Document intelligence service location is different that was chosen

Question

I created a new Document Intelligence service in a resource group located in West Europe. The DI service is also located in West Europe. However, when I check the cost grouped by resources, I see that all costs associated with this service come from the US East location. Why did this happen?

Answer 1

Hi Paweł L,

The discrepancy between the Document Intelligence (DI) service location (West Europe) and the billing location (East US) may be due to several reasons:

Possible Reasons for Billing in East US

Microsoft's Internal Billing and Metering Systems:

Some Azure services have their billing meters centralized in specific locations (such as East US), even if the resource itself is deployed elsewhere.

This means that while your Document Intelligence service runs in West Europe, its billing and cost tracking could still be associated with a metering region like East US.

Dependency on Global AI Models:

Azure's Document Intelligence may rely on backend AI models hosted in a different region (East US), causing associated costs to reflect in that region.

Even though your service is deployed in West Europe, if processing is done using AI models in another region, the billing might appear for that region.

Cross-Region Data Processing:

If your data is being processed or stored in a different region due to performance optimization or compliance, the cost may be reflected in that region.

Example: If Azure automatically routes requests for model processing or inference to a US-based compute region, charges may appear from East US.

Default Billing Location for New Azure AI Services:

Some AI services, like Azure OpenAI and Azure Document Intelligence, have a default billing location (often US-based) regardless of where the service is deployed.

Misconfiguration in Cost Analysis:

The Azure Cost Management tool sometimes groups costs by the billing meter region instead of the actual service location.

Try filtering the cost analysis by resource group and service name instead of the location.

How to Confirm & Troubleshoot

Check the Billing Meter Region in Cost Analysis:

Go to Azure Portal → Cost Management + Billing.

Click on Cost Analysis.

Apply a filter for Resource Group containing your Document Intelligence service.

Check the Meter Region—if it shows East US, this confirms that metering is centralized in the US.

Verify the Processing Location:

Go to Azure Portal → Document Intelligence.

Open the specific Document Intelligence resource.

Check if any regional dependencies are mentioned in the Properties section.

Check API Calls and Logs:

If you are using the Azure Form Recognizer API, check the request logs to see if the requests are being routed to a US endpoint.

Run a test API call and inspect the response headers to confirm where it is being processed.

Verify Pricing and Support Documentation:

Check the Azure Document Intelligence pricing page to see if metering happens in a specific location.

Potential Solutions

If the service is running fine, and the cost is just being reported from a different region, then this is normal and does not require a fix.

If your data is being processed in an unexpected region, you may need to check:

If you are making API calls to the correct regional endpoint (westeurope.cognitiveservices.azure.com).

Whether your pricing tier or SKU is causing regional processing redirection.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

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