I went through this document but not able to get exact difference https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/understand-reserved-instance-usage-ea
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Usage excludes reservation and Marketplace purchases. This is a backcompat option.
ActualCost includes all usage and purchases as they would be shown in your invoice. (With the exception of any cost allocation rules that may be setup on your EA or MCA billing account. This doesn't apply to PAYG or CSP.)
AmortizedCost breaks reservations purchases down and allocates them out to the individual resources using the reservation.
From docs:
By default, cost analysis shows all usage and purchase costs as they're accrued and will show on your invoice, also known as Actual cost. Viewing actual cost is ideal for reconciling your invoice. However, purchase spikes in cost can be alarming when you're keeping an eye out for spending anomalies and other changes in cost. To flatten out spikes caused by reservation purchase costs, switch to Amortized cost.
Amortized cost breaks down reservation purchases into daily chunks and spreads them over the duration of the reservation term. For example, instead of seeing a $365 purchase on January 1, you'll see a $1.00 purchase every day from January 1 to December 31. In addition to basic amortization, these costs are also reallocated and associated by using the specific resources that used the reservation. For example, if that $1.00 daily charge was split between two virtual machines, you'd see two $0.50 charges for the day. If part of the reservation isn't utilized for the day, you'd see one $0.50 charge associated with the applicable virtual machine and another $0.50 charge with a charge type of UnusedReservation. Unused reservation costs can be seen only when viewing amortized cost.
Michael Flanakin
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if I used amortized cost as a metric type for consumption usage details API whether it will return all usage and marketplace charges? – DAK Jul 03 '21 at 10:25
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Yes, actual and amortized cost always include everything. They return the same value if you don't have reservations. Currently, as of July 2021, only reservation purchases are amortized. Note this may change in the future. – Michael Flanakin Jul 04 '21 at 15:40
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Thank you, one more doubt - if I opt for upfront payment for the reservation then which metric type will return that fully paid upfront cost, and if I opt for monthly payment for reservation whether actual cost includes that monthly amount. please clarify this – DAK Jul 05 '21 at 06:58
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It's the same. ActualCost will show reservation purchases, regardless of whether they are upfront or monthly. AmortizedCost will show all reservation purchase costs associated with the resources that used them each day or as an "UnusedReservation" record (see ChargeType). – Michael Flanakin Jul 06 '21 at 15:47
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ok i understood but for me i am getting empty cost for reservation at the time of purchase too in actual cost – DAK Jul 07 '21 at 08:45
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What type of account do you have? What scope are you using? Reservations purchases are only shown for EA billing accounts and MCA billing profiles. – Michael Flanakin Jul 08 '21 at 16:27
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I am using the scope -Subscription for EA Account. I added a Reader role for registered application – DAK Jul 09 '21 at 09:19
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when I try to get BillingAccounts, it's returning only empty responses. So that I am querying consumption data at the Subscription level. https://management.azure.com/providers/Microsoft.Billing/billingAccounts?api-version=2020-05-01 – DAK Jul 09 '21 at 09:23
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That means you don't have access to the billing account, so you won't see the purchase records. You can still see the amortized cost, tho. – Michael Flanakin Jul 11 '21 at 16:25
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Usage excludes reservation and Marketplace purchases. This is a backcompat option.
ActualCost includes all usage and purchases as they would be shown in your invoice.
AmortizedCost breaks reservations purchases down and allocates them out to the individual resources using the reservation.
Arunkumar D
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