Direct answer: at Azure Synapse Analytics public list prices on 10 November 2026 (eastus, USD, excluding tax and discounts), Dedicated SQL pool bills by DWU-hour: DW100c $1.51/h, DW500c $7.55, DW1000c $15.10, DW2000c $30.20, DW3000c $45.30. A full 730-hour month costs $1,102.30 / $5,511.50 / $11,023 / $22,046 / $33,069, while 8 hours × 22 days (176 hours) costs $265.76 / $1,328.80 / $2,657.60 / $5,315.20 / $7,972.80. Serverless SQL bills $5/TB scanned (minimum 10 MB per query, rounded up to 1 MB); Spark memory-optimized pools $0.138/vCore-hour; Data Flow Standard $0.343005/vCore-hour (minimum 8 vCores); storage $23/TB-month including 7 days of incremental snapshots; geo-DR copy $0.0562/GB-month. Examples: DW500c 8h/day + 10 TB storage = $1,558.80/month; DW100c full month + 10 TB = $1,332.30; Serverless 100 TB scan = $500; Spark 40 vCores × 100 hours = $552. Watch the hourly rule: a pool is billed at the highest DWU used in that hour—scaling to DW1000c at 12:30 and pausing at 12:45 still bills the 12:00 hour at $15.10.
This guide is for data platform leads, analytics engineering, SRE, finance and procurement teams selecting or renewing an Azure data warehouse across Synapse Dedicated/Serverless, Spark, Fabric and Databricks. It separates official price facts, editorial calculations and exclusions, covering the billing map, DWU and pause/scale rules, serverless scans, Spark/Data Flow, storage and DR, reservations/SCU, hidden costs and a 90-day checklist. Prices come from the Synapse pricing page, Azure Retail Prices API and Microsoft Learn (10 November 2026). This is not procurement advice.
(1) Dedicated is a fixed compute fee: DW100c costs $1,102.30 for a full month; pausing stops compute, but storage keeps billing at $23/TB-month. (2) Serverless is a scan fee: $5/TB, only $500 for 100 TB, but each query has a 10 MB minimum and rounds up to 1 MB—full-file CSV scans inflate the bill. (3) The highest DWU in an hour wins: scaling up or pausing mid-hour still bills that hour at the top size; only a full paused hour avoids compute.
Billing map: five meters
Synapse is not one price but five: Dedicated SQL pool by DWU-hour, Serverless SQL by TB scanned, Spark by vCore-hour, Data Flow by vCore-hour, and storage by TB-month. Dedicated separates compute from storage, so pausing zeroes compute while storage continues; storage includes 7 days of incremental snapshots and storage transactions are not billed. Data Flow has an 8-vCore minimum, Spark rounds up to the minute, and Serverless has a 10 MB minimum per query. Pipelines add orchestration and data-movement charges.
| Meter | Unit | Public price | Rounding/note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated SQL pool | DWU-hour | From $1.51/h (DW100c) | Hourly, highest DWU in the hour |
| Serverless SQL | TB scanned | $5/TB | 10 MB minimum per query, 1 MB rounding |
| Spark memory-optimized | vCore-hour | $0.138 | Rounded up to the minute |
| Data Flow Standard | vCore-hour | $0.343005 | Minimum 8 vCores, per minute |
| Data storage | TB-month | $23 | Includes 7-day incremental snapshots |
| Geo-DR storage | GB-month | $0.0562 | RA-GRS, optional |
| Pipeline orchestration | 1,000 runs | $1.00 | Data movement extra |
Sources: Azure Synapse Analytics pricing page and Retail API (eastus, 10 November 2026). Data Flow Basic is $0.272985/vCore-hour; pipeline data movement on Azure Hosted IR is $0.25/hour; storage transactions are not billed.
