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Build apps for free with Azure Cosmos DB Free Tier

Want to create a new application, develop and test, or run small production workloads with  Azure Cosmos DB ? Our new level of free use allows you to start work without costs and save money when creating and developing new applications.



With the included Azure Cosmos DB free tier, you get the first 400 RU / s of bandwidth and 5 GB of storage in your account for free every month for the entire duration of the account. This means that you can start small and grow confidently, knowing that your application will run in a high-performance database service. You will pay only if your account exceeds 400 RU / s and 5 GB. In addition, if your application has many containers, you can create up to 25 containers in the database with a total bandwidth, and all of them will use free 400 RU / s. You can have up to one free Azure Cosmos DB account for every Azure subscription.


What can you create for free?


We asked members of our development community to provide examples of applications with 400 RU / s and 5 GB of disk space and received many excellent examples of the applications they created: the Alexa application, which helps passengers to use public transport, as well as a web application for conveniently  managing and sharing online lists resources . We will talk about some of these developers and their applications in the coming weeks and months.

Do you have an application with bandwidth less than 400 RU / s and 5 GB of storage? Tell us about him  - we will be happy to share it with the community.

Beginning of work


Create a new Azure Cosmos DB account and activate the  free tier  during creation. There is a limit to one free Azure subscription account. Check out our  quick start guides and guides  or use  an example to understand what you can do with Azure Cosmos DB.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)


Q: Have you not offered a free option before? What changed?

A: We always offered ways to try Azure Cosmos DB for free - as part of the  Azure Free Account , with a  local emulator , and as a  30-day free trial  - but these options were limited in availability and volume. Free tier is available for unlimited time.

Q: How is the free tier discount displayed on my account?

A: In Free Tier accounts, you'll get the first 400 RU / s and 5 GB of storage in your account for free. Any RU / s and storage beyond 400 RU / s and 5 GB will be billed at the regular pricing rates per the pricing page. On the bill, you will not see a charge or line item for the free 400 Ru / s and 5 GB, only the RU / s and storage beyond what is covered by free tier. In accounts of the free level, you will receive the first 400 RU / s and 5 GB of disk space in your account for free. Any RU / s and storage in excess of 400 RU / s and 5 GB will be paid at regular rates. On the account you will not see a fee or position for free 400 Ru / s and 5 GB, only RU / s and storage beyond what is covered by the free tier.

Q: Can Free Tier apply to all Azure Cosmos DB APIs?

Yes, Free Tier works for all Azure Cosmos DB APIs, including Core (SQL), APIs for MongoDB, Cassandra, and Gremlin.

Q: Can I apply a free tier discount for  autopilot databases and containers?

A: Yes. With the autopilot service, you are billed for the highest RU / s, by which the database or container is scaled per hour. When a free tier discount is applied, 400 RU / s is deducted from this value. Check out our  documentation for details.

Q: How does the Free Tier discount work if I have an account in several regions?

A: In multi-regional RU / s accounts, the database or container is replicated in all regions. For example, if you have a container with 400 RU / s, and the account is located in 3 regions, the total number of RU / s account is 1200 RU / s. When the discount is applied, you will be billed at 1200 RU / s - 400 RU / s = 800 RU / s per hour. Check out our  documentation for details.

Q: I already have an account and I want to transfer my data to the account of the level of free use. How should I do it?

A: Once your new account is created and activated with Free Tier, moving existing data to the new account will be easy.  Data Migration Tool can be used to transfer small datasets if you use our Core (SQL) API. You can also migrate data from the Azure Data Factory  for the Azure Cosmos DB Core (SQL) API  and the Azure Cosmos DB  API for MongoDB .

Q: The option to enable the free tier when creating a new account on the Azure portal is not displayed. Where is she?

A: An Azure subscription can have up to one free tier account. If this option is not displayed, it means that another account in the subscription is already enabled at the free tier.

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