How to claim an SLA credit from Microsoft Azure

When Azure misses an uptime commitment, Microsoft doesn't refund you automatically — it waits for you to open a support request and ask. Here's exactly what Azure owes, how it's calculated, and how to claim it before the window closes.

The short answer

When an Azure service falls below its SLA target for the month, you're owed a service credit worth a percentage of that service's monthly bill — 10% when uptime dips just below target, 25% for a worse month, and 100% for a severe outage (below 95% uptime). You claim it by opening a support request in the Azure Portal within 60 days of the incident itself — Azure's clock starts at the outage, not at the end of the billing month — citing your subscription ID, the affected resource, the incident timestamps, and the Service Health incident reference. The credit is applied to a future invoice after Microsoft approves it — it's not a cash refund.

What Azure commits to

Azure publishes a separate SLA per service, and the committed number depends on how you deployed the resource. The ones Ontracko tracks:

Architecture is not a footnote here — on Azure it decides both numbers. A single-instance VM carries a lower commitment than the same workload spread across an availability set or availability zones, and the credit bands move with it too, which is the part that is easy to miss. Virtual Machines publishes five commitments across three separate credit tables: 99.99% across two or more availability zones, 99.95% in one availability set or dedicated host group, and for a single instance 99.9% on Premium SSD or Ultra Disk, 99.5% on Standard SSD, and 95% on Standard HDD. Azure SQL Database commits 99.995% when configured for zone-redundant deployment against 99.99% when it is not; App Service commits 99.99% with availability zones against 99.95% without.

Confirm which figure your deployment qualifies for before you measure a breach — and note that there is no longer a per-service page to check it on. Microsoft retired those: azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/sla/<service>/ now redirects to the consolidated Online Services SLA, whose landing page lists versions and download links rather than terms. Download the current version and find your service's own section.

What you're owed

Credits are tiered by how far uptime fell below the target. This is the schedule for multi-instance Virtual Machines, for Azure SQL Database and for App Service — the classes Ontracko scores:

Single-instance VMs are priced on different bands, not just a different target. On Standard SSD the schedule is 10% below 99.5%, 25% below 95% and 100% below 90%; on Standard HDD it is 10% below 95%, 25% below 92% and 100% below 90%. Read that off the wrong table and a single Standard-HDD VM at 94% uptime looks like a 100% claim when Azure's own tariff pays 10%.

The credit is a percentage of the affected service's monthly fee for the affected resource — not damages for your lost revenue, and never more than what you paid that service for the month. You can model your exact figure with the Azure credit calculator — enter your monthly spend and observed uptime and it returns the tier and dollar amount.

The evidence Azure expects

• Your Subscription ID (and tenant details)
• The affected resource ID (the VM, database, or App Service)
• The incident start and end times, with the time zone
• The Service Health incident reference, found in the Azure Portal under Service Health → Health history

Account-specific confirmation from Service Health strengthens the claim, because it shows the outage hit your subscription and not just the public region on the Azure status page.

How to claim an Azure SLA credit

1. Confirm the outage window and incident ID in the Azure Portal under Service Health → Health history, and note the exact start and end times with the time zone.
2. Identify which Azure service breached its SLA and calculate its uptime over the applicable period — for metered Azure services that period is the 30 days up to and including the first day of the incident, not the calendar month — then match it to the credit table for your deployment configuration.
3. Sign in to the Azure Portal with the subscription that incurred the affected usage, select Help + support, and choose Create a support request.
4. Set the issue type to Billing (or the service and credit request path), then describe the breach: state the service, resource ID, incident reference, measured uptime, and the credit percentage you're claiming.
5. Submit within 60 days of the incident, and track the request — approved credits appear on a future invoice, not as a refund to your card.

Watch the exclusions

Azure SLAs exclude downtime from planned maintenance, guest OS or customer-configuration issues, third-party software, and force majeure. Free and Shared tiers, and some deployment slots, carry no credit-bearing SLA at all; Azure SQL Database also excludes the monthly maintenance window that patches the server and infrastructure. And because the deadline runs from the incident itself — not from any month boundary — every outage carries its own separate 60-day clock, and an outage early in the month gives you no more time than one at month-end. Diary the date of each incident.

Frequently asked questions

Does Azure give you money back for downtime?

Not as cash. When an Azure service misses its monthly SLA, you're owed a service credit — a percentage of that service's monthly fee applied to a future invoice. It ranges from 10% for a small miss to 100% when uptime falls below 95%, and it never exceeds what you paid that service for the month.

How much SLA credit is Azure downtime worth?

For multi-instance Virtual Machines, Azure SQL Database and App Service: 10% of the affected service's spend when uptime is between 99% and the commitment, 25% between 95% and 99%, and 100% below 95%. Single-instance VMs use different bands — on Standard HDD it is 10% below 95%, 25% below 92% and 100% below 90% — so check the table for your deployment configuration. Use the Azure SLA guide to see the per-service tiers and estimate your amount.

How long do I have to claim an Azure SLA credit?

Microsoft requires the claim within 60 days of the incident. Its consolidated SLA states the rule in two halves and only the first is about Azure: "For a claim related to Microsoft Azure, we must receive the claim within 60 days of the Incident. For claims related to all other Services, we must receive the claim by the end of the Applicable Period following the month in which the Incident occurred." The month-anchored half governs Microsoft 365 and the rest of the non-Azure estate; applying it to Azure pushes your deadline up to a month past the real one — see what an SLA credit is and how the window works.

How do I file an Azure SLA credit claim?

Open a support request in the Azure Portal under Help + support → Create a support request, set the issue type to Billing, and cite your subscription ID, the affected resource, the Service Health incident reference, and your measured uptime. An approved credit is applied to a future invoice.

Which Azure services have an SLA credit?

The ones Ontracko monitors include Virtual Machines, SQL Database and App Service, with commitments running from 95% to 99.995% depending on how the resource is deployed. Most other paid Azure services carry an SLA too — but Free and Shared tiers generally do not. Check the consolidated Online Services SLA for the exact commitment; the per-service pages have been retired.

Methodology & caveats

The commitments and credit tiers above are transcribed from Microsoft's published Azure SLAs into Ontracko's profiles. Ontracko scores the multi-AZ Virtual Machines class, the non-zone-redundant Azure SQL Database class and App Service without availability zones; verify the exact clause for YOUR deployment configuration before filing, since on Azure both the commitment and the credit bands are indexed on it. The per-service SLA pages have been retired into the consolidated Online Services SLA. Live incident history for Azure is on its status page. For how Azure compares to other providers, see which SaaS vendors actually pay SLA credits and the AWS credit guide, or browse the SLA glossary and the reliability rankings.

*Ontracko monitors Azure's public status feed, detects SLA breaches, and assembles the claim package with evidence attached. Monitor Azure free — 8% only on recovered credits. See Azure live status or the Azure SLA calculator.*