Azure free account FAQ

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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 $200¹ 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 more than 55 other services that are free always.

See full offer terms

See the list of free services

Frequently asked questions

When you create your Azure free account, you start getting monthly free amounts of certain types of services. If you move to pay-as-you-go pricing within 30 days or after you’ve used your credit, you’ll continue to receive monthly free amounts of popular services until 12 months after you created your account. After that, if you’re using any of these services, they’ll continue to run and you’ll be billed for them at pay-as-you-go rates.
You start getting monthly free amounts of more than 55 other services when you create your Azure free account. If you move to pay-as-you-go pricing after 30 days or after you use your credit, you’ll continue to receive monthly free amounts of these services. If you exceed your monthly free amounts for any of these services, you’ll be billed for them at pay-as-you-go rates.
You can apply your credit to try services that aren't in the free list, or to use more than your free amounts of any services.
The Azure free account is available to all new Azure customers who haven't previously had an Azure free account and received a $200 credit.
No. Starting is free. You won't be charged anything unless you decide to move to pay-as-you-go pricing.
We’ll never charge you unless you decide to move to pay-as-you-go pricing. If you move to pay as you go, you’ll only be charged for services that you use above the free monthly amounts. You can check your usage of free services in the Azure portal.
At the end of your first 30 days or after you spend your $200 credit (whichever comes first), we'll ask you if you want to move to pay-as-you-go pricing. If you move to pay as you go, you'll keep getting free services and you'll only pay for what you use beyond the free monthly amounts. 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.
Yes. You can sign up directly for pay as you go. This will enable you to immediately use services beyond the free amounts at pay-as-you-go rates. You'll still get monthly free amounts of popular services for 12 months² and more than 55 services that are always free, but you won't receive the $200 credit.
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.
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.
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 within the following 30 days.
You can see your remaining credit under Microsoft Cost Management in the Azure portal.
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.
Once you move to pay-as-you-go pricing, certain types of popular services are available in free monthly amounts for 12 months. If you're using any of these services after 12 months, they'll continue to run and you'll be billed at pay-as-you-go rates. You'll continue to receive monthly free amounts of more than 55 services that are always free.
All you need is a phone number, a credit card or a debit card (non-prepaid), and a Microsoft account or a GitHub account. Only credit cards are accepted in Hong Kong SAR and Brazil.
We use the phone number and credit card or debit card for identity verification to validate that account holders are real people and not bots. We don't charge your credit card or debit card anything when you sign up for Azure, but you may see a one-dollar verification hold on your credit card or debit card account. The hold is temporary and will be removed, never charged to you.
You can sign up with either a Microsoft account or a GitHub account.
Use the "Sign in with GitHub" option on the Azure sign-in page. When you 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 log-in method. Otherwise, a new account will be created and linked to the GitHub account.
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.
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 types of specific services—and certain amounts of those services—for free. To enable your production scenarios, you may need to use resources beyond the free amounts. If you choose to move to pay as you go, you’ll be billed for those additional resources at pay-as-you-go rates.
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.
You can only purchase products on Azure Marketplace once you’ve moved to pay-as-you-go pricing.
There is a limit of one account with free services and $200 credit per new customer.
The Azure Hybrid Benefit cannot be combined with the free credit. If you move to pay-as-you-go pricing at the end of your first 30 days or after you spend your credit, then you will be able to use your Azure Hybrid Benefit.
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.
Contact Sales by chat, phone, or email and we'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

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
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 SAR
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Korea
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Libya

Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macao SAR
Malaysia
Malta
Mauritius
Mexico
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Nigeria
North Macedonia
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian Authority
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Republic of Cabo Verde
Republic of the Congo
Romania

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

Which services are free?

