Azure free account FAQ
What is the Azure free account?
Creating an Azure free account is one way to access Azure services. When you start using Azure with a free account, you get $200 credit to spend in the first 30 days after you sign up. In addition, you get free monthly amounts of two groups of services: Popular services, which are free for 12 months, and 25+ other services that are free always. Free services are based on resource and region availability.
Certain types and amounts of these services are available for free each month:
| Products | Period of free availability |
|---|---|
| 5,000 text records with Text Analytics standard instance | 12 months |
| 20,000 transactions of Anomaly Detector standard instance | 12 months |
| 500 pages of Form Recognizer S0 | 12 months |
| 50,000 transactions with Personalizer S0 | 12 months |
| 10,000 transactions of Content Moderator standard instance to moderate or review | 12 months |
| 10,000 predictions with Custom Vision standard instance including one training hour and two projects with 5,000 training images each | 12 months |
| 5,000 transactions with Computer Vision for each S1, S2, and S3 tier | 12 months |
| 10,000 Text Request transactions with Language Understanding (LUIS) | 12 months |
| Three managed documents with QnA Maker | 12 months |
| 30,000 transactions with Face standard instance | 12 months |
| 2 million characters of any combination of standard translation and custom training with Translator | 12 months |
| 128 GB of Managed Disks as a combination of two 64 GB (P6) SSD storage, plus 1 GB snapshot and 2 million I/O operations | 12 months |
| 5 GB of LRS-Hot Blob Storage with 20,000 read and 10,000 write operations | 12 months |
| 5 GB of LRS File Storage with 2 million read, 2 million list, and 2 million other file operations | 12 months |
| 250 GB of SQL Database standard S0 instance with 10 database transaction units | 12 months |
| 15 GB of bandwidth for outbound data transfer with free unlimited inbound transfer | 12 months |
| 750 hours of Azure B1S General Purpose Virtual Machines for Microsoft Windows Server | 12 months |
| 750 hours of Azure B1S General Purpose Virtual Machines for Linux | 12 months |
| 750 hours, 15 GB of data processing, and up to five rules with Standard Load Balancer | 12 months |
| 1 Standard tier registry with 100 GB storage and 10 webhooks for Container Registry | 12 months |
| 1,500 hours of dynamic public IP addresses for use with B1S Virtual Machines | 12 months |
| 750 hours and 13 million operations of Service Bus Standard tier base unit | 12 months |
| 400 RU/s provisioned throughput and 25 GB storage for Azure Cosmos DB | 12 months |
| 750 hours of VPN Gateway with gateway type VpnGw1 | 12 months |
| 10 GB of LRS Archive Storage, 10 GB LRS (locally redundant storage) or GRS (geo-redundant storage) write and retrieval, and 100 reads | 12 months |
| 400 provisioned throughput RU/s and 5 GB of storage for Azure Cosmos DB | Always free |
| Azure IoT Central includes a 7-day free trial for first time subscribers and 2 free monthly connected devices | Always free |
| Azure Maps S0 account tiers offer 250,000 monthly map tile loads and 25,000 monthly service calls | Always free |
| 5 GB of bandwidth for outbound data transfer with free unlimited inbound transfer | Always free |
| 10 web, mobile, or API apps with Azure App Service with 1 GB storage | Always free |
| 1 million requests and 400,000 GBs of resource consumption with Azure Functions | Always free |
| 100,000 operations for event publishing and delivery with Event Grid | Always free |
| 50,000 stored objects with Azure Active Directory with single sign-on (SSO) to all cloud apps and MFA | Always free |
| 50,000 active users per month (MAU) with Azure Active Directory B2C | Always free |
| Free Azure Service Fabric to build microservice apps | Always free |
| First 5 users free with Azure DevOps | Always free |
| Unlimited nodes (server or platform-as-a-service instance) with Application Insights and 1 GB of telemetry data included per month | Always free |
| Unlimited use of Azure DevTest Labs | Always free |
| Machine Learning with 100 modules and 1 hour per experiment with 10 GB included storage | Always free |
| Free policy assessment and recommendations with Azure Security Center | Always free |
| Unlimited recommendations and best practices with Azure Advisor | Always free |
| Free Azure IoT Hub edition includes 8,000 messages per day with 0.5 KB message meter size | Always free |
| 5 free low frequency activities with Azure Data Factory | Always free |
| 50 MB storage for 10,000 hosted documents with Azure Cognitive Search including 3 indexes per service | Always free |
| Free namespace and 1 million push notifications with Azure Notification Hubs | Always free |
| Unlimited Azure Batch usage for job scheduling and cluster management | Always free |
| Free 500 minutes of job run time with Azure Automation | Always free |
| Unlimited users and 5,000 catalog objects with Azure Data Catalog | Always free |
| 30,000 transactions per month processing at 20 transactions per minute with Face API | Always free |
| Free 2 million characters included for Translator | Always free |
| Free 5 GB per month analysis plus 31-day retention period with Log Analytics | Always free |
| 50 virtual networks free with Azure Virtual Network | Always free |
| Unlimited inbound Inter-VNet data transfer | Always free |
| Free Azure Container service to cluster virtual machines | Always free |
Who is eligible for the Azure free account?
The Azure free account is available to all customers who have never tried or paid for Azure before.
Do I pay anything to start with the Azure free account?
No. Starting is free, plus you get $200 credit to spend during the first 30 days and free amounts of services.
Do I have to pay something after 30 days?
