Why Did I Get a Huge Charge on My Azure Account?

For the future, make sure to set up cost alerts for your subscription. It'll help you keep an eye on any unexpected charges. Also, if your VM workload allows it, consider adding an auto-shutdown feature to help save costs when the server isn't in use.

Check your resource group overview as well! There’s a "cost management" section in the left-hand menu that gives you a graph of cumulative costs for the resources. You can switch the view to see daily or per resource costs, which will help you identify what caused the spike. Also, consider how often you get billed; it might help you spot these things earlier in the future!

First off, head over to the Azure portal and search for "subscriptions" in the top bar. You'll see any subscriptions linked to your account. Click on the one you have to check the details. In the right-hand menu, look for the "Cost Management" section. Make sure to set the filter to last month and change the view from "accumulated costs" to "invoice details". This will break down where the spending happened. If you think the charge is incorrect, you should create a support ticket with billing directly from the help panel on the left. They might help you sort this out or even waive some fees if it’s justified.