Cost Management + Billing frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Create a support request in the Azure portal.

See Resolve past due balance for your Azure subscription.

See Wire transfer payment processing time.

See View and download your Microsoft Azure invoice.

Free services have limits. Most likely, you exceeded the free limits. See Avoid charges with your Azure free account.

If you bought your Azure subscription through the Azure website, see the Review your individual Azure subscription bill tutorial. The tutorial explains how charges on your invoice relate to the services that you used.

See Explore and analyze costs with cost analysis.

See Analyze unexpected charges.

See Change billing information.

See Cancel your Azure subscription.

Azure finalizes or closes the current billing period up to 72 hours (three calendar days) after the billing period ends. The following examples illustrate how billing periods could end:

• Enterprise Agreement (EA) subscriptions – If the billing month ends on March 31, estimated charges are updated up to 72 hours later. In this example, by midnight (UTC) April 4.
• Pay-as-you-go subscriptions – If the billing month ends on May 15, then the estimated charges might get updated up to 72 hours later. In this example, by midnight (UTC) May 19.

For more information, see Cost and usage data updates and retention.

See Assign access to Cost Management data.

Cost Management is available for partners whose customers that have an Azure Plan. Partners can enable the policy setting to allow their customers to view cost information. For more information, see Get started with Cost Management for partners. Classic Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) isn't support by Cost Management.

In the Azure portal, navigate to Cost Management + Billing > Cost Management > Cost analysis. In the default view, the top chart has the Actual/Amortized cost and forecasted cost sections. The solid color of the chart shows your Actual/Amortized cost. The shaded color shows the forecast cost.

In the Azure portal, navigate Cost Management + Billing > Cost Management > Cost analysis. Select Cost by service and then group by Service tier. Change the view to Table.

In the Azure portal, navigate to Cost analysis for the scope associated with the invoice that you're analyzing. Select the Invoice details view. Invoice details show you the charges as shown on your invoice.

In the Azure portal, navigate to Cost Management + Billing > Cost Management > Cost analysis. Select Group by for your tag. Tags aren't available for: purchases, tenant resources not associated with subscriptions, subscription resources not deployed to a resource group, or classic resources. Some services don't include tags in usage data. For more information, see Tag support for Azure resources.

In the Azure portal, navigate to Cost Management + Billing > Overview. Select the Breakdown link.

See Set up and configure AWS Cost and Usage report integration.

See the Create and manage budgets tutorial.

In the Create budget window, choose the scope for the budget you want to create. Choose Add Filter to choose any filters or a tag that you want to add for this budget. For more information, see the Create and manage budgets tutorial.

See the Create and manage exported data tutorial.

See the Export cost data with an Azure storage account SAS key article.

Given the plans to transition customers on Classic CSP to Azure Plan on the New Commerce experience, Cost Management + Billing is available only for the direct partners and indirect providers of customers who are on Azure Plan.

See Enable Cost Management for Customer Tenant Subscriptions to enable the cost visibility policy for Azure consumed services at retail rates for Azure RBAC users of the subscription. As a global admin of a direct partner or an indirect provider, you can view the costs in the customer tenant regardless of the policy.

You can allocate costs in Cost Management to see the costs that you distribute to subscriptions, resource groups, or tags in cost analysis. For more information, see the Create and manage Azure cost allocation rules article.

Yes, you use Power BI Desktop to connect to Cost Management data or you can use the Cost Management Power BI App for EAs.

See Supported Microsoft Azure offers.

See Cost and usage data updates and retention.

See Costs included in Cost Management.

Yes. Allocated costs are factored into and supported by budgets and forecasts. Budget and forecast views show costs allocated to them, as configured by cost allocation rules.

When a cost allocation rule is deleted, all open and current billing month costs being allocated to the targets are removed. If the cost allocation rule existed for several months, the historical previous months of allocation data remain as originally set by the allocation rule.

Cost allocation rules are created at either the enrollment scope (Enterprise Agreement) or the Billing account scope (Microsoft Customer Agreement). Permissions to make changes at these scopes requires billing administrator privileges.

Rules that have either overlapping sources or overlapping targets aren't recommended. Cost Allocation rules apply in order by their creation date, so if any cost allocation rules overlap the allocation rule with the earliest creation date takes precedence.

Yes. Partners with an MCA agreement can buy New Commerce license and consumption products in the Partner Center. The products are invoiced along with your Azure products and you can view the charges in Cost Management. The "Provider" dimension helps to distinguish between Azure and license-based products like Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365.

On May 1, 2024, Azure Enterprise Reporting APIs will be retired. We recommend that you migrate away from the APIs before their retirement. For more information, Migrate from Azure Enterprise Reporting APIs to Microsoft Cost Management APIs.

