I wish there was a way to automatically nuke the image on shutdown, and then spend 15 minutes to have a script auto-populate a few games in my steam library at next boot. It’d save $5/month, and also solve the OS update problem.
You can use the CLI to create/destroy instances, so what you could do is write a script that has Chocolatey (or boxstarter, which is a bit more for this purpose) install Steam, run it when you login, and then have another script destroy the instance using the cli command.
Am I charged when my machine is off? For hourly plans, if your machine is powered off, you will only be billed for your storage."
Are those charges listed anywhere? They don't seem to be on the Workstream pricing page.