3 top tools for Azure cost reporting: SquaredUp, Azure Cost Management, & Power BI

Anyone managing Microsoft Azure will be aware of how quickly its costs can escalate. As cloud architectures grow in complexity—spanning hybrid environments, multi-subscription setups, and cross-platform integrations—the need for intelligent cost visibility tools intensifies.

With enterprises typically overspending by 25%-35% on their cloud resources, Azure cost reporting has become a big focus for organizations navigating cloud financial management.

In this blog, we're evaluating three leading solutions: SquaredUp, Azure Cost Management, and Power BI, comparing how they work, the features they offer, and the workplaces they best suit. Before we go explore each product, here’s a quick summary of our findings:

SquaredUp: A powerful, user-friendly dashboarding tool that makes Azure cost data easy to visualize, share, and explore — without writing queries. Ideal for teams who want clear, actionable insights and beautiful reporting out of the box.

Azure Cost Management: Microsoft’s built-in tool for tracking and managing Azure spend, offering reliable budget controls and usage breakdowns but with limited customization for stakeholder reporting.

Power BI: Highly customizable for advanced users, Power BI enables deep analysis of Azure cost data — though setup and maintenance can be time-consuming and require DAX/query skills.

Azure cost monitoring

It's important not to underestimate the role of cost reporting tools in an organization.

These tools provide visibility into complex cloud spending, helping organizations track, analyze, and optimize costs across multiple subscriptions, tenants, and resource groups. By enabling proactive monitoring and actionable insights, these tools empower businesses to stay within budget, reduce waste, and align cloud investments with strategic goals.

When cost monitoring tools are used effectively, organizations can maximize their return on investment in Azure, improve operational efficiency, and maintain financial transparency in a cloud-centric world.

However, with cloud expenses often spread across multiple subscriptions, tenants, and resource groups, having the right cost reporting tool can make all the difference.

1. SquaredUp: the preferred choice for Azure cost reporting

SquaredUp represents the next evolution in Azure cost observability, combining native API integrations with enterprise-grade dashboarding capabilities. Unlike traditional monitoring tools, SquaredUp employs a distributed data architecture that bypasses Azure's API rate limits. This is done through intelligent request batching and daily caching mechanisms and enables real-time cost visualization across multiple tenants, subscriptions, and even competing cloud platforms (AWS, GCP) within one single pane of glass.

Key features

Here’s why SquaredUp stands out:

• Direct API integration: Provides real-time Azure cost data by connecting directly to Azure APIs for up-to-date insights.
• Out-of-the-box dashboards: Includes pre-built dashboards tailored for common Azure services and cost models, enabling quick setup.
• Customizable dashboards: Allows users to create and modify dashboards with drag-and-drop functionality to suit different stakeholder needs.
• Multi-subscription and multi-tenant support: Offers visibility across multiple Azure subscriptions, regions, and tenants within a single interface.
• Multi-cloud cost aggregation: Supports aggregation and visualization of costs across Azure, AWS, GCP, and Microsoft 365.
• Advanced data manipulation: Features a SQL Analytics editor for creating custom queries and KPIs without leaving the platform.
• One-click sharing: Enables easy sharing of dashboards and reports with teams and stakeholders for seamless collaboration.
• Anomaly detection and alerting: Identifies unusual spending patterns to help prevent unexpected cost spikes.

SquaredUp’s ability to surface actionable insights quickly and its user-friendly design makes it the ideal choice for organizations seeking robust cost management capabilities.

Limitations

While SquaredUp is a powerful and user-friendly tool for Azure cost reporting, it does have some limitations:

• Azure API rate limits: SquaredUp relies on Azure Cost APIs, which are known for their strict rate limits. This can occasionally cause delays in data retrieval if the API limits are exceeded, though SquaredUp mitigates this with intelligent request handling and caching mechanisms.
• Dependency on proper configuration: For SquaredUp to function effectively, all necessary Azure providers must be correctly registered. Misconfigurations can lead to errors like 409 Conflict, which may disrupt data streams and require manual intervention to resolve.
• Cost of licensing: While SquaredUp offers advanced features and customization, it is a paid solution. This might be a consideration for smaller organizations or those with limited budgets compared to free native tools like Azure Cost Management.

Despite these minor drawbacks, SquaredUp remains an excellent choice for organizations seeking comprehensive, real-time Azure cost reporting with advanced visualization capabilities.

Best for

But is SquaredUp the perfect solution for all businesses? Not necessarily. However, it is ideal for organizations needing real-time, customizable dashboards to monitor Azure costs across multiple subscriptions, regions, and even multi-cloud environments. SquaredUp excels in managed service providers (MSPs) managing 50+ client tenants and enterprises with hybrid Azure/AWS/GCP footprints. Its multi-workspace architecture supports chargeback/showback models through secure, client-specific dashboard portals. Small-scale businesses could benefit but might be more drawn to the native tool that comes free with Azure.

2. Azure Cost Management: reliable but limited customization

Microsoft's native solution provides foundational cost tracking through the Azure Portal, which has been recently enhanced with Copilot-assisted optimization and open billing formats. This update introduced DepartmentID-based cost allocation for Enterprise Agreements, improving chargeback accuracy for large organizations.