See Migrate from Azure Enterprise Reporting to Microsoft Cost Management APIs.

The Usage Details dataset can often be large (multiple GBs or more). The larger the size of the dataset that you request, the longer the service takes to compile the data before sending it to you. Because of the delay, synchronous API solutions like the paginated JSON Usage Details API might time out before your data is provided. If your encounter timeouts or has processes that frequently need to pull a large number of usage details, see Retrieve large usage datasets recurringly with Exports.

See Migrate from Enterprise Agreement to Microsoft Customer Agreement APIs.

The Usage Details dataset can often be large (multiple GBs or more). The larger the size of the dataset that you request, the longer the service takes to compile the data before sending it to you. Because of the delay, synchronous API solutions like the paginated JSON Usage Details API might time out before your data is provided. If you encounter timeouts or have processes that frequently need to pull a large number of usage details, see Retrieve large usage datasets recurringly with Exports.

A legacy versus modern usage details record is identified with the kind field in the Usage Details API. The field is used to distinguish between data returned for different customer types. The call patterns to obtain legacy and modern usage details are essentially the same. The granularity of the data is the same. The main difference is the fields available in the usage details records themselves. If you’re an EA customer, you always get legacy usage details records. If you’re a Microsoft Customer Agreement customer, you always get modern usage details records.

Recurring charges are available in the Usage Details API when viewing Actual Cost.

Usage details data is all pretax. Tax related charges are only available on your invoice.

If you’re an EA or MCA customer, PAYGPrice is populated only for first party Azure usage charges where PricingModel is OnDemand. PAYGprice isn't populated when PricingModel = Reservations, Spot, Marketplace, or SavingsPlan.

Yes it does. You can see those charges according to when the actual charges occurred (Actual Cost) or you can see the charges spread across the resources that consumed the Reservation (Amortized Cost). For more information, see Get amortized costs.

No the Usage Details APIs are free. Make sure to abide by the rate-limiting policies, however. For more information, see Data latency and rate limits.

In the Azure portal, navigate to Cost Management + Billing > Cost Management > Cost analysis. Add a filter for Pricing Model: Reservation. Under Scope and next to the cost shown, select the down arrow symbol, and then select either Actual cost or Amortized cost metric.

There are a couple of ways to view your savings.

• If you're an EA customer, you can use the Cost Management Power BI App for EA to view the RI Savings report.
• Use the Usage + Charges data file to manually determine reservation savings.

Sign in to the Azure portal. Then select All services > Reservations and note the Utilization (%) for a reservation. Select a reservation. Review the reservation use trend over time. For more information, see View reservation use in the Azure portal. You can also View unused reservation costs in cost analysis.

See Charge back Azure Reservation costs for detailed information.

See View your Spot VM charges.

Read the API documentation to generate a reservation details report.

See Assign roles to EA SPNs.

A new enterprise admin can be added by existing enterprise admins. If you're the EA administrator, sign in to the Azure portal > select Billing scope > navigate to Access control(IAM) > select + Add in the top-left corner to add a new EA administrator. Ensure that you have their email address and a preferred sign-in method, such as via work/school authentication or Microsoft Live ID, available.

If you aren't the EA administrator, reach out to your EA administrators in your company to request that they add you to the enrollment. Once they add you to the enrollment, you receive an activation email.

However, if the EA administrators aren't able to assist you, we're able to add you on their behalf if you can provide us with:

• The enrollment number.
• The email address to be added and authentication type (work/school/MS).
• The email approval from the EA administrator.

Once you have all the required information, submit a support request in the Azure portal.

An EA enrollment can have multiple EA administrators. You can reach out to another EA administrator to have new EA administrator/account owners/department admin added. However, if you aren't clear on who is the EA administrator in your company or there's no other available EA administrator on the enrollment, reach out to us with the following information:

• The enrollment number
• The email address to be added and authentication type (work/school/MS)
• Provide information showing that the current EA admin is no longer with the company

If there are other EA administrators on the enrollment, we reach out to the EA administrators to request for approval on administrative changes on the enrollment.

Enrollments are in pending status if the initial EA administrator didn't sign in to the enrollment. If you're an enterprise customer, sign in to Azure portal. On the billing scope page, select your billing account. When you're on the enrollment overview page, the status is updated from Pending to Active. Navigate to the Properties menu to view the update status.

When new Account Owners (AO) are added to the enrollment for the first time, they always show as "pending" under status. When the AO receives the activation welcome email, they can sign in to activate their account. Signing in updates the account status from "pending" to "active."

If you forgot your Microsoft Live ID password, have it reset at https://account.live.com/password/reset.

If you forgot your work password, contact your company's IT administrator.

If you have a work or school account under a different tenant, change the authorization level under enrollment details page to "Work or School Account Cross Tenant" and you're able to add the account.

