Announcing backup storage billing for SQL database in Microsoft Fabric: what you need to know
Ensuring data protection with automated backups
SQL database in Microsoft Fabric provides automatic backups from the moment a database is created, ensuring seamless data protection and recovery. The system follows a robust backup strategy:
- Full backups every week.
- Differential backups every ~12 hours.
- Transaction log backups every ~10 minutes.
This approach lets users restore their database to any point in the past seven days, making data recovery simple and efficient.
What’s changing?
While compute and data storage are already included in the Fabric capacity-based billing model, after April 1, 2025, backup storage will also be billed. However, customers will only be charged backup storage that exceeds the allocated database size.
Timeline of changes – until March 21, 2025
- Backup storage usage was not reported in the Capacity Metrics App.
- The only visible component for storage usage was data storage.
March 21 – April 1, 2025
- Backup storage reporting is enabled but remains non-billable.
- The total backup size will be displayed in the SQL database in Fabric experience, helping users estimate their backup consumption ahead of billing.
After April 1, 2025
- Backup storage billing goes live.
- Only backup storage that exceeds the allocated database size will be billed, meaning backup storage equal to the size of your database remains free.
Next steps
To monitor your backup usage, visit the Capacity Metrics App and review the reported storage metrics. Understanding your backup footprint now will help you optimize costs when billing begins after April 1, 2025.
For more details, refer to our documentation:
Automatic backups in SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
Billing and utilization reporting for SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
