Every web app, API or bot you host on Azure App Service runs on an App Service plan. This guide creates an App Service plan on the Free F1 tier in the Microsoft Azure portal, step by step with real screenshots, and shows the paid tier the form picks by default, so you don’t create one by accident.
What is an Azure App Service plan?
An App Service plan defines the compute resources your apps run on. Every App Service app runs in a plan, and all the apps in one plan share its resources. Each plan defines:
- the operating system: Windows or Linux
- the region, such as Central India or West US 3
- the number of virtual machine (VM) instances and their size
- the pricing tier, which decides what you pay and which features you get
| Category | Tiers | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Shared compute | Free, Shared | Your apps run on VMs shared with other customers and get a CPU quota. Meant for development and testing, with no financially backed SLA. |
| Dedicated compute | Basic, Standard, Premium v2, v3 and v4 | Your apps run on VMs dedicated to your plan. You pay for every instance in the plan. |
| Isolated | Isolated v2 | Dedicated VMs inside a dedicated virtual network (an App Service Environment). |
This guide uses Free F1. It costs nothing, but it has limits: each app gets 60 CPU minutes per day and 1 GB of storage, and an app that uses up its CPU quota is stopped until the quota resets (App Service limits). Free apps also can’t use custom domains: they’re reached at their *.azurewebsites.net address.
What you’ll have at the end
A Linux App Service plan named asp-jdbots-demo on the Free F1 tier, in the resource group rg-jdbots-demo in Central India, ready to host its first app.
Prerequisites
- An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don’t have one, create a free Azure account.
- A resource group to put the plan in. This guide uses
rg-jdbots-demofrom How to Create a Resource Group in the Microsoft Azure Portal. You can also create a new group from the plan form. - Cost: Free F1 costs nothing. Watch Step 3: the form pre-selects a paid Premium tier.
Step 1: Open App Service plans in the Azure portal
Sign in to the Azure portal. In the search box at the top of the page, type App Service plans, then select App Service plans under Services.
Step 2: Select + Create
The App Service plans page lists the plans you can access. Select + Create at the start of the toolbar.
Step 3: Check the defaults before you type anything
The Create App Service Plan form opens on the Basics tab. Before you fill it in, look at what it already selected. In this run it chose:
- Resource Group: (New) Resource group, a brand-new group instead of an existing one
- Region: West US 3
- Pricing plan: Premium V3 P1V3 (8 GB memory, 2 vCPU), a paid production tier
Watch the pricing plan. If you fill in only the name and select Review + create, you create a Premium V3 plan, which is billed for every hour it exists, even with no apps in it. Your defaults can differ by account and region, which is exactly why you set every field yourself.
Step 4: Fill in the project and plan details
| Field | What it means | Value used in this guide |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | The subscription that pays for the plan. | Your subscription (shown as My Subscription in the screenshots) |
| Resource Group | The group the plan belongs to. Pick an existing group, or select Create new. | rg-jdbots-demo |
| Name | 1 to 60 characters: letters, digits and hyphens, unique within the resource group. Start it with asp-, the abbreviation used for App Service plans in Microsoft’s naming conventions. | asp-jdbots-demo |
| Operating System | Linux or Windows. Pick what your app stack needs: an app can only move between plans with the same operating system. | Linux |
| Region | Where the plan’s compute runs. Pick the region closest to your users: you can’t change a plan’s region later. | Central India |
Step 5: Choose the Free F1 pricing plan
Open the Pricing plan list. It shows popular plans with an estimated monthly price in your billing currency, which is Indian rupees (INR) for this account. In this run, Free F1 showed 0.00 INR per month, Basic B1 1,093.18 INR per month, and the default Premium V3 P1V3 9,960.07 INR per month.
Select Free F1. The field now reads Free F1 (1 GB memory), and the form looks like this:
Tip: select Explore pricing plans under the list to see more details about each tier before you choose.
Step 6: Leave zone redundancy disabled
Scroll down to Zone redundancy. Zone redundancy spreads a plan’s instances across availability zones so your apps survive a zone failure, and it needs a Premium v2, v3 or v4 plan with at least two instances (Reliability in Azure App Service). On the Free tier, the portal says so and keeps Disabled selected.
The Tags tab is optional, so select Review + create at the bottom of the form.
Step 7: Review and create the plan
The Review + create tab summarizes the plan. Check that SKU says Free and Memory says 1 GB memory.