At the end of your first 30 days or after you spend your $200 credit (whichever comes first), you’ll only pay for what you use beyond the free monthly amounts of services. To keep getting free services after 30 days, move to pay-as-you-go pricing. If you don’t move to pay as you go, you can’t purchase Azure services beyond your $200 credit—and eventually your account and services will be disabled.
What happens once I use my $200 free credit or I’m at the end of 30 days?
We’ll notify you so you can decide if you want to move to pay-as-you-go pricing, enabling you to purchase Azure services beyond free amounts. If you do, you’ll keep getting access to all the free services. If you don’t, your account and services will be disabled. To resume usage, you’ll need to move to pay as you go.
What does it mean to upgrade my account?
When you sign up for an Azure free account, you get $200 credit. In the first 30 days, any services you use beyond their free amounts will be deducted from that $200 credit. When you’ve used up your $200 credit or 30 days have passed (whichever happens first), you’ll need to upgrade by moving to pay-as-you-go pricing. That way, you can keep getting free amounts of services and purchase services beyond their free amounts as needed. The cost of those services is charged to the payment method you provide.
What happens with the services if I don’t upgrade?
If you decide not to move to pay-as-you-go pricing after your first 30 days or once you’ve used up your $200 credit (whichever happens first), any services you’ve deployed will be decommissioned and you won’t be able to access them. To regain access, move to pay as you go in the following 30 days.
How do I know how much of the $200 credit I have left?
You can see your remaining credit under Azure Cost Management and Billing in the Azure portal.
What happens to my unused credit if I upgrade before the end of 30 days?
If you move to pay-as-you-go pricing before the end of 30 days, you won’t lose your credit. When you move to pay as you go, any credit you have remaining will still be available for the full 30 days from when you created your free account.
What do I need to sign up for a free account?
All you need is a phone number, a credit card or a debit card, and a Microsoft account or a GitHub account.
Do I need a Microsoft account to sign up for Azure?
You can sign up with either a Microsoft account or a GitHub account.
How does the signup process work using GitHub?
You can now sign up using the “Sign-in options” link on the Azure sign-in page. When you, as a GitHub user, first sign into a Microsoft product with your credentials, GitHub will ask for your permission to consent. GitHub will share with Microsoft the name and public and private email addresses on your GitHub account to check if you already have a Microsoft account. If it looks like you already have an account, you’ll have the option to use that account and add your GitHub account as a login method. Otherwise, a new account will be created and linked to the GitHub account.
What GitHub information will be shared with Microsoft?
Microsoft is committed to user privacy. The request for profile information is used to check for the presence of an existing Microsoft account and to create an account if needed. Once your information enters the Microsoft ecosystem, it’s protected by the Microsoft terms of service and isn’t shared without your permission. Connecting a GitHub identity to a Microsoft account will not give Microsoft any code access.
Why do I need to provide a credit card and phone number?
One of the ways we keep prices low is by verifying that account holders are real people and not bots. We use the phone number and credit card for identity verification. We don’t charge your credit card anything when you sign up, but you may see a one-dollar verification hold on your credit card account. The hold is temporary and will be removed, never charged to you.
What happens at the end of the 12 months?
Once you move to pay-as-you-go pricing, certain types of popular services—including compute, networking, storage, and databases—are available in free monthly amounts for 12 months. If you’re using any of these services after 12 months, they will continue to run and you’ll be billed at pay-as-you-go rates for any usage beyond the free amounts.
Can the Azure free account be used for production or only for development?
The Azure free account provides access to all Azure services and does not block customers from building their ideas into production. The Azure free account includes certain services—and certain amounts of those services—for free. To enable your production scenarios, you may need to use resources beyond the free amounts. You’ll be billed for those additional resources at pay-as-you-go rates.
Are the free account, free services, and $200 credit available internationally?
Yes. These are available in all countries where Azure is commercially available (but doesn’t include sovereign cloud products in US Government, Azure China, and Azure Germany regions). Azure is currently commercially available in 140 countries/regions including:
- Afghanistan
- Albania
- Algeria
- Angola
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Australia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Belize
- Bermuda
- Bolivia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Brazil
- Brunei Darussalam
- Bulgaria
- Cameroon
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Chile
- China
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Croatia
- Curaçao
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Estonia
- Ethiopia
- Faroe Islands
- Fiji
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Ghana
- Greece
- Guatemala
- Honduras
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- India
- Indonesia
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Korea
- Kuwait
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macao
- Macedonia (FYRO)
- Malaysia
- Malta
- Mauritius
- Mexico
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Namibia
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestinian Authority
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Philippines
- Poland
- Portugal
- Puerto Rico
- Qatar
- Republic of Cabo Verde
- Republic of the Congo
- Romania
- Russia
- Rwanda
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sri Lanka
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Uruguay
- Uzbekistan
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
- Virgin Islands of the United States
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Can I apply any of my $200 credit toward Azure Marketplace offers?
No, your credit can’t be applied to Azure Marketplace offers. However, many Azure Marketplace partners offer free trials and/or free tier plans for their solutions.
How many free account offers am I allowed to sign up for?
There is a limit of one account with free services and $200 credit per new customer. You can, however, use as many products as you like beyond the free amounts by moving to pay-as-you-go pricing.
Can I use my Azure Hybrid Benefit within the Azure free account?
No. The Azure Hybrid Benefit cannot be combined with the services offered for free.
Can I spend my credit on Azure Spot Virtual Machines?
No, but after you use your credit, you can move to pay as you go and purchase Spot Virtual Machines at deep discounts compared to pay-as-you-go pricing for virtual machines.
What if I still have questions?
Call us at 1-855-270-0615 and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
