in a given billing period is forfeited. No Compute Savings Plan or other Azure-wide savings plan covers storage.

## Regional availability

Azure Blob Storage reserved capacity is available in all commercial Azure regions for eligible account types (Standard GPv2 and Blob Storage accounts). Reservations are region-scoped — each reservation applies only to storage capacity in the selected region, access tier, and redundancy type.

**Notable exclusions**: Azure Government and Azure China regions are not supported for Blob Storage reserved capacity. Not all redundancy types (ZRS, GZRS, RA-GZRS) are available in every region — zones-based redundancy requires regions with availability zone support.

⚠️ Availability varies by SKU and region. Always verify in the [Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com) or via the [Azure Retail Pricing API](https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices) before purchasing.

### Archera

Azure Blob Storage reserved capacity is within Archera's commitment management scope. Archera can automate reservation purchase across access tiers and redundancy types, monitor capacity utilization against reserved blocks, and wrap commitments in a GRI/GSP — eliminating downside risk on over-committed storage capacity.

***

**Sources**

* [Optimize costs for Blob storage with reserved capacity](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-blob-reserved-capacity)
* [Understand how reservation discounts are applied to Azure storage services](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/understand-storage-charges)
* [Azure Blob Storage pricing](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/blobs/)

⚠️ Discount percentages vary by region, access tier, and redundancy type. Exact rates are shown dynamically in the Azure portal at reservation purchase time. Always verify with the [Azure Pricing Calculator](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/).


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