Predictika · Microsoft Azure cloud quotes

An AI sales agent's Azure quote, checked before it goes out

An AI sales agent prepares an Azure quote: VM, Blob storage, Fabric and Azure SQL lines, commitments, agreement term, data transfer, any MACC deal discount and a support plan, in US dollars a month. Before it goes out, the agent sends it to Predictika, which checks it against a declarative model of the pricing and quoting rules, compares the monthly total the quote states with the computed one, and returns every finding together with the line-item quote. This is an illustrative model built from public product information with illustrative prices; it is not Microsoft's internal rule set.

Scope: Azure cloud quotes (VM, Blob, Fabric and Azure SQL lines, commitments, egress, MACC discount and support plan). See everything this validator covers

This validator models one slice of Azure pricing: quotes built from VM, Blob storage, Microsoft Fabric and Azure SQL lines, with the agreement term, data transfer, MACC deal discount and support plan around them. It handles any quote built from those parts, not only the scenarios shown on this page. It does not cover other Azure services (AKS, Functions, networking beyond egress) or other vendors.

  • Covered: VMs and storage — pay-as-you-go, Spot, reservations and savings plans (including combinations Azure does not sell, such as retired series and ND H100 v5 savings plans), hours planned against full-month commitment billing, and Blob storage classes with minimum durations.
  • Covered: Fabric and Azure SQL — Fabric capacity SKUs, reservation terms and report-viewer licensing, and Azure SQL tiers (serverless against provisioned reserved capacity, the 128-vCore limit, Hybrid Benefit and zone redundancy).
  • Covered: commercial terms — commitment length against the agreement, data transfer with the free allowance, the MACC deal-discount band, support plans, the empty-quote check, and the monthly total the agent states.
  • Not covered — Azure services other than those four, taxes, and real Microsoft contract terms. This model has no approval step: every finding is a block or a warning, so none of the scenarios needs an approval.
  • Labeled as assumptions — prices, discount bands, SQL license adders and the serverless rate are illustrative values built from public product information, not a Microsoft price list.
The AI sales agentBuilds the Azure quote from the conversation and says it is ready.
Predictika validatorChecks every rule at once and returns the verdict, each finding, and the computed figures.

8 scenarios in 4 groups · each group runs from the agent’s first attempt to the outcome · click one to switch

What the agent proposes

The AI sales agent says

Proposing agent: AI sales agent (scripted)

Before sending, the agent must call Recorded run

Predictika validator


      

        
        
        
      

      
Waiting for the call.

      
    

  

  
  

    
Where rules-based CPQ gets it wrong
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Our assessment of what a typical rules-based CPQ (product rules, price rules and validation rules, as in Salesforce CPQ) does with the same cases. It is a judgment about effort and reliability, not a claim that nothing can be built.

    
What the validator caughtTypical rules-based CPQPredictika
Monthly total built from compute, storage, analytics, database, transfer, discount and supportOnly with care
The total chains VM prices by commitment type, Blob rates, Fabric capacity rates, SQL vCore and license rates, tiered egress after a free allowance, a spend-based discount and a support fee. A rule set can price each step, but every step has to be kept in step with the others.		The whole chain is computed on every call and returned as line items that add up to the monthly total, the first-year spend and the whole-agreement total.
Commitment length matched to the agreementOnly with care
VMs, Fabric and Azure SQL each have their own commitment options, and each has to fit inside the agreement. Each check works alone; together they are easy to leave out of step.		Every commitment is compared with the agreement term on every call, and a longer one is blocked with the line named.
Reservations and savings plans that Azure does not sell for a VM sizeOnly with workarounds
Which commitments exist depends on the series (retired series, GPU series with no savings-plan rate), and those exceptions are facts about the catalog, not rules about the quote.		The catalog of what is sold is part of the model, so an option that is not sold is blocked and the sold alternatives stay available.
MACC discount limited by annual spendOnly with care
The permitted discount depends on the annual spend after commitments, which is itself the end of a long calculation.		The permitted discount band is computed from the spend on every call and compared with the one requested.
Monthly total that the agent states must match the computed oneOnly with workarounds
A validation rule can compare a stated figure with a calculated one only if the stated figure is a field on the quote, which it rarely is.		The stated monthly total is compared with the computed total at every step of processing the quote; a mismatch is its own block.

  

  

    
What this validator catches: findings from its test cases
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Every rule is checked on every call, in any order the choices arrive; one problem never hides another. Blocking findings stop the quote; approval findings need a person to sign off; everything else is computed.

    
1A reservation or savings-plan commitment that Azure does not sell for a VM size is blocked, for example any reservation on retired series such as B v1 and Fsv2, or a savings plan on ND H100 v5.
2Spot pricing for a VM size that is not offered as Spot is blocked.
3A VM, Fabric or Azure SQL commitment cannot be longer than the agreement; a 3-year commitment on a 1-year agreement is blocked.
4Azure SQL serverless cannot be covered by reserved capacity, and a provisioned tier allows at most its vCore limit per database (128 for General Purpose and Business Critical).
5The MACC deal discount requested is limited to the band for the annual spend; above it the quote is blocked.
6The monthly total the agent states must match the computed total to within one dollar; otherwise the quote is blocked.
7A quote with no service lines is blocked.
8A savings plan where a reservation of the same term saves much more is flagged.
9Spot GPU VMs are flagged because they can be evicted with 30 seconds notice.
10A commitment that costs more than pay-as-you-go at the planned hours is flagged, and so is a commitment billed for every hour of the month.
11A 3-year Fabric reservation is flagged because it costs the same per hour as a 1-year one.
12Fabric capacity below F64 with report viewers is flagged because each viewer needs a Power BI Pro license.
13Azure SQL reserved capacity discounts compute only; the license stays at pay-as-you-go unless Azure Hybrid Benefit applies, and that is flagged.
14Zone redundancy on a tier that does not include it is flagged because the surcharge is not priced.
15Blob storage kept for less than the class minimum duration (Archive, 180 days) is flagged.
16Production-size spend on Developer or Basic support is flagged.
17Egress is priced in tiers after a 100 GB free allowance, the MACC discount applies after commitments but not to support, and support is the plan monthly minimum.

  

  








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