If you run classroom labs on Azure Lab Services, you have until 28 June 2027 to move. This guide compares the main options for a small college or training provider, using public prices.
Prices below are from each vendor's public pages, checked on 30 September 2026. They are not quotes. Check with the vendor before you decide.
The reference class
To compare like with like, every total uses the same class: 50 students, 10 hours of lab a week each, for 4 weeks. That is 2,000 hours of wanted machine time, the same shape as Microsoft's own Lab Services pricing example.
The options
| Option | How they charge | That class |
|---|---|---|
| Skillable | About $1.16 to $1.20 per small VM-hour, all in | about $2,300 to $2,400 |
| CloudLabs, managed | $6 per active lab user per month, plus cloud at about $0.18 per small VM-hour | about $660 |
| CloudLabs, your cloud account | $12 per active user per month, plus your own cloud bill | $600 plus cloud |
| Apporto Basics | $12 per named user per month, you pay Azure | $600 plus Azure |
| Apporto fully managed | $27 to $101 per concurrent user per month, compute included | $1,350 to $5,050 if all 50 are concurrent all month |
| Azure Virtual Desktop or DevTest Labs, built yourself | Azure compute and storage, plus your own time | Azure cost plus the build |
| Hyperamplify Labs | $0.50 per Ubuntu hour, $0.75 per Windows hour, $49 a month minimum | about $1,050 on Ubuntu, $1,575 on Windows |
Our total counts 2,100 hours, because a machine keeps running for 30 minutes after a student closes the tab.
Which suits which college
If you are a large university on Azure with a procurement team and a Microsoft agreement, the recommended partners are the natural path. They are on Azure, they can use your Azure Compute Gallery images, and Microsoft's retirement guide lists browser access, large disks, cost controls, and CPU or GPU sizes for all of them.
If you have an Azure team with time to spare, you can build labs on Azure Virtual Desktop or DevTest Labs. You will be building the hour limits, the roster, and the teacher's view yourself. See Microsoft's replacements, and why they are not a lab product.
If you are small, with tens or a few hundred students and a budget in the hundreds a month, check first whether a partner will take you. Some small buyers have been told no. That is who Hyperamplify Labs is for.
What to ask any vendor
- Is there a minimum spend or a minimum number of users?
- Can I set a number of hours per student, and does the machine stop at the limit?
- Does every machine end at a term end date I set?
- When does an unused machine shut down, and do I pay for that time?
- Can my own staff build and update the image, and keep old versions?
- Do students keep their work between sessions, and what does a kept disk cost per month?
- Is nested virtualization available for cybersecurity and Windows Server courses?
- How long does it take for 50 students pressing Start at once to all have a machine?
Our honest gaps
Here is what Hyperamplify Labs does not have yet: kept student disks (on the roadmap at a published price), LMS integration with Canvas or Moodle (planned), GPU sizes, a teacher watching a student's screen (planned), and importing Azure images (rebuild from a fresh desktop instead). Our first region is in the eastern US.
If that list does not rule us out, get started or request information.