What is the difference between Microsoft Azure and Beam?

Microsoft Azure and Beam are both cloud GPU providers offering different pricing models, features, and GPU availability. Use our comparison tool to see real-time pricing and feature differences.

Which is cheaper: Microsoft Azure or Beam?

Pricing varies by GPU model and usage requirements. Check our real-time comparison table to find the best deals for your specific needs.

Can I switch between Microsoft Azure and Beam?

Yes, both providers offer flexible cloud GPU services. However, consider factors like data transfer costs, setup time, and specific features when switching between providers.

How many GPU models are available for comparison?

We track pricing for 9 different GPU models across both Microsoft Azure and Beam, with 0 models available from both providers.

Microsoft Azure vs Beam

Compare GPU and LLM inference API pricing between Microsoft Azure and Beam. Find the best rates for AI training, inference, and ML workloads.

Microsoft Azure

Provider 1

GPUs Available

Visit Website

Beam

Provider 2

GPUs Available

Visit Website

Comparison Overview

Total GPU Models

Microsoft Azure GPUs

Beam GPUs

Direct Comparisons

GPU Pricing Comparison

Total GPUs: 9Both available: 0Microsoft Azure: 6Beam: 3

Showing 9 of 9 GPUs

Last updated: 9/24/2026, 9:41:33 PM

GPU Model ↑	Microsoft Azure Price	Beam Price	Price Diff ↕	Sources
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$3.67/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $3.67/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$6.98/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $6.98/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Beam	Not Available	$3.50/hr★ Best	—	Beam
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Not Available Beam $3.50/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 ★Best Price Beam
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$11.06/hr★ Best 8x GPU	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $11.06/hour 8x GPU configuration Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
H200 141GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$10.60/hr★ Best 8x GPU	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
H200 141GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $10.60/hour 8x GPU configuration Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$6.00/hr★ Best 8x GPU	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $6.00/hour 8x GPU configuration Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
RTX 4090 24GB VRAM • Beam	Not Available	$0.69/hr★ Best	—	Beam
RTX 4090 24GB VRAM • Not Available Beam $0.69/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 ★Best Price Beam
RTX 5090 32GB VRAM • Beam	Not Available	$1.09/hr★ Best	—	Beam
RTX 5090 32GB VRAM • Not Available Beam $1.09/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 ★Best Price Beam
Tesla T4 16GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$0.34/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
Tesla T4 16GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $0.34/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API

A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$3.67/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $3.67/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$6.98/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $6.98/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Beam	Not Available	$3.50/hr★ Best	—	Beam
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Not Available Beam $3.50/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 ★Best Price Beam
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$11.06/hr★ Best 8x GPU	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $11.06/hour 8x GPU configuration Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
H200 141GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$10.60/hr★ Best 8x GPU	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
H200 141GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $10.60/hour 8x GPU configuration Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$6.00/hr★ Best 8x GPU	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $6.00/hour 8x GPU configuration Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API
RTX 4090 24GB VRAM • Beam	Not Available	$0.69/hr★ Best	—	Beam
RTX 4090 24GB VRAM • Not Available Beam $0.69/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 ★Best Price Beam
RTX 5090 32GB VRAM • Beam	Not Available	$1.09/hr★ Best	—	Beam
RTX 5090 32GB VRAM • Not Available Beam $1.09/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 ★Best Price Beam
Tesla T4 16GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure	$0.34/hr★ Best	Not Available	—	Azure Retail Prices API
Tesla T4 16GB VRAM • Microsoft Azure $0.34/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Not Available Azure Retail Prices API

LLM API Pricing Comparison

Total models: 9Both available: 0Microsoft Azure: 9Beam: 0

Showing 9 of 9 models

Prices per 1M tokens · Last updated: 9/24/2026, 9:41:32 PM

Model ↑	Microsoft Azure	Beam	Input Diff ↕
GPT-4.1 OpenAI	$2.00 in $8.00 out	Not available	—
GPT-4o OpenAI	$2.50 in $10.00 out	Not available	—
GPT-4o mini OpenAI	$0.150 in $0.600 out	Not available	—
GPT-5.4 OpenAI	$2.50 in $15.00 out	Not available	—
GPT-5.5 OpenAI	$5.00 in $30.00 out	Not available	—
GPT-5.6 Sol OpenAI	$4.00 in $20.00 out	Not available	—
GPT-6 Astra OpenAI	$10.00 in $50.00 out	Not available	—
o3 OpenAI	$2.00 in $8.00 out	Not available	—
o4-mini OpenAI	$1.10 in $4.40 out	Not available	—

Features Comparison

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Foundry
Unified AI platform with a catalog of models, agents, and tools for building and governing AI applications
Enterprise Integration
Seamless integration with Microsoft ecosystem and enterprise tools
Hybrid Capabilities
Strong hybrid and multi-cloud support with Azure Arc
Advanced Security
Industry-leading security features and compliance certifications
Global Scale
Extensive worldwide network of data centers and edge locations

