What does Azure Virtual Desktop cost? Consumption at Microsoft or a fixed price per user

Azure Virtual Desktop has no fixed price per user in Azure itself. You pay per hour for the servers the workplaces run on, plus storage, data traffic, licences and management. That makes the question of what it costs harder than it looks: the answer depends on how many hours your servers are running and how many people fit on one server. The other way is a fixed price per user per month, as with our Online Workspace. AVD stands for Azure Virtual Desktop, Microsoft's workplace technology.

The Online Workspace costs €38 per user per month plus Microsoft 365 Business Premium (€19.56), together €57.56 all in, and if you already have Business Premium you only pay the €38. It runs on AVD technology on our own servers in Eindhoven and Den Bosch, so no consumption bill is added and storage is unlimited. See Online Workspace.

Below you will find what an Azure bill consists of, then a calculation for 25 users with the assumptions stated, and then the same office on a fixed price.

What an Azure bill consists of

In Azure you pay six items, and they appear separately on your invoice.

Compute. The session hosts are the virtual servers your staff desktops run on. You pay per hour, for as long as a host is running. When it is off, you only pay for its disk. In nearly every environment this is the largest item.

Storage. Three kinds, each per GB per month: the system disks of the hosts, the user profiles holding the settings and documents an employee takes into every session, and the company file storage.

Network. Outbound data traffic per GB, plus the connections you need to reach your own server or industry software.

Backup. Per GB per month, with the retention period deciding how much it becomes. Being able to go back a month costs more than being able to go back a week.

Licences. Every user needs a Microsoft 365 licence that carries the right to use the workplace. Microsoft 365 Business Premium is one of them and costs €19.56 per user per month. You need this item just as much in Azure as with us.

Management. Someone builds the environment, maintains the images, rolls out updates, keeps an eye on Defender and answers the phone when something does not work. In Azure that is a separate agreement or a timesheet. In comparisons this is the item most often forgotten.

Calculation: 25 users in Azure

A calculation is only usable when the assumptions come with it. These are the assumptions for an office of 25 people doing standard office work: Office, email, a browser and an industry package.

What this becomes in euros depends on Microsoft's rates at the moment you buy. Those differ per region, per server type and per agreement, and they change. So we do not put them in this article: an amount from today may no longer be right next quarter. Take the table above to Microsoft's pricing calculator and you have your own range within fifteen minutes. Prefer to have it worked out for you? Request an Azure cost scan.

Two dials decide nearly the whole outcome.

How many hours your hosts are running. 220 hours per month instead of 730 takes more than two thirds off the compute. Auto-scaling does that work, but it has to be set up and checked, and one host always stays on for whoever works into the evening.

How many users fit on one host. Going from 8 to 12 users per host takes a whole server out of your bill. Stretching it too far is something your staff will notice: Excel is slow at nine in the morning, exactly when everybody starts. This is the trade-off you want a party for that has done it before.

A first calculation nearly always misses four items: the reserve capacity for busy moments, the data traffic, the monitoring and the backup with a real retention period. Add the hours of whoever manages it. Without those items you are comparing half a consumption rate with an all-in price.

The same office on the Online Workspace

On a fixed price, the same 25 people look like this.

If the office already has Business Premium, €950 per month remains for the workplaces. Nothing else is added: no hours per host, no storage per GB, no data traffic, no separate management agreement and no backup invoice. The €38 includes the Windows desktop on AVD, the Microsoft user licence for the workplace, unlimited storage, a daily backup in our second data centre, Microsoft Defender, central updates, access rules and MFA through Microsoft Entra, 24/7 monitoring and a helpdesk that knows your environment. Cancel monthly.

The technology is the same: the same Microsoft management layer, the same Windows App to sign in, the same secure connection through the Microsoft management layer. The difference is where the servers sit and what your invoice looks like. What that move involves is in the Online Workspace now runs on AVD, and the full price build-up per employee in what does an online workspace cost per employee.

This applies to every Online Workspace we deliver from 1 September 2026.

When consumption in Azure works out better

There are situations where paying per hour simply fits better.

• You have staff in multiple countries and want the workplace close to them.
• Your user numbers fluctuate strongly, through seasonal work or project teams that join for a few months.
• You already have an Azure commitment or an Enterprise Agreement you are using anyway.
• You need specific Azure services alongside the workplace that sit close to it.
• You want a temporary environment for a migration or a test, and after two months it can go.

We build and manage both variants, so we will not push you one way. How we deliver AVD on our own hardware is on Azure Virtual Desktop, with a table that puts the items next to our fixed price.