Savings plans

Overview

Savings plans track Azure Savings Plan commitments and recommendations directly within Cost Analyzer, so you don't need to open the Azure portal to review discount opportunities or monitor plan utilization. Azure Savings Plans offer discounted rates on compute services in exchange for a commitment to a consistent usage amount (measured in $/hour) over a one- or three-year term, compared to standard pay-as-you-go pricing.

Business value

Centralizing savings plan recommendations and monitoring inside Cost Analyzer helps teams catch under-utilized or expiring plans early, reducing wasted commitment spend and avoiding last-minute renewal decisions.

Prerequisites

Turbo360 needs specific Azure and Cost Analyzer configuration before it can surface savings plan data.

Required permissions

Grant Savings Plan Reader access to the service principal so Turbo360 can view all purchased savings plans linked to a tenant's subscriptions.

Azure

To assign Savings Plan Reader access to the service principal:

1. Search for Savings plan in the Azure portal search bar and open the Savings plan section.
2. Select the Role assignment option.
3. Select Add role assignment > Savings plan reader from the available job function roles.
4. Click Next, then select the required service principal using the Select members option.
5. Click Select, then complete the process by selecting Review + assign.

Turbo360

In addition, the following Turbo360 role permissions control access to Savings plans within Cost Analyzer:

To view or manage Savings plans, a role needs:

• Optimization tab permission enabled, and
• Read (view only) or Manage (postpone/dismiss/ignore) on Savings plans feature.

Roles are created under Cost Analyzer > User management > Roles > Add role, and can be scoped to specific cost management groups or subscriptions.

In Cost Analyzer, enable advanced recommendations in the Recommendation Settings of each cost management group (excluding the root group) to provide access to all purchased savings plans linked to that cost group.

How it works

The Savings plans section has two tabs: Basic recommendations and Purchased savings plans.

Basic recommendations displays savings plan purchase opportunities from Azure Advisor. Each recommendation shows its impact level (High, Medium, or Low), description, and potential monthly savings. The Recommendation Distribution bar shows the total number of recommendations by impact level, and the Total impacted resources figure shows the number of resources affected. Actions taken on recommendations — Postpone recommendation and Dismiss recommendation — are reflected directly in Azure Advisor. Recommendations are not suppressed locally only; the change propagates to Azure.

Purchased savings plans lists all purchased savings plans across your Azure subscriptions. Each plan shows its Name, Display name, Friendly name, Usage status, Subscription, and utilization percentages across three intervals: 1D, 7D, and 30D. Usage status is one of:

• Unused — the plan has no utilization in the period.
• Partially used — the plan is being used but utilization is below 100%.
• Used — the plan is fully utilized.

Use Refresh savings plans to manually reload the latest utilization data from Azure.

Monitoring is accessible from the Purchased savings plans tab via Tools > Monitoring. It has three tabs: Expiry monitoring, Utilization monitoring, and Incidents.

• Expiry monitoring alerts you ahead of a plan's expiry date.
• Utilization monitoring tracks whether purchased plans are being used efficiently and alerts when utilization drops below a defined threshold.
• Incidents lists all monitoring alerts generated for the cost group's savings plans.

Steps

Navigate to Cost group > Optimization > Savings plans to get started.

Basic recommendations actions

Postpone a recommendation

Postpone a recommendation when you want to act on it later. The change is reflected in Azure Advisor.

1. Select the checkbox next to the recommendation you want to postpone.
2. Click Actions and select Postpone recommendation.

Dismiss a recommendation

Dismiss a recommendation when it is not applicable to your environment. The change is reflected in Azure Advisor.

1. Select the checkbox next to the recommendation you want to dismiss.
2. Click Actions and select Dismiss recommendation.

Ignore a recommendation

Ignore a recommendation to remove it from the active list without propagating the change to Azure Advisor.

1. Select the checkbox next to the recommendation you want to ignore.
2. Click Actions and select Ignore.

View suppressed recommendations

1. Click Actions.
2. Select View suppressed recommendations.

Download as Excel

1. Click Actions.
2. Select Download as excel.

Configure expiry monitoring

Expiry monitoring alerts you ahead of a plan's expiry date so you have time to renew or replace it.