Dedicated: DWU hourly prices and two operating modes
Dedicated SQL pool pricing scales linearly with DWU: about $1.51/hour per 100 DWU. A full 730-hour month and 8 hours × 22 days (176 hours) differ by 4.15×; most internal reporting or overnight batch workloads do not need 24×7. Doubling DWU roughly doubles query and load performance, but also doubles the bill—start with the 176-hour batch pattern, then extend hours only for concurrency or SLA needs.
| Service level | DWU | Hourly | 730 h/month | 176 h/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DW100c | 100 | $1.51 | $1,102.30 | $265.76 |
| DW500c | 500 | $7.55 | $5,511.50 | $1,328.80 |
| DW1000c | 1,000 | $15.10 | $11,023.00 | $2,657.60 |
| DW2000c | 2,000 | $30.20 | $22,046.00 | $5,315.20 |
| DW3000c | 3,000 | $45.30 | $33,069.00 | $7,972.80 |
| DW10000c | 10,000 | $151.00 | $110,230.00 | $26,576.00 |
Sources: Azure Retail Prices API (productName=Azure Synapse Analytics Dedicated SQL Pool, eastus, 10 November 2026). 176 hours = 8 hours/day × 22 days; excludes storage, snapshots, DR, tax and discounts.
Dedicated scenarios: adding 10 TB of storage
Add 10 TB of storage ($230/month) to compute: DW100c full month $1,332.30, DW100c 8h/day $495.76; DW500c full month $5,741.50, DW500c 8h/day $1,558.80; DW1000c 8h/day $2,887.60. Storage share changes with scale: at 10 TB it is 17% of DW100c full-month and 15% of DW500c 8h/day; at 100 TB, storage at $2,300 exceeds DW100c full-month compute at $1,102.30. Check data volume before adding DWU.
| Scenario/month | Compute | 10 TB storage | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| DW100c full 730h | $1,102.30 | $230 | $1,332.30 |
| DW100c 176h | $265.76 | $230 | $495.76 |
| DW500c full 730h | $5,511.50 | $230 | $5,741.50 |
| DW500c 176h | $1,328.80 | $230 | $1,558.80 |
| DW1000c 176h | $2,657.60 | $230 | $2,887.60 |
Editorial calculation: storage at $23/TB-month × 10 TB; compute at hourly price × hours; excludes snapshot overage, DR, pipelines, tax and discounts. 100 TB storage is $2,300/month.
Serverless: $5/TB scanned, and CSV vs Parquet is 5×
Serverless SQL bills only the data scanned by a query, at $5/TB: 1 TB $5, 10 TB $50, 100 TB $500, 1 PB $5,000. Every query has a 10 MB minimum and rounds up to 1 MB; metadata-only DDL is free. Microsoft's example: the same population data is 5 TB as CSV and 1 TB as Parquet, so one SUM query scans 5× more and costs $25 vs $5. Partitioning, columnar storage and selecting only needed columns are the strongest levers; SELECT * over CSV does the opposite. At list prices, DW100c full-month $1,102.30 buys about 220 TB of scans, but that is cost equivalence, not performance equivalence.
| Monthly scan | Serverless cost | Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| 1 TB | $5 | — |
| 10 TB | $50 | — |
| 100 TB | $500 | Below DW100c full month |
| 220 TB | $1,100 | ≈ DW100c full month $1,102.30 |
| 1 PB | $5,000 | ≈ 91% of DW500c full month $5,511.50 |
Sources: Synapse pricing page and Learn "Cost management for serverless SQL pool" (10 November 2026). Cost equivalence compares money only, not concurrency, latency or SLA; excludes ADLS storage, egress and tax.
Spark and Data Flow: vCore-hours
Spark memory-optimized pools cost $0.138/vCore-hour, rounded up to the minute: 20 vCores × 100 hours = $276; 40 × 100 = $552; 40 × 200 = $1,104; 40 × 730 (full month) = $4,029.60. Data Flow Standard is $0.343005/vCore-hour with an 8-vCore minimum: 8 × 100 = $274.40; 16 × 200 = $1,097.62; Basic is $0.272985, so 8 × 100 = $218.39. Set auto-pause and auto-scale on Spark pools; idle clusters bill by vCore-hour and are a common leak.
| Type | vCores × hours | Rate | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spark 20 vCores × 100h | 2,000 | $0.138 | $276.00 |
| Spark 40 vCores × 100h | 4,000 | $0.138 | $552.00 |
| Spark 40 vCores × 200h | 8,000 | $0.138 | $1,104.00 |
| Spark 40 vCores × 730h | 29,200 | $0.138 | $4,029.60 |
| Data Flow Standard 8 × 100h | 800 | $0.343005 | $274.40 |
| Data Flow Standard 16 × 200h | 3,200 | $0.343005 | $1,097.62 |
Sources: Retail API (eastus, 10 November 2026). Spark rounds up to the minute; Data Flow has an 8-vCore minimum and bills per minute; excludes storage, shuffle, pipelines, tax and discounts.
