Deallocated Azure VM Residual Cost
Stopping a VM stops the compute charge and NOT the storage: its OS and data disks, and any static IP, keep billing at full rate for as long as the VM exists.
Free to start. No card. The playground just needs your work email.
Azure
Found, explained, handed over.
Findings with a dollar figure attached, idle, oversized, orphaned, unscheduled and undiscounted spend.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across Azure, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Delete the disks and public IPs left by the deallocated VM. Where the saving can be proven it is priced; where it cannot, the finding says so.
Fix
The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.
- Applies to
- Virtual Machines on Azure
- The fix, by hand
- Check whether the VM is intentionally deallocated (e.g., a long-running batch worker).
- If no longer needed, delete the VM, then its non-auto-delete managed disks.
- Release/delete any Standard public IP associated with the VM (it bills while allocated).
- If it should be running, start it (
az vm start).
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- Category
- Orphaned resources. Resources no longer attached to anything that needs them, such as unattached volumes and unassigned IPs.
- Where it appears
- The Savings tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-1384- Full reference
Related checks
See the orphaned resources in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
Prefer to talk it through first? Book 20 minutes with the team.
- $30M+annualised cloud spend under management
- 550K+resources tracked since launch
- 20-60%off the bill in the first month
- SOC 2Type II report, plus ISO 27001
Figures published on zop.dev.