Azure OpenAI: Are Premium Models Worth the Price?

• Azure OpenAI provides access to OpenAI’s language models.
• Azure OpenAI’s advantage is it lets customers leverage Microsoft’s Azure network, identity, security, and indemnification protections.
• Organizations also should consider cheaper or open source models, such as Meta’s Llama or DeepSeek’s R1, for experimentation or on-premises deployments.

The Azure OpenAI service, generally available since Jan. 2023, provides large language models (LLMs) from OpenAI within the Azure environment. While organizations can connect to OpenAI’s APIs directly from OpenAI, accessing them via the Azure OpenAI service enables applications to take advantage of Azure security, identity, networking, and compliance protections, as well as related Azure AI services such as Azure AI Foundry and Azure AI Search. Microsoft has exclusive access to the OpenAI APIs and uses OpenAI models in Copilots.

However, Azure also offers developers many lower-cost models, such as Meta’s Llama; organizations should test and experiment to determine what is best for their needs.