1. Navigate to the Purchased savings plans tab.
2. Click Monitoring under Tools.
3. Open the Expiry monitoring tab and turn on the Enable expiry monitoring toggle.
4. Set the Days before expiry for reminder — the default is 7 days.
5. Under Alert configuration, select an Escalation policy.
6. Set a Recipient email address and Email template, or select notification channels (Teams, ServiceNow, Slack, Azure Monitor, or others).
7. Click Save.

Configure utilization monitoring

Utilization monitoring tracks the consumption of your savings plans so you can verify usage aligns with expectations.

1. Navigate to the Purchased savings plans tab.
2. Click Monitoring under Tools.
3. Open the Utilization monitoring tab and turn on the Enable utilization monitoring toggle.
4. Set the Utilization interval — for example, Last 1 day.
5. Set the Utilization percentage threshold — alerts fire when actual utilization drops below this value. The default is 75%.
6. Under Choose the savings plans to monitor, select Monitor all savings plans to cover all current and future plans, or select specific plans from the list.
7. Under Alert configuration, select an Escalation policy.
8. Set a Recipient email address and Email template, or select notification channels.
9. Click Save.

Configuration

Example scenario

A cost administrator enables Purchased savings plan recommendations on the Production cost management group, then configures expiry monitoring with a 7-day reminder window and utilization monitoring with a 75% threshold evaluated daily. As plans approach expiry or usage drops below the threshold, Turbo360 sends alerts through the configured escalation policy, giving the team time to renew, replace, or reallocate the plan before the commitment is wasted.

Troubleshooting

1. Purchased savings plans aren't visible in Cost Analyzer
   Cause: The service principal doesn't have Savings Plan Reader access, or advanced recommendations aren't enabled on the cost management group.
   Fix: Assign Savings Plan Reader access to the service principal and enable advanced recommendations in the cost management group's Recommendation Settings.

2. Expiry alerts aren't received
   Cause: Expiry monitoring is disabled, or no escalation policy or notification channel is configured.
   Fix: Turn on the Enable expiry monitoring toggle and confirm an escalation policy with at least one valid notification channel is selected. Check the Incidents tab to confirm alerts are being generated.

3. Utilization alerts aren't triggering
   Cause: Utilization monitoring is disabled, the threshold is set lower than actual usage, or the plan isn't included in the monitored selection.
   Fix: Turn on Enable utilization monitoring, review the threshold value, and confirm the plan is selected or Monitor all savings plans is enabled.

4. Basic recommendations Actions options are not visible
   Cause: The signed-in user's role has Savings plans: Read permission, which allows viewing only. Manage permission is required to take actions on recommendations.
   Fix: Ask an Account owner to update the role to grant Savings plans: Manage under Specify optimization tab permissions.

5. A postponed or dismissed recommendation reappeared
   Cause: Azure Advisor may have re-evaluated the resource and regenerated the recommendation, particularly if usage patterns changed.
   Fix: Review whether the resource still meets the conditions for the recommendation. If not applicable, dismiss it again. If actionable, consider acting on it or postponing it for a defined period.

FAQs

1. What's the difference between Basic recommendations and Purchased savings plans?
   Basic recommendations show Azure Advisor's suggestions for new savings plans you should purchase to reduce on-demand compute costs. Purchased savings plans lists commitments you already own, their current usage status (Unused, Partially used, Used), and utilization across 1D, 7D, and 30D intervals.

2. Do Postpone and Dismiss in Basic recommendations affect Azure Advisor?
   Yes. Both actions propagate to Azure Advisor — the recommendation is not suppressed locally only. Ignore, by contrast, removes the recommendation from the active list in Cost Analyzer only and does not propagate to Azure Advisor.

3. Can I monitor multiple savings plans with one configuration?
   Yes. Select Monitor all savings plans in the Utilization monitoring tab to apply monitoring to all current and future plans instead of configuring each one individually.

Related articles

• Basic recommendations for Rightsizing
• Advanced recommendations for Rightsizing
• Basic recommendations for Reservations
• Advanced recommendations for Reservations