If you signed in as an Azure EA account owner with the same credentials as your Visual Studio subscription, you can recover your individual Visual Studio subscription Azure benefit by performing one of the following actions:

• Remove or move associated Azure subscriptions and then remove your account ownership from your EA account in the Azure portal. Then, sign up for individual Visual Studio Azure benefits again.
• Delete the Visual Studio subscriber from the administration site in VLSC, and reassign the subscription to an account with different credentials this time. Then, sign up for individual Visual Studio Azure benefits anew.

Azure Enterprise customers have two types of subscription offers:

• Microsoft Azure Enterprise, which is ideal for:
• All production usage
• Best prices based on infrastructure spend

For more information, contact Azure sales.

• Enterprise Dev/Test, which is ideal for:
• All team dev/test workloads
• Medium-to-heavy individual dev/test workloads
• Access to special MSDN images and preferential service rates

For more information, see Enterprise Dev/Test offer.

When you create a subscription, the name defaults to the offer type you choose. We recommend that you change the subscription name to something that makes it easy for you to track the subscription.

To change the name:

1. Sign in to https://account.windowsazure.com.
2. Select the subscription list.
3. Select the subscription you want to edit.
4. Select the Manage Subscription icon.
5. Edit subscription details.

To track cost by cost center, you need to define the cost center at one of the following levels:

• Department
• Account
• Subscription

Based on your needs, you can use the same cost center to track usage and costs associated with a particular cost center.

For example, to track costs for a special project where multiple departments are involved, you might want to define the cost center at a subscription level to track the usage and costs.

You can't define a cost center at the service level. If you want to track usage at the service level, you can use the Tag feature available at the service level.

You can create as many departments as you need under your Azure EA enrollment. In order to track the usage correctly, ensure that you're not sharing subscriptions across departments.

After you create departments and subscriptions, you can see data in the usage report. This information can help you track usage and manage cost and spend at the department level.

You can also access usage data via the reporting API. For detailed information and sample code, see Azure Enterprise REST APIs.

Direct enterprise customers can view usage and spending at different department levels in the Azure portal. Navigate to the Department menu to view charges.

You can set a spending quota at department level and the system automatically notifies you as your spending limits meet 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% of the quota you define.

To define your spending quota, select a department and then select the edit icon. After you edit the spending limit details, select Save.

If you use resource groups and tags, this information is tracked at service level, and you can access it in the detailed usage download (CSV) file.

You can also access usage via API. For detailed information and sample code, see Azure Enterprise REST APIs.

Yes, you can use the Cost Management connector for Power BI Desktop to create powerful, customized visualizations and reports that help you better understand your Azure spend. If you are on an Enterprise Agreement (EA), you can also utilize the Cost Management template app. The Cost Management template app comes with premade reports to assist you with monitor costs, service usage trends, and identifying cost optimization options to reduce your expenditures. Power BI reporting is available for Azure EA direct, partner, and indirect customers who are able to view billing information.

Yes. All Azure subscriptions for which you're the account owner are converted to your Enterprise Agreement. Included are subscriptions that use monthly credit such as Visual Studio, AzurePass, Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, and more. You lose monthly credit when converting such subscriptions.

Only one account owner is permitted per subscription. More roles can be added using Role-Based Access or (Access Control (IAM)) in the subscription tab in the upper left corner of the page of the Azure portal.

Yes, you can transfer subscription ownership to different account. For example, if an Account A has three subscriptions, the enterprise administrator is able to transfer one subscription to Account B, one to Account C, and one to Account D. Or they can transfer all subscriptions to Account E.

Enterprise customers can transfer their subscription ownership to another account in the Azure portal. Navigate to the Account or Subscription menu to transfer ownership.

No, an account owner can only be associated to a single department. The policy helps ensure accurate monitoring and apportioning of costs and spending associated to the department that it aligns with under the EA enrollment.

No, a subscription owner must be a unique Microsoft account (MSA) or Microsoft Entra authentication. To account for succession within your organization, you should consider creating generic accounts and using Microsoft Entra ID to manage subscription access.

An Azure account owner can create and manage an unlimited number of subscriptions.

Today, policy does it; meaning you would need to require that for every subscription created, your account is added to a subscription role using role-based access.

Before you can create an enterprise Azure (EA) offer subscription, your account must be added to the role of account owner by your EA enrollment's administrator in the Azure portal. Or, you must be an Enterprise Administrator. You need to sign in to the Azure portal to obtain your entitlement to create EA offer type subscriptions. We recommend that your first EA subscription is created from the + Add Subscription link in Azure portal. However, once your account is entitled it might be easier to create subscriptions in portal.azure.com in the subscription tab in the upper left corner of the page, where you can both create and rename your subscription in a single step.

