Azure Synapse Analytics Pricing 2026
Complete pricing guide with plans, hidden costs, and negotiation tips
Azure Synapse Analytics pricing varies by team size and features, ranging from $0.21 to $259 per month in 2026. Your actual cost depends on the tier you choose, contract length, and negotiated discounts.
Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.
- Free tier: No free tier available
- Billing: Monthly and annual (save 15-20%)
- Hidden costs: Add ~35% for implementation, support, and training
Azure Synapse Analytics offers 4 pricing tiers: Serverless SQL Pool, Dedicated SQL Pool (100 DWU), Apache Spark Pool, Data Integration (Pipelines). The Dedicated SQL Pool (100 DWU) plan is production data warehousing with predictable, consistent performance requirements.
Compared to other data warehousing software, Azure Synapse Analytics is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.
Azure Synapse Analytics is Microsoft's unified analytics platform that combines enterprise data warehousing, data lake exploration, data integration, and big data analytics into a single service. Formerly known as Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Synapse offers both serverless and dedicated resource models, giving teams flexibility to choose the right pricing approach for each workload. The platform integrates natively with Power BI, Azure Machine Learning, and the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
Synapse pricing varies by component: serverless SQL pools charge $5 per TB of data processed, dedicated SQL pools start at approximately $1.39/hour for 100 DWUs (Data Warehouse Units), and Spark pools charge per vCore-hour. For a mid-size analytics team, expect to spend $1,500-$5,000 per month depending on the mix of serverless and dedicated resources. Pre-purchase plans (Synapse Commit Units) offer up to 28% savings, and reserved capacity commitments can reduce dedicated pool costs by up to 65%.
All Azure Synapse Analytics Plans & Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serverless SQL Pool | Contact | Contact | Ad-hoc queries, data exploration, and variable workloads against data lake files |
| Dedicated SQL Pool (100 DWU) | Contact | Contact | Production data warehousing with predictable, consistent performance requirements |
| Apache Spark Pool | Contact | Contact | Data engineering, ETL, and machine learning workloads on large datasets |
| Data Integration (Pipelines) | Contact | Contact | Teams needing ETL/ELT pipelines to move and transform data across systems |
View all features by plan
Serverless SQL Pool
- $5 per TB of data processed
- No infrastructure provisioning needed
- Query data directly in Azure Data Lake
- Pay only for queries executed
- T-SQL query support
- Built-in cost controls (daily/weekly/monthly budgets)
- Minimum charge of 10 MB per query
- Included automatically with every Synapse workspace
Dedicated SQL Pool (100 DWU)
- ~$1.39/hour for 100 DWUs (~$1,015/month if always on)
- Massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture
- Pause and resume to stop compute billing
- Scale from 100 DWU to 30,000 DWU
- Workload management and classification
- Result-set caching for repeated queries
- Materialized views for performance
- Predictable performance for concurrent users
Apache Spark Pool
- Pay per vCore-hour prorated by the minute
- Auto-scale and auto-pause capabilities
- Native integration with Azure Data Lake
- Support for Python, Scala, .NET, and SQL
- Built-in notebook experience
- Integration with Azure ML and Power BI
- Shared metadata with SQL pools
- Intelligent caching and Delta Lake support
Data Integration (Pipelines)
- First 1 million pipeline operations free per month
- Data movement and orchestration
- 90+ built-in connectors for data sources
- Code-free data transformation with data flows
- Scheduled and event-driven pipelines
- Monitoring and alerting built-in
- Integration with Azure DevOps for CI/CD
- Mapping data flows charged per vCore-hour
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Frequently Asked Questions
01 How much does Azure Synapse Analytics cost?
Azure Synapse pricing depends on the component used. Serverless SQL pools charge $5/TB of data processed. Dedicated SQL pools start at ~$1.39/hour for 100 DWUs (~$1,015/month always-on). Spark pools charge per vCore-hour. Pre-purchase plans (SCUs) offer up to 28% savings with a 12-month commitment.
02 Does Azure Synapse have a free tier?
Azure Synapse does not have a permanent free tier, but the serverless SQL pool is included with every workspace at no cost until you run queries ($5/TB processed). Additionally, pipeline operations include 1 million free activity runs per month. Azure also offers $200 in free credits for new accounts to try all services.
03 What is the difference between Synapse serverless and dedicated SQL pools?
Serverless SQL pools charge $5/TB of data processed with no infrastructure to manage, ideal for ad-hoc queries against data lake files. Dedicated SQL pools provide provisioned compute capacity (billed per DWU-hour at ~$1.39/hr for 100 DWUs) with predictable performance and can be paused to stop billing. Dedicated pools are better for consistent, high-concurrency production workloads.
04 How can I save money on Azure Synapse?
Key strategies include: pausing dedicated SQL pools during nights and weekends (saving 60-70% of compute), using serverless pools for ad-hoc queries instead of always-on dedicated pools, purchasing SCU pre-purchase plans for 28% savings, using reserved capacity for 1-3 year commitments (up to 65% off), and optimizing data formats to reduce serverless per-TB costs.
05 What is the minimum cost to run Azure Synapse?
The minimum cost is effectively $0 if you only use the serverless SQL pool for small queries. The cheapest dedicated SQL pool at 100 DWUs costs ~$1.39/hour. If paused 16 hours/day on weekdays and all weekend, a 100 DWU pool costs approximately $280/month. Serverless queries at $5/TB are the most affordable entry point for light usage.