Key features

Azure native tools like Azure Cost Management and Azure Advisor are built into the Azure portal and offer essential cost reporting features:

• Comprehensive dashboards: Provides detailed cost breakdowns by service, resource, and region within the Azure portal.
• Budgeting and forecasting: Enables users to set budgets, forecast future spending, and track progress against financial targets.
• Cost alerts and notifications: Sends automated alerts when spending approaches or exceeds predefined thresholds.
• Cost optimization recommendations: Integrates with Azure Advisor to offer actionable suggestions for reducing unnecessary costs.
• Multi-cloud support: Offers basic support for AWS cost management in addition to Azure.
• No additional cost for Azure Resources: Included with Azure subscriptions, so there’s no extra charge for monitoring Azure resource costs.

While Azure native tools provide valuable insights directly from the cloud provider, they lack the flexibility and depth of SquaredUp’s dashboards. Customization is limited unless paired with external tools like Power BI.

Limitations

While Azure native tools are valuable for basic cost tracking and optimization within the Azure ecosystem, they do have some limitations:

• Limited customization: Cost Management and Advisor offer predefined dashboards and reports, which lack flexibility for creating tailored views specific to organizational needs. Advanced customization often requires integration with external tools like Power BI.
• Delayed or inconsistent reporting: Real-time cost updates can experience delays, making it challenging to act promptly on budget anomalies. Additionally, alerts may not always be accurate, leading to false warnings or missed critical thresholds.
• Complex setup: Setting up and fully utilizing Azure native tools can be difficult for teams without prior experience, requiring a significant time investment to understand their capabilities.
• Limited integration across subscriptions: These tools struggle with consolidating cost data across multiple subscriptions or environments, requiring manual intervention or third-party solutions for effective cost governance.
• Generic recommendations: Advisor recommendations often lack context-specific insights, making them less actionable for organizations with unique workflows and priorities.

Best for

Azure Cost Management is ideal for SMBs with single-subscription Azure environments and IT teams needing basic cost visibility without additional licensing. The included cost management features would satisfy basic FinOps requirements for sub-500-employee organizations.

3. Power BI: versatile but complex

Power BI is a versatile business intelligence tool that integrates with Azure Cost Management to enable customized, granular analysis of cloud spending. While not purpose-built for cost reporting, its flexibility makes it a popular choice for organizations needing tailored insights beyond Azure’s native tools. However, its effectiveness depends on technical expertise and scalability requirements.

Key Features

• Advanced customization: Power BI users can create bespoke dashboards using Azure Cost Management data connectors, blending cost data with other sources (e.g., operational metrics) for holistic insights. It also offers dynamic reports with DAX formulas, time-series trends, and drill-down capabilities.
• Integration with Azure APIs: Power BI directly connects to Azure’s Cost Management API to pull usage details, reservations, and budgets. It supports both Enterprise Agreements (EA) and Microsoft Customer Agreements (MCA).
• Reserved Instance (RI) optimization: Users can analyze RI utilization and recommendations to maximize savings, identifying underused reservations or opportunities for new purchases.
• Hybrid benefit tracking: The platform offers Windows Server Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) usage, flagging VMs where benefits are underutilized.
• Automation: Schedule data refreshes to keep reports updated, though large datasets may require manual chunking or exports.

Limitations

• Complex setup: Platform BI requires familiarity with Power BI Desktop, DAX, and Azure permissions. Configuring scopes (e.g., billing accounts) is error-prone for non-technical users.
• Data handling constraints: The platform struggles with datasets exceeding ~2 million rows, leading to slow performance or timeouts. Large enterprises may need to split queries by date or use exports.
• No real-time insights: Data refreshes are delayed (up to 24 hours), limiting proactive cost control.
• Dependency on clean data: Users need to be aware that the service lacks built-in data cleansing tools, assuming pre-processed, high-quality inputs.
• Licensing costs: Requires Power BI Pro licenses for sharing reports, adding overhead for teams.
• Price increase: Recent 40% price increases for Premium licenses make ongoing costs prohibitive for mid-market firms

Best For

Power BI is ideal for enterprises with dedicated data teams that need highly customized reports combining cost data with business metrics (e.g., ROI per department). Users can deep dive into reservation utilization or hybrid benefit optimization and integrate it into broader financial dashboards (e.g., linking Azure costs to on-premises expenses).

However, for organizations prioritizing real-time insights, ease of use, and multi-cloud support, SquaredUp offers a more streamlined experience with pre-built dashboards and automated anomaly detection—eliminating Power BI’s steep learning curve and scalability hurdles.

In summary, Power BI excels in flexibility but demands technical resources. For most teams, SquaredUp’s out-of-the-box agility and Azure-native tools’ simplicity provide more practical cost management solutions.

Comparing Azure cost reporting tools

Why SquaredUp is the superior choice for cost reporting

While Azure native tools provide foundational cost management capabilities and Excel offers familiarity for manual reporting tasks, SquaredUp delivers a complete package of ease-of-use, scalability, customization, and actionable insights. Its ability to integrate multi-cloud environments and provide instant visibility into complex datasets makes it the preferred tool for IT professionals managing modern cloud infrastructures.

If you value efficiency and want to unlock deeper insights into your cloud spending while minimizing manual effort, SquaredUp is undoubtedly the best choice.