Plan Tiers Overview
| Tier | vCPU | RAM | Custom Domain | SSL | Auto-Scale | Slots | SLA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free (F1) | Shared | 1 GB | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | 0 | None |
| Shared (D1) | Shared | 1 GB | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | 0 | None |
| Basic (B1-B3) | 1–4 | 1.75–7 GB | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (manual only) | 0 | 99.95% |
| Standard (S1-S3) | 1–4 | 1.75–7 GB | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | 5 | 99.95% |
| Premium v3 (P0v3-P3v3) | 2–8 | 4–32 GB | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | 20 | 99.95% |
| Isolated v2 (I1v2-I6v2) | 2–32 | 8–128 GB | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | 20 | 99.95% |
Free and Shared Tiers
The Free (F1) and Shared (D1) tiers run on shared infrastructure — your app shares CPU with other customers' apps. There is no SLA, limited compute, and the app may be suspended when compute quotas are exceeded.
- Free (F1) — 60 CPU minutes/day limit, no custom domain, no SSL. Dev/test only.
- Shared (D1) — 240 CPU minutes/day, supports custom domain. Still no SLA.
Never use Free/Shared for production Free and Shared tiers have no SLA, shared CPU that can spike unpredictably, and daily compute quotas. Any production workload should be on Basic tier minimum.
Basic Tier
The entry-level dedicated tier — your app runs on its own VMs not shared with other customers. Basic provides:
- Dedicated compute (B1: 1 vCPU, 1.75 GB RAM; B2: 2 vCPU, 3.5 GB RAM; B3: 4 vCPU, 7 GB RAM)
- Custom domains and SSL certificates
- Manual scaling up to 3 instances
- 99.95% SLA
- No deployment slots, no auto-scale
Basic is fine for low-traffic production apps If your app doesn't need auto-scaling or deployment slots, Basic is the most cost-effective production tier. A B1 instance costs ~₹1,200–1,500/month.
Standard Tier
The most commonly used production tier. Standard adds auto-scaling and deployment slots over Basic:
- Auto-scale — scale out to 10 instances based on metrics
- 5 deployment slots (staging environments)
- Daily backups
- Traffic Manager integration
- Same VM sizes as Basic (S1/S2/S3)
Premium Tiers
Premium v3 provides significantly more powerful VMs and additional features for high-traffic production apps:
- Up to 20 deployment slots
- Scale out to 30 instances
- Larger VMs (P1v3: 2 vCPU/8 GB RAM up to P3v3: 8 vCPU/32 GB RAM)
- VNet Integration (built-in, not add-on)
- Zone redundancy — deploy across Availability Zones
- Private endpoint support
Premium v3 is Recommended Over v2 Premium v3 (Pv3) is the current generation with better performance per price than Premium v2 (Pv2). If you're on Pv2, consider migrating to Pv3.
Isolated Tier (ASE)
The Isolated tier runs in an App Service Environment (ASE) — a fully dedicated, single-tenant environment deployed into your own VNet. Every aspect is dedicated exclusively to your apps.
- Complete network isolation — deployed entirely within your VNet
- No public internet exposure (unless you configure it)
- Scale to 100+ instances
- Largest VMs (I6v2: 32 vCPU, 128 GB RAM)
- Required for regulatory compliance (PCI-DSS, HIPAA) needing network isolation
- Much more expensive — the ASE itself has a fixed hourly charge plus per-instance charges
Sharing Plans Across Apps
Multiple apps can run on the same App Service Plan — sharing compute resources. This reduces cost but means all apps compete for the same CPU and memory.
| Strategy | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Share one plan for multiple apps | Low-traffic apps, dev/test, apps with complementary usage patterns |
| Separate plan per app | High-traffic apps, apps requiring different scale settings, production isolation |
Scale-Up vs Scale-Out
| Scale Up (Vertical) | Scale Out (Horizontal) | |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | Move to a bigger VM size (B1 → B2 → B3) | Add more instances of the same VM size |
| How | Change the plan tier/size | Manual or auto-scale rules |
| Downtime? | Brief restart | No downtime |
| Limit | Max VM size in tier | Max instances for tier (10–100+) |
Choosing the Right Tier
| Scenario | Tier |
|---|---|
| Learning, development, prototyping | Free (F1) |
| Low-traffic production app, no auto-scale needed | Basic (B1/B2) |
| Standard production app needing auto-scale and slots | Standard (S1/S2) |
| High-traffic app, needs more VMs, more slots | Premium v3 (P1v3/P2v3) |
| Compliance, network isolation, single-tenant | Isolated v2 (ASE) |
Creating a Plan via CLI
Azure CLICreate App Service Plan and Web App
# Create App Service Plan (Standard S1, Linux)
az appservice plan create \
--name myAppServicePlan \
--resource-group myRG \
--location centralindia \
--sku S1 \
--is-linux
# Create Web App on this plan
az webapp create \
--name mywebapp-2026 \
--resource-group myRG \
--plan myAppServicePlan \
--runtime "NODE:20-lts"
# Scale up to S2
az appservice plan update \
--name myAppServicePlan \
--resource-group myRG \
--sku S2
# Manually scale out to 3 instances
az appservice plan update \
--name myAppServicePlan \
--resource-group myRG \
--number-of-workers 3AZ-104 Exam Tip Know which features require which tier — auto-scale and deployment slots require Standard or above. Know Free/Shared use shared infrastructure with no SLA. Know Isolated runs in an ASE within your VNet. Know Basic supports custom domains and SSL but not auto-scale.