We don't understand your invoice

Question

We don't understand your billing for contracted services.

In May, we had a bill (G091191288) of $1,923.99, and we contracted three reservations for one year each to obtain a monthly discount for the contracted services. However, all the billings after May were the same, with the last bill (g117183859) being $1,887.25.

How is this possible after contracting three reservations?

The truth is, it's very high, given that our monthly budget should be $1,000.

Answer 1

Hello ram doig

As it's related to billing issue requesting you to please raise support ticket from azure portal.

To create support ticket to azure billing team from azure portal please follow the below steps and let me know if it works or not.

1.From the resource menu, in the Help section, select Support + Troubleshooting. In the Support + Troubleshooting pane on the right, type "Billing" in the search box, select Billing, and then click Next.

2.Select the subscription and click Next. You will be presented with some suggestions to resolve your issue. If none of these apply, please follow the steps below.

3.Scroll down and you will find an option to Contact Support. From there, select Create a support request.

Enter the problem description (Issue type - Billing, Subscription, Summary - Billing, Problem type - Assistance with Bill, Problem subtype - Help with a billing discrepancy)

5.If the solutions appear again, click on 'Return to support request'. Click Next, and you will then be able to create the billing support ticket.

Kindly let us know if the above suggested solution helps or you need further assistance on this issue.

Thanks,

Suchitra.

Answer 2

Hello ram doig

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A platform.

Even after buying three 1-year reservations, your bill stayed almost the same because of how Azure Reservations work.

This might be due to Reservations only apply to matching resources that the VM size, region, and SKU must exactly match the reservation. If you changed VM sizes (e.g., from D2_v3 to D2s_v3) or moved workloads to another region, the reservation won’t apply.

Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/understand-reservation-charges

Scope misconfiguration If the reservation scope is set to a single subscription or resource group, but your resources run elsewhere, the discount won’t apply. For multiple subscriptions, use Shared scope.

Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/manage-reserved-vm-instance#change-the-reservation-scope

Low utilization: If your actual usage is less than the reserved capacity or spread across different SKUs, you’ll still pay PAYG rates for unmatched resources.

Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/manage-reserved-vm-instance#view-utilization

Billing expectation mismatch: Reservation charges are billed upfront or monthly in addition to any PAYG charges for resources not covered by the reservation. The bill doesn’t automatically drop by the reservation amount.

Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/understand-reservation-charges

As a workaround Adjust scope to Shared if needed, Exchange reservations for correct SKUs if VM sizes changed (no penalty), Align workloads to reserved SKUs and regions and Set budget alerts in Cost Management to stay within $1,000/month.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/tutorial-acm-create-budgets?tabs=psbudget

As it's related to billing issue requesting you to please raise support ticket from azure portal.

To create support ticket to azure billing team from azure portal please follow the below steps as suggested.

Thanks,

Suchitra.