Explanation
Why the waste happens and who it affects.
Production workloads often require higher availability, performance, or scaling characteristics, driving the plan toward larger or higher-cost SKUs. When non-production workloads share that plan, they inherit the higher cost structure even though their availability and performance requirements are typically much lower, resulting in unnecessary spend.
Billing model
The pricing dimensions that drive this cost.
All applications within an App Service Plan share the same SKU and instance cost, regardless of individual workload criticality.
How to detect
3 checks to find it in your estate.
- Identify App Service Plans hosting a mix of production and non-production applications
- Review whether non-production workloads are constrained by production-level sizing decisions
- Assess whether environment separation is preventing appropriate right-sizing
How to fix
3 ways to remove the waste.
- Separate production and non-production applications into different App Service Plans
- Size non-production plans independently using lower-cost SKUs aligned with reduced requirements
- Align App Service Plan design with environment criticality and lifecycle expectations
Documentation
Vendor references for pricing and configuration.