Azure SQL previously had just one pricing model – a model based on Database Throughput Units (DTUs) and a more recent alternative pricing model based on vCPUs have also been launched.
SQL database pricing
DTU-based pricing
The DTU is the smallest unit of performance measure for Azure SQL. Each DTU corresponds to a certain amount of resources. These resources include storage, CPU cycles, IOPS, and network bandwidth. For example, a single DTU might provide three IOPS, a few CPU cycles, and an IO latency of 5 ms for read operations and 10 ms for write operations.
Azure SQL provides multiple SKUs for creating databases, and each of these SKUs has defined constraints for the maximum amount of DTUs. For example, the Basic...