apigatewaycost.com
SHEET 01 / API GATEWAY COST REFERENCE

Azure API Management Pricing: Consumption vs Dedicated Tiers

Azure APIM has the most complex pricing of any API gateway. Five classic tiers plus a newer v2 line, each with different billing models. The Consumption tier charges per call. Classic dedicated tiers charge flat monthly fees regardless of usage. The v2 tiers bundle a monthly request allowance into the unit price. Here is how to choose.

Quick Verdict

Consumption tier for variable workloads under 50M requests/month. Standard tier ($677/mo) for production workloads needing a developer portal and virtual network. The break-even between Consumption and Standard is roughly 190M requests/month.

Tier Comparison

TierPriceBillingThroughputSLA
Developer~$50/moFlat monthly, no SLA500 req/secNone
Consumption$3.50/1M callsPay-per-callShared99.95%
Basic$152/moFlat monthly per unit1,000 req/sec99.95%
Standard$677/moFlat monthly per unit2,500 req/sec99.95%
Premium$2,794/moFlat monthly per unit4,000 req/sec99.99%

Classic Tiers vs the v2 Tiers

The five tiers above are the classic SKUs. Since 2024 Azure has shipped a parallel set of v2 tiers (Basic v2, Standard v2, Premium v2), all now generally available, and steers most new instances toward them. The classic tiers are unchanged and still fully provisionable, but there is no automated migration from a classic instance to a v2 instance, so the choice is locked in at creation time.

v2 TierList price (approx)Included callsOverageScale / SLA
Basic v2~$0.21/hr (~$150/unit/mo)10M/month included$3 per extra 1MUp to 10 units, 99.95%
Standard v2~$0.96/hr (~$700/unit/mo)50M/month included$2.50 per extra 1MUp to 10 units, 99.95%
Premium v2See Azure pricing pageMetered per unitNegotiatedUp to 30 units, 99.99%, VNet injection + zones

Key difference from the classic tiers: v2 bundles a monthly request allowance into the per-unit price, then charges per-million overage, whereas the classic dedicated tiers are a flat per-unit fee with no metered request bundle. The v2 tiers do not yet support the self-hosted gateway or multi-region deployment (still classic Premium only). Approximate list prices, East US; confirm current v2 rates on azure.microsoft.com/pricing/details/api-management. Tier structure per learn.microsoft.com/azure/api-management/v2-service-tiers-overview (updated June 2026).

Feature Availability by Tier

FeatureDeveloperConsumptionBasicStandardPremium
Developer portalYesNoNoYesYes
Virtual networkNoNoNoExternalInternal + External
Multi-regionNoNoNoNoYes
Built-in cacheYesNoYesYesYes
Custom domains1111Unlimited
Scale units1N/A2 max4 max12+ max
Self-hosted gatewayNoNoNoNoYes
Azure MonitorYesYesYesYesYes
Availability zonesNoNoNoNoYes

Consumption vs Flat-Fee: Break-Even Analysis

The Consumption tier charges $3.50 per million calls. Dedicated tiers charge a flat monthly fee regardless of call volume. At what point does a flat-fee tier become cheaper?

Monthly CallsConsumption CostBasic ($152)Standard ($677)Cheapest
1M$3.50$152$677Consumption
10M$35$152$677Consumption
43M$152$152$677Break-even (Basic)
50M$175$152$677Basic
100M$350$152$677Basic
193M$677$152$677Break-even (Standard)
500M$1,750$152*$677Basic (if throughput ok)

*Basic tier is capped at 1,000 req/sec. At 500M requests/month (~190 req/sec avg), Basic handles it. For bursty traffic, Standard or Premium may be required.

Azure vs Alternatives

ProviderModelCost at 50M req/moDeveloper Portal
Azure ConsumptionPer-call$175No
Azure BasicFlat $152/mo$152No
Azure StandardFlat $677/mo$677Yes
AWS HTTP APIPer-call$50No
CloudflarePer-call$17No
Kong KonnectPer-call$30Yes

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Azure APIM tier should I choose?▼
Consumption tier for small/variable workloads under 50M requests/month. Basic ($152/mo) when you need a dedicated instance with SLA. Standard ($677/mo) for production workloads needing the developer portal, virtual network support, and higher throughput. Premium ($2,794/mo) for multi-region deployment and VNET integration.
Is Azure APIM Consumption tier cheaper than AWS?▼
At the same per-request rate ($3.50/million), Azure Consumption and AWS REST API are identically priced. However, Azure Consumption includes the first 1M calls free per month permanently (AWS free tier expires after 12 months). AWS HTTP API at $1.00/million is significantly cheaper than both.
Can I switch between Azure APIM tiers?▼
Yes. You can upgrade from Consumption to a dedicated tier (Basic, Standard, Premium) at any time. Downgrading from a dedicated tier back to Consumption requires creating a new instance. The Developer tier is for non-production use only and has no SLA.
What is the self-hosted gateway option?▼
Azure APIM offers a self-hosted gateway container that runs in your own Kubernetes cluster while the control plane stays in Azure. It costs $0.008 per gateway call processed by the self-hosted container. This is useful for hybrid or on-premises scenarios where you need Azure APIM features but cannot route all traffic through Azure. Note the self-hosted gateway is a classic-tier feature; the v2 tiers do not support it.
What is the difference between Azure APIM classic and v2 tiers?▼
The classic tiers (Developer, Basic, Standard, Premium, Consumption) charge a flat per-unit monthly fee, or per-call for Consumption. The newer v2 tiers (Basic v2, Standard v2, Premium v2), all generally available in 2026, instead bundle a monthly request allowance into the unit price and then charge per-million overage: Basic v2 includes roughly 10M calls/month for about $150/unit ($3 per extra million), Standard v2 about 50M calls for about $700/unit ($2.50 per extra million), and Premium v2 adds virtual network injection and availability zones with up to 30 units. Classic tiers remain available, but there is no automated migration from classic to v2, so pick at creation time. The v2 tiers do not yet support the self-hosted gateway or multi-region deployment.
Tier prices verified against azure.microsoft.com/pricing/details/api-management, June 2026 (East US, classic tiers): Developer ~$0.07/hr (~$50/mo, non-production, no SLA), Basic ~$152/mo, Standard ~$677/mo, Premium ~$2,794/mo, Consumption $3.50/million calls with the first 1M calls/month free. Dedicated-tier prices are per unit and vary by region. v2 tier structure per learn.microsoft.com/azure/api-management/v2-service-tiers-overview (updated June 2026); approximate v2 list prices to confirm on the Azure pricing page. Not affiliated with Microsoft. See also: all providers ranked, AWS pricing, cost calculator.

Updated 2026-06-09