Microsoft·InfrastructureGrowth

Azure SQL Resources & Pricing

Making complex pricing tiers and resource configuration legible for enterprise buyers.

Lead UX Designer · Spring 2017

Azure SQL database pricing used a card-based model that confused customers and made scaling decisions feel opaque. Users couldn't understand the relationship between pricing tiers, couldn't visualize what they were getting, and had no intuitive way to control resource allocation. As UX Design Lead I redesigned the pricing and resource configuration experience to make tiers and customization feel legible and controllable.

Key Problems

•The card-based pricing model obscured connections between tiers, making scaling decisions confusing

•Customers had no way to understand what they were getting at each level

•Resource allocation felt technical and inaccessible, especially for less experienced users

•The model was inconsistent with how customers thought about their workload needs

The Solution

The redesign introduced a two-concept model: Tier for selecting storage type and database class, and Customization for fine-tuning resource allocation within that tier. This framing gave customers a mental model that matched how they actually thought about their workload, making the tradeoffs between levels immediately clear.

Before

After

Outcomes

•Launched spring 2017, with measurable increase in customers actively adjusting database resource levels

•Received positive feedback from customers and internal stakeholders on the new experience

•The tier and customization pattern was adopted by multiple other Azure product teams as the standard approach

Back to work