Azure Free Trial

Question

Hi there,

Is there official documentation I can read that explains the rules around the Azure Free Trial and under what scenarios there would be a charge to the credit card associated to the account?

I am working on a training program where several people will utilize the free trial, and I am worried they will be charged even though it's a free trial.

What can I instruct them to do with the Azure environment/subscription to ensure they are not charged either during the use of the trial as well as after they are done with the training? Do they need to delete the environment or their account?

Answer 1

Hello, @Alli Esker !

Thank you for reaching out! They will not be charged for an Azure free account. Once they've used up all of their free credits they'll get a notification allowing them to decide to move to a pay-as-you-go account. This is the official documentation you would want to refer them to:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/

How do I ensure that I won't be charged?

We’ll never charge you unless you decide to move to pay-as-you-go pricing. If you move to pay as you go, you’ll only be charged for services that you use above the free monthly amounts. You can check your usage of free services in the Azure portal.

It's also a good idea to make them aware of Cost Analysis when they start out. This is a great way not only to see how credits are being used, but to get familiar with billing in general on a daily basis.

I'd also have them delete resource groups after they are done with them to avoid any unplanned credit use. This is usually included as a last step in quickstart instructions and helps avoid things like VMs that are accidentally not deallocated (it's easy to mistakenly shut down a VM without releasing the hardware when you first start out) or storage costs for resources that may not be actively in use.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/quick-acm-cost-analysis

Additional resources:

• Azure free account FAQ
• Azure free account (note the list of always free and free for 12 month services)

Answer 2

Sure, read on here.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/

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