Storage and DR: at 100 TB, storage can exceed compute
Dedicated storage is $23/TB-month, including warehouse files and 7 days of incremental snapshots, with storage transactions free: 1 TB $23, 10 TB $230, 100 TB $2,300. Geo-DR copy is $0.0562/GB-month, or $56.20/TB-month: 1 TB $56.20, 10 TB $562, 100 TB $5,620—about 2.44× primary storage. At 100 TB, primary storage at $2,300 already exceeds DW100c full-month compute at $1,102.30; with DR, 10 TB of DR alone is nearly half of DW100c full-month compute. Decide DR from RPO/RTO and compliance, not by default.
| Data volume | Primary storage/month | Geo-DR/month | Total/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 TB | $23.00 | $56.20 | $79.20 |
| 10 TB | $230.00 | $562.00 | $792.00 |
| 100 TB | $2,300.00 | $5,620.00 | $7,920.00 |
Sources: Synapse pricing page and Retail API (eastus, 10 November 2026). Primary storage includes 7-day incremental snapshots; DR is RA-GRS at $0.0562/GB-month; 1 TB = 1,024 GB; excludes snapshot overage, ADLS tiers, tax and discounts.
Reservations, SCU and Fabric: price the increment first
Reserved capacity: Dedicated offers 1- or 3-year reservations with up to 65% savings, depending on region/DWU. SCU prepurchase: 5,000 SCU $4,700 (6%), 10,000 $9,200 (8%), 24,000 $21,360 (11%), 60,000 $50,400 (16%), 150,000 $117,000 (22%), 360,000 $259,200 (28%), valid for 12 months across Synapse products except storage; unused commitment is wasted. Fabric: Microsoft Learn now suggests starting new data warehousing with Fabric Data Warehouse, and existing Dedicated workloads can upgrade to Fabric. But Fabric bills by CU-hour and Synapse by DWU-hour, so compare the total increment—Power BI licences, storage, migration and dual-running—not the unit price. If the team already owns F64, reuse that capacity before buying another DWU pool.
Selection and hidden costs
Match the workload: ad-hoc/exploratory queries on the lake use Serverless; stable, concurrency-sensitive warehousing with transactions and workload management uses Dedicated plus pause/reservation; cleansing and ML use Spark; low-code ETL uses Data Flow. Eight hidden costs: scale-up hour billed at the highest DWU, storage continues while paused, storage growth beyond 7-day snapshots, geo-DR at $0.0562/GB, full-file CSV scans, idle Spark vCores, Data Flow's 8-vCore minimum, and pipelines/data movement/SSIS and ADLS billed separately. Also watch commitment risk: over-buying SCU/reservations wastes spend; under-buying falls back to pay-as-you-go. 90 days: weeks 1–2 inventory queries/scans, concurrency, data volume and RPO; weeks 2–4 run real queries on Serverless and compare 176h vs 730h Dedicated; weeks 4–6 decide pause windows, DWU and reservations; weeks 6–8 convert CSV to Parquet/partitioning and set Serverless budgets; weeks 8–10 load-test concurrency and recovery; weeks 10–12 reconcile DWU-hours, scanned TB, storage and DR against the bill.
FAQ
How is Azure Synapse billed?
Five meters: Dedicated SQL pool by DWU-hour (from $1.51/h for DW100c), Serverless SQL by TB scanned ($5/TB), Spark by vCore-hour ($0.138), Data Flow by vCore-hour (Standard $0.343005, minimum 8 vCores), and storage at $23/TB-month. Pipelines, DR and SCU/reservations are additional.
What does Dedicated cost for 8 hours a day?
At 22 days and 176 hours: DW100c $265.76, DW500c $1,328.80, DW1000c $2,657.60, DW2000c $5,315.20. Adding 10 TB storage ($230) gives $495.76 / $1,558.80 / $2,887.60 / $5,545.20. A full 730-hour month is about 4.15×.
Am I charged while paused?
A fully paused hour has no compute charge; if the pool runs and is paused within the same hour, that hour still bills compute. Storage always bills (data + 7-day incremental snapshots + optional geo copy). Resuming reacquires compute and starts charges again.
