My Azure free trial recently ended, and I upgraded to pay-as-you-go so I could continue practicing with services that require a billable subscription. After upgrading, I received a €6.27 charge for usage dated September 1–30, even though I still had about $165 in trial credit remaining at the time. I thought the credit would cover my usage, and I had deleted the resources I created before the trial ended.
The charge appears to include Azure App Service (€1.73), SQL Database (€1.65), Azure Database (€1.45), and Storage (€1.17). I don't understand why these costs were billed instead of being deducted from my remaining credit. How can I verify exactly what generated the charges and request a review or dispute if the billing is incorrect?
3 Answers
Use the billing support option and request a human review, including the subscription ID, invoice number, dates, and the exact resource names that produced the €6.27. Explain that the usage occurred during the trial and that you believed the remaining promotional credit covered it. Support can confirm whether the services were eligible and whether a one-time adjustment is possible. Also set a spending budget and alerts, and remove every related resource if you no longer need the subscription.
Free-account credits generally apply only to eligible services and usage within the trial's limits. They are not a universal balance that covers every resource or charge. When you change to pay-as-you-go, new billable usage can be charged to the payment method, but that does not automatically prove the charge is retroactive or incorrect. Check the detailed invoice and the free-account terms for each service before disputing it.
Start with Cost Management and Billing and filter the usage by the dates covered by the invoice. The invoice should show the specific resource, meter, region, and daily usage behind each service. Deleting an app or database may not remove related storage, disks, snapshots, IP addresses, or other components, and some services or usage types may not qualify for the trial credit. The fact that credit remained does not necessarily mean every Azure service was covered.
The main items are App Service, SQL Database, Azure Database, and Storage. The App Service charges appeared for several days near the end of the trial, so I may have left that resource running longer than I realized. I still don't understand why the remaining credit did not cover them.