Select Create. The Download a template for automation link next to it gives you the same plan as a template you can deploy again later.
Step 8: Wait for the deployment to complete
Azure deploys the plan and opens the deployment page. When it shows Your deployment is complete, select Go to resource.
Step 9: Check your new App Service plan
The plan’s Overview page confirms every choice: Status Ready, Location Central India, Pricing plan F1, Instance count 1, App(s) / Slots 0 / 0, Operating System Linux and Zone redundant Disabled. The banner at the top notes that plan metrics aren’t available on the Free and Shared tiers.
Step 10: Change the pricing tier later (optional)
You can move a plan to another tier at any time from Scale up (App Service plan) in its left menu (Scale up an app in Azure App Service). The page lists every tier with its vCPUs, memory, storage, instance limit, SLA, and price per hour and per month. Free F1 is ticked as the current tier.
To change the tier, select a row and then Select. Any tier other than Free is billed, so move up only when you need something Free doesn’t have, such as a custom domain, more CPU or an SLA. This guide stops here without changing the tier.
Do It with the Azure CLI
The Azure CLI command az appservice plan create creates the same plan: give it the resource group, the name, the location and --sku F1. In current versions of the CLI, new plans are Linux unless you pass --is-linux false. See Microsoft’s az appservice plan reference for every parameter.
Clean Up When You’re Done
A Free F1 plan costs nothing, but each subscription can have only 10 Free plans per region (App Service limits), so delete practice plans you no longer need:
- Open the plan and select Delete in its toolbar (you can see it in the Step 9 screenshot).
- Confirm the deletion.
Or delete the whole resource group, which removes the plan and everything else in it: see the clean-up steps in How to Create a Resource Group in the Microsoft Azure Portal.
Warning: deleting is permanent. Delete only the plans and resource groups you created for practice.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | What happens | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping the default Premium V3 P1V3 | You create a paid plan that’s billed for every hour it exists. | Set Pricing plan to Free F1, or the tier you actually need, before Review + create. |
| Leaving Region on the default | Your apps run far from your users, and you can’t change a plan’s region later. | Pick the region closest to your users in Step 4. |
| Choosing the wrong operating system | An app can only move between plans with the same operating system. | Match the OS to your app stack before you create the plan. |
| Expecting production features on Free | No custom domains, no SLA, and 60 CPU minutes per app per day. | Use Free for learning and testing, and scale up for production. |
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
The pricing tier is not allowed in this resource group or <SKU_NAME> workers are not available in resource group <RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME> | The resource group already holds plans or apps whose region, OS or tier combination doesn’t support the tier you picked. | Create the plan in a new resource group, as Microsoft recommends. |
| The zone redundancy options are greyed out | The selected tier doesn’t support zone redundancy. | Use Premium v2, v3 or v4 with at least two instances, if you need it. |
| An app on the plan returns HTTP 403 | The app used up its Free CPU quota for the day. | Wait for the daily reset or scale the plan up (quotas and metrics). |
FAQ
Is the Free F1 tier really free?
Yes. The portal showed 0.00 per month for Free F1. Every other tier is charged for the compute it uses (cost of App Service plans).
Can I change the pricing tier later?
Yes, up or down, from Scale up (App Service plan). Moving down can remove features your apps use, such as TLS/SSL bindings for custom domains.
Can I change the region or operating system later?
No. A plan’s region is fixed, and an app can’t move to a plan with a different operating system. To change either, create a new plan and redeploy the app (Manage an App Service plan).
Can several apps share one plan?
Yes. All the apps in a plan share its compute, which is a cheap way to run test environments. Give an app its own plan when it needs resources that other apps can’t take away.
Do I pay for a plan with no apps in it?
On Basic and higher tiers, yes: you pay for every instance in the plan whether or not it hosts apps. Free costs nothing either way.
Conclusion
You created a Free F1 Linux App Service plan in Central India, avoided the paid default, and saw where to change the tier later. The plan is ready to host your first web app, API or bot.
Additional Resources
- What are Azure App Service plans? (Microsoft Learn)
- Manage an App Service plan in Azure (Microsoft Learn)
- Scale up an app in Azure App Service (Microsoft Learn)
- Azure App Service limits (Microsoft Learn)
- App Service pricing (Microsoft Azure)
- How to Create a Resource Group in the Microsoft Azure Portal (JD Bots)
Very informative.