Set, check, or remove monthly Azure spending budgets for customers in Partner Center

Appropriate roles: Admin agent

You can set a monthly Azure spending budget for your customers in Partner Center. This budget helps your customers track how much they spend on Azure and lets you compare their spending to the monthly budget. Also, your customers will be able to plan better how much they'll spend on Azure and avoid getting too high bills.

Note

This feature is unavailable in sandbox or Test in Production (TIP) accounts.

Once you’ve set a budget for your customer’s Azure spending, you can also look at how they use Azure. These options may help you find services that aren’t set up correctly or strange patterns that could be signs of fraud. Then, you can work with your customers to find the cause and keep costs in check. You can also change the customer’s budget to a higher amount if needed.

Azure spending data

Azure spending data is an estimate, and actual billing amounts may vary. The amount doesn’t include taxes, credits, or other fees.

The spending data is refreshed daily. Your customers can keep using Azure services and resources (and getting charged for them) if you don’t change their account settings in the Azure portal.

Set Azure spending budget

You can set a monthly Azure spending budget for multiple customers in the Partner Center:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.

2. Select Azure spending.

3. On the Azure spending page, under Customers with Microsoft Azure subscriptions, select the customers for whom you want to set a budget.

4. Enter a value for Monthly budget.

5. Choose Apply to save your changes.

You can set a budget for an individual customer in their subscription settings.

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.

2. Select the customer's Company name.

3. On the customer’s Subscriptions page, under Usage-based subscription, choose Change budget.

4. Enter a value for the budget.

5. Choose Apply to save your changes.

You can remove a monthly Azure spending budget for your customers in Partner Center.

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.

2. Select Azure spending.

3. On the Azure spending page, under Customers with Microsoft Azure subscriptions, select the customer whose budget you want to remove.

4. Choose Remove budget.

You can track your customers’ current Azure spending and monthly budgets at any time.

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.

2. Select Azure spending.

3. On the Azure spending page, under Customers with Microsoft Azure subscriptions, you can see an overview of customers’ monthly budgets, current spending estimates and percentage of budget used.

How to access the new Azure Spending UI (Beta)

To gain access to the new user interface:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.
2. Select Azure spending (Beta) from the task menu on the left side.
3. Select Sign up to enroll for the preview. This adds you to the Preview waiting list. Your access will be enabled within 3-5 business days.
4. Once your access is enabled, you’ll be able to view, set, edit, or remove budgets for your customers with Azure plan subscriptions.

Note

The new UI only supports customers with Azure plan subscriptions.

Set Azure spending budget using the new (beta) UI.

To set a monthly Azure spending budget for your customers in the Partner Center:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.
2. Select Azure spending (Beta) from the task menu on the left side.
3. In the Customers section, choose Manage budget.
4. In the side panel, search for the customer names for whom you want to set a budget.
5. Enter the budget amount for each customer.
6. Select Submit.

To update the monthly budget for a customer:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.
2. Select Azure spending (Beta) from the task menu on the left side.
3. In the Customers section, choose Manage budget.
4. In the side panel, search for the customer names for whom you want to update a budget.
5. Update the budget amount for each customer.
6. Select Submit.

To remove the monthly budget for your customers:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.
2. Select Azure spending (Beta) from the task menu on the left side.
3. In the Customers section, choose Manage budget.
4. In the side panel, search for the customer names for whom you want to remove a budget.
5. Clear the budget field for the customer.
6. Select Submit.

To monitor your customers’ Azure expenses and monthly budgets:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Billing.
2. Select Azure spending (Beta) from the task menu on the left side.
3. In the Customers section, review the customers’ monthly budgets, current estimates and percentage of budget used so far.

Important

The estimated amounts are typically 24 hours behind the current usage. It can occasionally be longer, depending on certain limitations.

Notifications for budget limits

Keep control of your Azure bill by setting up email alerts that let you know when your customers’ monthly spending is approaching their budget limit. With this feature, you’ll be notified every 7 days when customers spend 80% or more of their monthly budget. This way, you can keep track of their spending and take steps to make sure they don’t go over budget. To configure email notifications:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Notifications (bell) icon.

2. Select My preferences.

3. Configure a preferred email address if you haven’t.

4. Configure the preferred language for the notification.

5. Select all of the boxes in the Billing workspace under Notification preferences section.

Note

No notification will be sent once the budget exceeds 100%.

Itemized costs by service

You can view itemized costs (and estimated usage) by service for usage-based subscriptions:

1. Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.

2. Select the customer’s Company name.

3. On the customer’s Subscriptions page, under Usage-based subscriptions, select the name of the Subscription.

4. On the subscription’s page, you can review the Itemized costs by service, and the Estimated usage for the current month.

Next steps

• New commerce experience in CSP - Azure billing