Estimating cost of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Endpoint

Updated November 18, 2024: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The OCR Cost Estimator allows customers to estimate the potential cost for using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR can scan images for sensitive content and is chargeable based on the number of images scanned.

With the launch of the OCR Cost Estimator, customers can now estimate OCR costs without any pre-requisites. This means that customers will no longer be required to set up an Azure Subscription for billing first and can accurately estimate the cost they would have incurred while using OCR.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 160009

When this will happen:

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out late August 2024 (previously early August) and is expected to be complete by late November 2024 (previously late September)

General Availability: We will begin rolling out in early December 2024 (previously late October) and is expected to be complete by late December 2024 (previously late November).

How this will affect your organization:

The primary use case is to see the potential cost that you might have incurred while using OCR.

The OCR Cost Estimator will allow you to try out different workload/user and site scope combinations to find the best setting for you to use OCR, and everything is free of cost. You will be able to see breakdown of cost and volume of images in the dashboards. The ability to download reports for the data is also available.

What you need to do to prepare:

Login to compliance.microsoft.com and “Start Cost Estimator” under Settings > Optical Character Recognition.

Users with either of the following role groups will be able to start the OCR Cost Estimator.

• Compliance Data Administrator
• Compliance Administrator
• Information Protection
• Information Protection Admin

 Additional Resources:

• Estimate your OCR costs (preview) | Microsoft Learn