Serverless or Dedicated?
Use Serverless for sporadic queries with predictable scan volume and no cluster management ($5/TB, $500 for 100 TB); use Dedicated for stable concurrency, transactions, workload management or SLA, with off-hours pause. At list prices, DW100c full-time is about 220 TB of scans, but cost equivalence is not performance equivalence.
How are Spark pools billed?
Memory-optimized pools are $0.138/vCore-hour, rounded up to the minute: 40 vCores × 100 hours = $552; 40 × 730 = $4,029.60. Set auto-pause and auto-scale—idle clusters still bill. GPU-accelerated pools are priced separately in public preview.
How are storage and snapshots billed?
Dedicated storage is $23/TB-month, including warehouse files and 7 days of incremental snapshots, with storage transactions free: 1 TB $23, 10 TB $230, 100 TB $2,300. Geo-DR is $0.0562/GB-month ($56.20/TB-month); 100 TB is $5,620, about 2.44× primary storage.
How much can reservations and SCU save?
Dedicated 1- or 3-year reservations save up to 65% per Microsoft. SCU prepurchase tiers of 5,000/10,000/24,000/60,000/150,000/360,000 SCU carry about 6%/8%/11%/16%/22%/28% discounts, valid for 12 months and excluding storage. Size commitments from 70%–80% of historical usage to avoid unused spend.
How does Synapse compare with Fabric or Databricks?
Normalize the meter first: Synapse uses DWU-hours/scanned TB/vCore-hours, Fabric uses CU-hours, Databricks uses DBU + VM. Microsoft Learn suggests Fabric Data Warehouse for new warehouses, and existing Dedicated workloads can upgrade. If you already own F64 or a Databricks contract, price the increment—licences, storage, migration and dual-running—before buying duplicate capacity.
Research method and limitations
Official facts (pricing page, Retail API, Learn): DW100c from $1.51/h, DW500c $7.55, DW1000c $15.10, DW2000c $30.20, DW3000c $45.30; Serverless $5/TB; Spark $0.138/vCore-hour; Data Flow Standard $0.343005 and Basic $0.272985 with an 8-vCore minimum; storage $23/TB-month; DR $0.0562/GB-month; full paused hours avoid compute and each hour bills the highest DWU; Serverless has a 10 MB minimum and 1 MB rounding; reservations up to 65% and SCU 6%–28%. Editorial calculations: 730-hour month, 176 hours = 8h × 22d, 10 TB storage, 1 TB = 1,024 GB.
Eight limitations: (1) only eastus public list prices, excluding tax/CSP/enterprise discounts/actual reservation rates; (2) query/scan volume, concurrency and data volume are editorial assumptions; (3) the TCO excludes ADLS storage, pipelines/data movement/SSIS, logs, egress and tax; (4) no real concurrency, recovery-time or scan-performance benchmark; (5) reservation/SCU discounts vary by region, term and contract, and examples use official tiers only; (6) Fabric/Databricks are framed as meter reminders, not same-workload quotes; (7) the 10 MB minimum and 1 MB rounding amplify low-selectivity serverless queries; (8) prices and product roadmaps change—recheck official pages and bills before purchase.
Sources and basis
- Microsoft Azure, Azure Synapse Analytics Pricing: azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/synapse-analytics. Dedicated DWU, Serverless, Spark, Data Flow, storage, DR, reservations/SCU, pause billing. Accessed 10 November 2026.
- Azure Retail Prices API (productName contains Synapse, eastus): prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices. DW100c $1.51/h through DW30000c $453/h, Serverless $5/TB, Spark $0.138, Data Flow $0.343005/$0.272985, storage $23/TB, DR $0.0562/GB. Accessed 10 November 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Manage compute resources for dedicated SQL pool: sql-data-warehouse-manage-compute-overview. Pause/resume, scale, compute-storage separation, Fabric upgrade guidance. Accessed 10 November 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Cost management for serverless SQL pool: synapse-analytics/sql/data-processed. Data processed, 10 MB minimum, 1 MB rounding, CSV/Parquet example, budget control. Accessed 10 November 2026.
Data cut-off 10 November 2026; prices/availability follow Microsoft official pages and bills; this is not procurement, commercial or legal advice.