Cost Management & Pricing tools

The Azure Resource Manager MCP server ships an optional Cost Management & Pricing tool surface that lets agents answer cost, budget, savings, and pricing questions in natural language, on behalf of the signed-in user.

These tools are off by default — enable them per client (see below).

What you can ask

Once enabled, you can ask the agent things like:

• "What did I spend on Azure this month, broken down by service?"
• "Forecast my subscription cost for the rest of the month."
• "How much would a Standard_E4s_v5 VM cost in East US?"
• "Show me my reserved instance utilization for the last 30 days."

Toolsets

The server groups tools into toolsets:

Toolset	What it includes
CostManagement	Cost & usage queries, budgets, alerts, savings, AKS cost split
Pricing	Public retail prices and negotiated pricesheet downloads

Enabling the toolsets

Opt in per client by adding the x-mcp-toolset header on the MCP connection to the Azure Resource Manager MCP server. The header value is a comma-separated list of toolset names — enable one or both, e.g. x-mcp-toolset: CostManagement,Pricing.

VS Code (GitHub Copilot Chat)

MCP servers are configured in one of two files:

• Workspace: .vscode/mcp.json in your repo (applies only to that workspace).
• User: open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P), run MCP: Open User Configuration, and edit the mcp.json it opens. On Windows this lives at %APPDATA%\Code\User\mcp.json, on macOS at ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/mcp.json, on Linux at ~/.config/Code/User/mcp.json.

Add (or update) the Azure Resource Manager MCP server entry with headers:

{
  "servers": {
    "azure-resource-manager-mcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.management.azure.com",
      "headers": {
        "x-mcp-toolset": "CostManagement,Pricing"
      }
    }
  }
}

Save the file, then restart the server: open the Command Palette and run MCP: List Servers, pick azure-resource-manager-mcp, and choose Restart. The new tools will appear under Configure Tools in Chat.

GitHub Copilot CLI

Edit ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json and add (or update) the server entry with headers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "azure-resource-manager-mcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.management.azure.com",
      "headers": {
        "x-mcp-toolset": "CostManagement,Pricing"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart the MCP server to pick up the change. In Copilot CLI today this means exiting and relaunching copilot. Verify the server is running with the /mcp show slash command inside copilot.

Cost Management tools

Toolset: CostManagement

The Scopes column shows which Azure scope types each tool accepts:

• Subscription — /subscriptions/{id} or /subscriptions/{id}/resourceGroups/{name}
• Management group — /providers/Microsoft.Management/managementGroups/{id}
• Billing — Enterprise Agreement (EA) or Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) billing scopes, rooted at /providers/Microsoft.Billing/billingAccounts/{id} (and their child scopes such as billing profiles or invoices).

For best performance when comparing costs across multiple subscriptions, make a single query against a billing scope and filter by subscriptions rather than calling each subscription individually.

Query & forecast

Tool	Scope	Input	Output	Purpose	Example AI Use Case
query_costs	Subscription, Management group, Billing	Timeframe (or from/to), granularity, groupBy dimensions, optional filter, metric	Cost & usage rows (up to 100)	Query actual or amortized Azure cost and usage data	"What did I spend this month, broken down by service?"
query_aks_costs	Subscription only — no RG	Timeframe (or from/to), granularity, groupBy dimensions, optional filter, metric	AKS container-level cost rows (up to 100)	Break down AKS costs by cluster, namespace, idle vs service utilization, and service category	"Which AKS namespace cost the most last month?"
forecast_costs	Subscription, Management group, Billing	From, to, granularity, metric	Actual + forecasted cost rows through end of period (up to 100)	Forecast Azure cost for the current or a custom period	"What will my subscription cost by end of month?"
list_dimensions	Subscription, Management group, Billing	—	Supported cost dimensions for the scope	Discover dimensions available for grouping or filtering cost queries	"What dimensions can I group costs by?"

Budgets & alerts

Tool	Scope	Input	Output	Purpose	Example AI Use Case
list_budgets	Subscription, Management group, Billing	—	All budgets at the scope with current spend vs limit	List active Cost budgets	"Do I have any budgets close to their limit?"
get_budget	Subscription, Management group, Billing	Budget name	Budget detail with current spend, forecast, notification rules	Inspect a specific budget	"Show me the details of the prod-monthly budget."
create_budget (write)	Subscription	Amount, contact emails or notifications, optional name / time grain / start & end dates	Created budget object	Create a monthly / quarterly / annual Cost budget with threshold notifications	"Set a $5,000 monthly budget on subscription X and email me at 80%."
list_alerts	Subscription, Management group, Billing	—	Cost alerts and anomaly notifications	Surface threshold alerts and detected anomalies	"Are there any unusual cost spikes this month?"

Reservations & Savings Plans

Tool	Scope	Input	Output	Purpose	Example AI Use Case
list_benefit_utilization	Billing	—	Reservation and Savings Plan utilization metrics	Check how well reservations and savings plans are being used	"How well-utilized are my reservations?"
get_benefit_recommendations	Subscription, Billing	—	Recommended Reservation or Savings Plan purchases with projected savings	Identify opportunities to save with reservations or savings plans	"Which reservations would save me money based on my recent usage?"
list_reservation_transactions	Billing	from (required), optional to	Purchase, refund, and exchange transactions (up to 100)	Audit Reservation and Savings Plan transactions in a date range	"Show me all reservation purchases since January 1."

Pricing tools

Toolset: Pricing

Tool	Scope	Input	Output	Purpose	Example AI Use Case
get_retail_prices	Public — no scope, no auth	Optional service name, ARM SKU, region, meter name, price type, currency	Public retail price records (consumption, reservation, savings plan, dev/test)	Look up public Azure retail (pay-as-you-go) pricing	"How much is a Standard_D4s_v5 VM in East US?"
start_pricesheet_download	Billing	Agreement type (EA / MCA billing profile / MCA invoice), billing period (EA only)	Operation status URL to poll	Kick off an asynchronous download of your negotiated pricesheet	"Start downloading our enterprise pricesheet for April 2025."
get_pricesheet_status	n/a (operation URL)	Operation status URL from start_pricesheet_download	In-progress status (with retry-after) or a time-limited SAS download URL	Poll a pricesheet download until the SAS URL is ready	"Is the pricesheet I requested ready yet?"

Example: a pricing prompt end-to-end

Asking "How much would an Av2 VM cost per month in East US?" — the agent calls get_retail_prices and returns a breakdown across OS and pricing tiers (Regular vs Spot, Linux vs Windows):

Feedback

Tell us how these tools are working for you—your feedback helps improve Cost Management & Pricing tools. Share your thoughts via aka.ms/azurecost/mcptools/give/feedback.

Found a bug or have a specific feature request? Please open a GitHub issue instead — that's the best way to get it tracked and fixed.