To create an enterprise Azure offer type subscription, you must be entitled in the role of account owner or enterprise administrator in the Azure portal.

Enterprise administrators can provide account owners and department administrators with access to cost and pricing information in the Azure portal. Navigate to the Policies menu to change settings.

For indirect enrollment customers, contact your partner to check that they enabled the pricing feature for you. Only the partner does it. After you're enabled, you can view the cost and pricing on your enrollment as an enterprise administrator.

Partners, if you want to enable the view charges feature for an account owner or a department administrator, follow the steps under direct enrollment.

The usage detail report doesn't contain SKU information. The report does, however, contain usage information so you can download the price sheet report to obtain the SKU information.

The Azure Marketplace charges report shows only the usage-based charges. One-time fees aren't shown. See the usage summary page for the most up-to-date usage-based charges and one-time fees.

API keys expire every six months. If you're having an issue, an enterprise administrator should generate a new API key. For more information about API key generation, see API key generation.

For issues with Power BI, log a ticket with the Power BI support team.

Resource tags are managed on the Azure portal. You can contact the Azure subscription team in the Azure portal. Follow the steps in the How to create an Azure support request article.

The resource rate shown in the detailed usage report is a calculated value. It represents the average monthly rate that was charged for the service. The resource rate is calculated from the average of your monthly commitment and your monthly overage charges for a unit of service. The portion of usage charged against your commitment and overage rates change to the day the month closes. Thus, the listed resource rate also changes during the month. The resource rate locks on the fifth day following the end of the month.

As of March 1, 2018, some third-party reseller services consume Azure EA Prepayment. Except for Azure reserved VM instances (RIs), services were previously billed outside Azure EA Prepayment and were invoiced separately.

We expanded the use of Azure Prepayment to include some of the third-party published Azure Marketplace services that are purchased most frequently. Azure EA Prepayment for these services in Azure Marketplace helps simplify your purchase and payment management.

The change was made because customers wanted other ways to use the upfront Azure Prepayment. This change was frequently requested by customers, and it impacted a large portion of Azure Marketplace customers.

You get a simpler billing experience and are better able to spend your Azure EA Prepayment. Because the services are included in your Azure Prepayment, your Azure EA Prepayment becomes more valuable.

When you purchase a service that uses Azure Prepayment, Azure Marketplace presents a disclaimer. Some supported services are published by Red Hat, SUSE, Autodesk, and Oracle. Currently, similarly named services published by other parties don't deduct from Azure Prepayment. See third-party services that use Azure Prepayment for a complete list of products participating in the program.

If you consume all your Azure Prepayment and go into overage, charges related to these services appear on your next overage invoice along with any other consumption services. Before the March 1, 2018 change, these charges were invoiced with other Azure Marketplace services.

We frequently work to deliver the best customer experience related to Azure EA Prepayment. The latest changes to Azure EA prepayment addressed a large number of customers and a significant portion of the total spend in Azure Marketplace. Other services might be added in the future.

There's no effect to our indirect enrollment customers or partners. These services are subject to the same partner markup capabilities as other consumption services. The only change is that the charges appear on a different invoice, and the payment of the charges comes out of the customer's Azure EA Prepayment.

Specific Azure Marketplace offers can use Azure Prepayment funds. See third-party services that use Azure Prepayment for a complete list of products participating in the program.

Any user from the partner organization who works on a customer's Power Apps resources can link the partner ID to the account. Ideally, the association in PAL should be done at the beginning of the project. However, it can be performed whenever you have access in the customer's directory.

Yes. A linked partner ID can be changed, added, or removed. One example for this situation might be when an employee from your company leaves your organization. Another example might be when a project or contract with the customer ends.

The link between the partner ID and the account is done for each customer tenant. Link the partner ID in each customer tenant.

The link is associated at the user account level. Only you can edit or remove the link to the partner ID. The customer and other partners can't change the link to the partner ID.

Be sure to use the Associated Partner ID shown in your partner profile. It's usually the local account ID association with your organization.

PAL enables Microsoft to identify and recognize those partners who are helping customers achieve business goals and realize value in the cloud. Customers must first provide a partner access to their Power Apps resource. Once access is granted, the partner's Partner ID is associated. This association helps Microsoft understand service providers and to refine the tools and programs needed to best support customers.

The PAL association to existing credentials provides no new customer data to Microsoft. It provides the information to Microsoft where a partner is actively involved in a customer's Power Apps environments. Microsoft can attribute usage and influence from customer environment to partner organization based on the account's permissions (Power Apps role) and scope (tenant, Resource Group, Resource) provided to the partner by customer.

PAL association only adds the partner's Partner ID to the credential already provisioned. It doesn't alter any permissions (Power Apps role) or provide extra Power Apps service data to the partner or Microsoft.