Web app free plan - Quota exceeded even tho quotas shows 0 usage

Question

Hello everyone,
I'm having trouble understanding my web app free plan - quota exceeded, even tho web app quotas shows 0 usage. This is my C# MVC ASP.NET Core web application that I have as my bachelor’s thesis. I’m using the free student plan. No one uses the application except me, and I only access it a few times to check that everything works. Currently I have ‘quota exceeded’ again, the same as I had in February, but I have no idea why. The quotas show 0 usage. Thank you all for any advice and have a nice day.

Answer 1

Hi Daniel Palowski,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

The quota meter you're seeing in the Portal resets after the quota breach period expires. So by the time you look at it, the counter has already reset to zero, but the app is still in a stopped/exceeded state from the previous window. Under each quota you will see "RESETS IN X HOURS X MINUTES." If the quota is reached in the first hour of the measurement period, your site will be offline for the rest of that period until the quota resets.

The subscription-level quota view is the wrong place to look. You need the App Service Plan quota, which is different. To review the status of quotas and metrics that affect an app, go to the Azure portal, navigate to your app, and in the left menu select App Service Plan > Quotas. On each chart you can review the quota name, its reset interval, its current limit, and its current value.

Even though only you access the app occasionally, several background processes silently consume CPU time on the Free plan:

WebJobs or background tasks — Check WebJobs in your App Service and stop or disable any running jobs.

Application Insights/telemetry — If you have Application Insights configured, it sends telemetry continuously in the background, consuming CPU and bandwidth quota.

Health check probes or deployment slots — Any configured health check endpoints count against your quota.

Disable "Always On" Go to Azure Portal → Your Web App → Configuration → General Settings and set Always On to Off. This stops background keep-alive pings that waste CPU quota.

Please Upvote and accept the answer if it helps!!

Answer 2

Hello @Daniel Palowski

Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Q&A. Please find detailed response for each of your query.

1. Understand Free-Tier Limits
   • CPU time (day): 60 minutes (resets at midnight UTC)
   • CPU time (5 min): 3 minutes (resets every 5 min)
   • Memory: 1 024 MiB (enforced continuously)
   • Data out: 165 MiB/day (resets at midnight UTC)
2. Why Usage May Show 0
   • The “Quotas” blade only refreshes at reset time, and sometimes it doesn’t show spike usage until after the reset.
   • Any small browsing, logging, or background task can push you over the data-out or CPU thresholds.
3. What You Can Do
   • In the Azure portal, go to your Web App → “Metrics” and add charts for CPU Time (Day), CPU Time (Short), and Data Out. This will give you a time-series view of where your usage spikes.
   • Confirm the reset timestamps at the bottom of each quota widget (e.g. “Resets in 4 min 19 sec”). Wait for a reset and hit the app lightly again to see if any single metric jumps.
   • If you need more headroom, switch to a Basic or Standard App Service plan—those plans don’t enforce CPU/day or bandwidth quotas.
4. Next Steps
   • Check your Metrics blade and share a screenshot of CPU time and Data Out over the last 24 hours.
   • Let us know if you have any background jobs or frequent refreshes that might burn through bandwidth.