Stop/start schedule Azure SQL Managed Instance

For staters, consider what contributes to the cost in this case:

1. Compute (vCore) charges — stopped instances do not incur compute (vCore) charges while in the stopped state. This is the primary source of savings from a nightly stop/start schedule.
2. Storage charges (provisioned data storage) — continue to be billed while stopped.
3. Backup storage & backup/retention charges — continue to be billed (local or long-term retention).
4. Other fixed charges (e.g., networking egress, IP addresses) — generally continue if applicable.
5. Licensing — included in the pay-as-you-go vCore rate, so pausing compute pauses that part of the charge.

Inputs you need (get from Azure Pricing Calculator / portal):

R = compute price per vCore-hour in Norway East (pay-as-you-go) — e.g., in USD/hour (or your billing currency)

v = number of vCores (you said 4)

S_GB = provisioned storage (GB) — you said 64 GB

P_storage = storage price per GB-month (same region)

P_backup = backup storage price per GB-month (if applicable)

h_stop_per_day = hours stopped per day (you said 11:00 pm → 06:00 am = 7 hours)

days_month = days in month (use 30 or exact month days)

hours_month = 24 * days_month (typical use: 730 or 720; choose one)

Formulas:

Hours stopped per month: H_stop = h_stop_per_day * days_month

Compute savings per month: Savings_compute = R * v * H_stop

Compute what fraction of compute is saved: Pct_compute_saved = H_stop / hours_month (e.g., 210/720 = 29.17%)

Net monthly cost change = (compute bill without schedule) − (compute bill with schedule) But since storage & backup continue, they aren’t changed:

Compute_monthly_no_schedule = R * v * hours_month

Compute_monthly_with_schedule = R * v * (hours_month - H_stop)

Storage_monthly = P_storage * S_GB

Backup_monthly ≈ P_backup * backup_GB (use your retained backup GB)

• Total monthly savings = Savings_compute (since only compute changes).

To get the accurate regional prices, you can use the following options:

1. Azure Pricing Calculator — select Azure SQL Managed Instance (or your product), choose Norway East, Pay-as-you-go, and read the vCore/hour and storage per GB/month lines.
2. Azure Portal / Cost Management — view current unit prices or your subscription’s meter rates (use actual invoices or the Cost Analysis blade to see meter rates).
3. Azure RateCard / Pricing APIs — if you automate, use the Azure Retail Prices API or RateCard to programmatically pull unitPrice for your region/meter.

There are some additional caveats to consider:

1. Minimum/rounding billing increments: verify whether compute is billed in per-minute or per-second increments in that SKU (usually hourly-based rates are reported but charge may be prorated by the second). Use your invoice or cost API to confirm exact granularity.
2. Start/stop automation timing — ensure stop occurs after all nightly jobs complete; a start during heavy load may cause performance/availability impacts.
3. SLA/HA — frequent stop/start is fine for dev/test but may not be appropriate for production replicas or HA setups.
4. Backup retention — long-term retention could add substantial monthly backup storage charges that are unaffected by stopping compute.
5. Cold start latency — starting the instance reinitializes resources and may take time; plan windows accordingly.

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hth

Marcin