Azure accounts vs. Azure subscriptions – often a topic that brings some confusion to Azure newbies. Are they the same? What’s the difference? In this Azure Every Day installment, I’d like to clear up the confusion.

When you start out with Azure, you’ll hear a lot about Azure subscriptions. It’s simple; an Azure subscription has 2 components – an Azure account and an Azure subscription. So, when you log in, these are two different portals.

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An Azure account portal will show you billing, resource usage, etc. This is where the finance people of your organization can see where staff is spending the money in Azure to help with budgeting.

The second component is the Azure subscription. Here is where you manage permissions and access to your Azure resources. This portal allows you to look at resources and separate duties within your organization, as well as the place where security happens.

So, when you hear someone talk about Microsoft Azure accounts or Azure subscriptions, it’s really the same thing (just two sides of the same coin). Just remember that every subscription has an account aspect that allows you to see the billing side with its own separate portal.