Cost Considerations

[!NOTE] This guide expands on the Cost Considerations section of the main contributing guide.

Full deployment testing incurs Azure costs. This guide provides cost transparency and optimization strategies.

[!NOTE] Cost estimates in this document were captured on 2026-02-03 and are subject to change. Use the Azure Pricing Calculator for current rates.

Testing Budget

Full Deployment Cost Estimate

• GPU VMs: ~$3.06/hour per Standard_NC24ads_A100_v4 node
• Managed services: ~$50-100/month (Storage, Key Vault, PostgreSQL, Redis)
• Total for 8-hour testing session: ~$25-50

Cost by Component

Component	Estimated Cost	Notes
AKS Control Plane	Free (tier) or ~$0.10/hour (standard)	Standard tier for production
GPU Node Pool	$3.06/hour per node	Standard_NC24ads_A100_v4
System Node Pool	~$0.50/hour	Standard_D4s_v3
Storage Account	~$20-30/month	General Purpose v2
Key Vault	~$0.05/month + operations	Secrets storage
PostgreSQL	~$15-25/month	Flexible Server, Burstable tier
Redis Cache	~$15-20/month	Basic tier
Log Analytics	~$5-15/month	Based on ingestion volume

Cost-Effective Testing

Strategies for Minimizing Testing Costs

Use smaller deployments:

# Single GPU node instead of default pool size
terraform apply -var="gpu_node_count=1"

# Public network mode (simpler, faster)
terraform apply -var="network_mode=public"

# Burstable database tiers
terraform apply -var="postgres_sku=B_Standard_B1ms"

Time-bound testing:

# Set auto-shutdown timer
az vm auto-shutdown -g <rg> -n <vm> --time 2200

# Use Azure Dev/Test subscription pricing (if available)
# 40-60% savings on compute resources

Immediate cleanup:

# Destroy all resources after validation
terraform destroy -auto-approve -var-file=terraform.tfvars

# Verify resource deletion
az group list --query "[?starts_with(name,'rg-robotics')].name" -o table
az group delete -n <rg> --yes --no-wait

Cost Tracking

Monitor Spending During Testing

# Check recent usage
az consumption usage list \
  --start-date $(date -d '7 days ago' +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --end-date $(date +%Y-%m-%d) \
  --query "[].{Date:usageStart, Amount:pretaxCost, Currency:currency}" \
  --output table

# Create budget alert
az consumption budget create \
  --budget-name "PR-Testing-Monthly" \
  --amount 100 \
  --time-grain Monthly \
  --category Cost \
  --resource-group <rg>

Cost by Contribution Type

Contribution Type	Typical Cost	Recommended Testing
Documentation	$0	Read-through, link check
Shell scripts	$0-10	ShellCheck, minimal deployment
Terraform modules	$10-25	Plan validation, short deployment
Training scripts	$15-30	Single training job
Full infrastructure	$25-50	Complete deployment cycle
Workflow templates	$15-40	Workflow execution

Regional Pricing

GPU VM costs vary by region. Use Azure Pricing Calculator to estimate costs for your target region.

Region	Standard_NC24ads_A100_v4 Hourly Cost
East US	~$3.06/hour
West US 2	~$3.06/hour
West Europe	~$3.67/hour

[!TIP] Test in regions with lower GPU costs when region-specific features are not being validated.

Related Documentation

• Contributing Guide - Prerequisites, workflow, commit messages
• Deployment Validation - Validation levels and testing templates
• Security Review - Security checklist and reporting