Stage 1 · Lesson 2 of 7
Billing accounts, billing profiles and subscriptions
Azure separates paying from organising. A holds your agreement with Microsoft; under a Microsoft Customer Agreement, billing profiles each produce a separate and invoice sections group subscriptions within it. Separately, management groups, subscriptions and resource groups organise resources, and Cost Management can show cost at any of these scopes.
Most companies use subscriptions per business unit or environment and resource groups per product. One subtlety: a reservation is bought in one subscription but its discount can apply to usage in others.
Common trapdesigning subscriptions only for permissions, then discovering that cost cannot be split the way finance needs.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come with the full roadmap. Unlock
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- CourseFreeIntroduction to FinOps (free course)
FinOps Foundation · Beginner
Free: the FinOps Foundation's own first course, so you start with the right picture of what FinOps is
- CourseFreeMicrosoft Learn FinOps modules
Microsoft · Beginner
Free: do "Get started with FinOps" now and keep the Azure module for later stages