Beam

Pay-per-millisecond Billing
Only charged when your code runs, no charges for cold starts or server spin-up
Sub-second Cold Starts
Memory snapshots and GPU checkpoint restore bring containers back in seconds, which Beam reports as up to 35x faster than a traditional cold boot
Secure Sandbox Environments
Run untrusted code safely in isolated environments for AI agents and code interpreters
Stateful, Persistent Runtimes
Pause and resume sessions while maintaining filesystem, memory, and running processes
Elastic GPU Scaling
Scale to zero when idle, burst to thousands of containers in seconds
Custom Docker Images
Bring your own Docker images for full environment control, including running the Docker daemon inside containers

Pros & Cons

Microsoft Azure

Advantages

Strong enterprise integration and support
Comprehensive AI and machine learning services
Advanced security and compliance features
Extensive hybrid cloud capabilities

Considerations

Complex pricing and billing structure
Can be expensive for certain workloads
Steeper learning curve for new users

Beam

Advantages

Pay-per-millisecond billing with no charges for cold starts
Ultrafast boot times with sub-second cold starts via memory snapshots
GPU selection spanning RTX 4090 through B200, plus InfiniBand cluster nodes
On-demand machines priced flat per machine, including vCPU, RAM, and NVMe storage

Considerations

Serverless GPUs other than the RTX 4090 require a committed-spend agreement
GPU container concurrency is capped on the lower plan tiers
Multi-node InfiniBand clusters are sales-only with no published pricing

Compute Services

Microsoft Azure

Azure Virtual Machines

GPU-enabled VMs for various workloads

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Managed Kubernetes service with GPU support

Integrated GPU node pools
Automated scaling and updates

Azure Machine Learning

End-to-end ML platform with GPU acceleration

Automated ML capabilities
Integrated MLOps

Beam

Inference Endpoints

Deploy high-performance inference endpoints with custom models

Custom model hosting on GPU or CPU
Pre-loading models for fast response times

Sandboxes

Secure code execution environments for AI agents

Run untrusted LLM-generated code safely
Snapshot and restore complete system state

Task Queues

Run large-scale workloads with distributed processing

Audio processing pipelines
Data processing at scale

Pricing Options

Microsoft Azure

Pay as you go

Pay for compute capacity by the second, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments

Reserved VM Instances

Significant cost reduction versus pay-as-you-go rates in exchange for a one-year or three-year term; suited to stable, predictable workloads

Spot VMs

Unused Azure compute capacity at deep discounts for interruptible workloads

Azure Hybrid Benefit

Cost savings for existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses

Azure savings plan for compute

Save money across select compute services globally by committing to spend a fixed hourly amount for 1 or 3 years

Beam

Pay-per-millisecond

Serverless GPU, CPU, and sandbox usage billed by the millisecond with no minimum charges

Committed Spend

Serverless access to GPUs beyond the RTX 4090 is arranged through a committed-spend agreement

On-Demand Machines

Flat hourly price per machine that already includes the vCPU, RAM, and NVMe storage

Reserved Clusters

Multi-node InfiniBand clusters reserved monthly or yearly, quoted through sales

Bring Your Own Cloud

Per-vCPU and per-GB management fee on top of compute billed directly by your own cloud provider

Storage

Persistent volumes and snapshots included up to a capacity threshold, then billed per GB per month

Monthly Plans

Developer plan free with usage, Team plan with a monthly base fee plus usage, and a contact-sales Growth tier

Free Monthly Credits

All plans include monthly free credits that refresh each month

Volume Discounts

Discounts available for high monthly usage, arranged through sales

Getting Started

Microsoft Azure

Get Started

1
Create an Azure account
Sign up for Azure and get started with free credits
2
Set up your environment
Configure your subscription, resource groups, and access controls
3
Choose compute services
Select from VMs, containers, or serverless based on your needs
4
Deploy resources
Launch your first GPU-enabled instance or AI service

Beam

Get Started

1
Create an account
Sign up on the Beam platform to receive monthly free credits
2
Set up Python environment
Create a virtual environment and install the Beam SDK
3
Authenticate with API token
Configure your API token to connect to Beam
4
Deploy your first app
Run a function locally, then deploy it as a web endpoint with the Beam CLI

Support & Global Availability

Microsoft Azure

Global Regions

60+ regions worldwide with multiple availability zones

Support

Basic, Developer, Standard, and Professional Direct support plans with 24/7 options. Extensive documentation and community resources.

Beam

Global Regions

30+ regions spanning the US, EU, Asia-Pacific, and Canada, with workloads routed across clouds and regions in real time

Support

Documentation, public Slack community, and a status page; live chat support on paid plans and a private Slack channel on the top tier