Sitecore 10 XM Azure Hosting Pricing

Overall Sitecore 10 XM Hosting Costs (PaaS)

Sitecore always gives us options. They provides a number of default topologies and sizing options for Sitecore. In this article we'll looking at the Sitecore XM topology across the sizes of: XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL.

This the sizing is based on the ARM templates provided by Sitecore and the pricing of the different Azure services used.

Also worth noting, we're only looking at pricing the PaaS (platform for a service) model of Sitecore. PaaS maximizes the value of Azure services and gives us superior flexibility for scaling and cost. Whenever possible, it's the best way to host Sitecore.

Sitecore XM By Service

Here is a breakdown of the different services used to run Sitecore XM.

App Services

• Identity Server
• Content Management
• Content Delivery

SQL Databases

• Core
• Master
• Web

Session State

• Redis

Indexing / Search

• Solr

Advanced Logging

• Application Insights

Sitecore 10: XM Hosting Cost Breakdown

First we'll look at estimated overall totals with some rounding and assumptions for factors that may vary (we'll get into more detail on those later).

Sitecore XM Hosting Cost By Size (Summary)

I know - quit stalling Dan. Let's dive into the numbers!

Size	Approximate Cost	Visits/month (approx)
Extra Small (XS)*	$1,061 USD	0 - 150K
Small (S)*	$1,277 USD	150K - 500K
Medium (M)	$1,581 USD	500K - 1,000K
Large (L)	$2,318 USD	1,000K - 2,000K
Extra Large (XL)	$2,683 USD	2,000K - 5,000K
XXL	$4,031 USD	5,000K - 10,000K
XXXL	$4,633 USD	10,000K - 20,000K

I would advise to only use the visits per-month as relative measurement between sizes. There is no such thing as a standard website.

Assumptions In This Pricing

Let's look at some assumptions used to created these prices.

• Solr for indexing / searching is provided by SearchStax.
• Extra Small and Small sizing do not use a high availability configurations (these are multiples more costly)
• Each setup includes $150 USD/month of Application Insights logging at $2.76/GB

Sitecore XM Hosting Cost By Size (Detailed)

Now we'll take a look at the cost based on the provided ARM templates, rolled up by the services listed at the top of the article:

• App Services
• SQL Databases
• Session State
• Indexing / Search
• Advanced Analytics

Sitecore 10: XM - Extra Small

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$657
SQL Database	$103
Session State	$101
Indexing / Search	$50
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$1,061

Sitecore 10: XM - Small

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$803
SQL Database	$103
Session State	$101
Indexing / Search	$120
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$1,277

Sitecore 10: XM - Medium

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$803
SQL Database	$103
Session State	$101
Indexing / Search	$424
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$1,581

Sitecore 10: XM - Large

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$1,241
SQL Database	$162
Session State	$101
Indexing / Search	$664
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$2,318

Sitecore 10: XM - Extra Large

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$1,606
SQL Database	$162
Session State	$101
Indexing / Search	$664
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$2,683

Sitecore 10: XM - XXL

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$2,774
SQL Database	$280
Session State	$163
Indexing / Search	$664
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$4,031

Sitecore 10: XM - XXXL

Service / Role	Cost (USD)
App Service	$2,774
SQL Database	$427
Session State	$329
Indexing / Search	$953
Adv. Logging	$150
Total	$4,632

What About Sitecore Managed Cloud?

When using Sitecore Managed Cloud these are PaaS based topologies and sizes that are deployed by default.

However, Managed Cloud agreements typically have a spending buffer built-in for Azure spend to cover new services, sizing adjustments, contingency, etc. The expectation is that team members will adjust the specific sizing to be appropriate for your project.

What About Solr For Indexing / Search?

This article references SearchStax as a managed service provided for Solr. You'll see in the pricing breakdown that running Solr in s high-availability cluster through SearchStax becomes quite expensive (see M through XXXL). This is not a criticism of its value, per se, but it does seem an outsized expense.

If you're looking to save cost, you can setup your Solr servers. This opens up the opportunity to run Windows or Linux virtual machines, or perhaps run a Solr server from the Azure Marketplace.

In doing that you're likely missing out on the high-availability feature set SearchStax delivers (it's complicated to setup) but it is something to consider.

While Solr is a critical piece of the infrastructure, does it really warrant replicated clustering that is more complicated than the redundancy of the website itself?

Sitecore: Reducing Costs & Increasing Performance

While these topologies and sizings are useful to understand pricing, they are not optimized or tailored to your specific site.

At Fishtank we've invested a lot of time and energy and developed best practices for reducing cost while increasing speed. For example as of this writing, we run our website on Sitecore PaaS for around ~$540/month and achieve initial page load speeds of sub 100ms. Which is pretty good.

We've also increased customer site performance by 10x and for others reduced existing infrastructure spend by +50%. For most Sitecore customers we can do a bit of both.

If you need help with new infrastructure, optimizing your infrastructure, increasing site speed, reducing cost or anything else Sitecore XM / XP related please contact us for an absolutely painless conversation. :)

Thanks again for reading!