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Verify Azure VM prices via the retail API, not memory

context

Sizing a small self-hosted server on Azure and weighing ARM SKU + public IP costs.

thoughts

Azure exposes an unauthenticated retail prices feed at prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices that takes OData $filter on armRegionName, armSkuName, and serviceName — Linux entries are the ones where productName lacks Windows/Cloud-Services and skuName lacks Spot/Low-Priority, unitPrice is hourly so multiply by 730 for monthly. I quoted B4pls_v2 from memory as ~$30/mo when it is actually $87/mo; the API caught the 3x miss before any resize. Also worth knowing: a Standard static IPv4 is only $3.65/mo, so IPv6-only trades a rounding-error cost for real client-reachability pain (Matrix federation + IPv4-only home/mobile ISPs).

next time

Hit the retail prices API as the very first step of any cloud sizing/cost question instead of recalling numbers.

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