Certain types and amounts of these services are available for free each month:

Azure service	Description	Type	Free monthly amount	Free period
Advisor	Get personalised recommendations and best practices for Azure.	Management and governance	Unlimited	Always
Anomaly detector	Detect anomalies in data to quickly identify and troubleshoot issues.	AI + machine learning	20,000 transactions S0 tier	12 months
API Management	Manage APIs across all platforms with a hybrid, multicloud platform.	Integration	1 million monthly calls free with Consumption tier	Always
App Configuration	Store and manage configurations for all your Azure apps.	Developer tools	1,000 requests per day with 10 MB storage	Always
App Service	Quickly create powerful apps for any platform or device using your choice of tools, including Node.js and PHP.	Compute	10 web, mobile, or API apps with 1 GB storage 1 hour per day	Always
Archive Storage	Store and manage rarely accessed data with locally redundant storage (LRS) or geo-redundant storage (GRS).	Storage	10 GB LRS storage, 10 GB LRS or GRS write and retrieval, and 100 reads	12 months
Automation	Simplify cloud management with process automation.	Management and governance	500 minutes of job runtime	Always
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)	Enable identity and access management in the cloud.	Identity	50,000 stored objects with single sign-on (SSO) to all cloud apps	Always
Azure Arc	Extend Azure management and services.	Hybrid + multicloud	Free Azure control plane functionality for resources outside Azure, search and indexing for Azure Arc-enabled resources	Always
Azure Attestation	Verify the identity and security posture of trusted platform modules and trusted execution environments.	Security	Free	Always
Azure Cosmos DB	Build modern apps at any scale using a fast NoSQL database with open APIs.	Databases	400 request units per-second provisioned throughput with 25 GB storage	12 months
Azure Cosmos DB	Build modern apps at any scale using a fast NoSQL database with open APIs.	Databases	1,000 request units per-second provisioned throughput with 25 GB storage	Always
Azure Database for MySQL	Host a fully managed, scalable MySQL database in Azure.	Databases	750 hours of Flexible Server—Burstable B1MS Instance, 32 GB storage, and 32 GB back up storage	12 months
Azure Database for PostgreSQL	Build intelligent, scalable apps with fully managed database for PostgreSQL.	Databases	750 hours of Flexible Server—Burstable B1MS Instance, 32 GB storage, and 32 GB back up storage	12 months
Azure DevOps	Build apps in any language using Git repos, CI/CD and build and release automation.	Developer tools	5 users with unlimited private Git repos	Always
Azure Files	Migrate to simple, distributed, cross-platform file storage without changing code.	Storage	100 GB of LRS transaction optimised, hot and cool files. 2 million read, list and other file operations	12 months
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)	Deploy and manage containers using the tools you choose.	Compute	Free	Always
Azure Lighthouse	Manage service providers with Zero Trust access controls.	Management and governance	Free	Always
Azure Managed Applications, Service catalogue	Make it easier to acquire services with a catalogue of approved cloud offerings.	Management and governance	Free publishing	Always
Azure Maps	Create location-aware web and mobile applications using geospatial services, APIs, and SDKs.	Internet of Things	1,000 to 5,000 transactions for specific mapping and location insights features	Always
Azure Migrate	Discover, assess, right-size, and migrate your on-premises virtual machines to Azure.	Migration	Free	Always
Azure Policy	Achieve real-time cloud compliance at scale with consistent resource governance.	Management and governance	Free access to configuration and change tracking features	Always
Azure Resource Mover	Simplify how you move multiple resources between Azure regions.	Management and governance	Free (ingress and egress charges may apply)	Always
Azure SignalR Service	Add real-time communications into your web applications.	Web	20 concurrent connections per unit and 20,000 messages	Always
Bandwidth (Data Transfer)	Transfer data inbound and outbound through our robust network of global data centres.	Networking	15 GB outbound	12 months
Bandwidth (Data Transfer)	Transfer data inbound and outbound through our robust network of global data centres.	Networking	100 GB outbound	Always
Batch	Scale your application in the cloud with job orchestration and scheduling for HPC applications.	Compute	Free	Always
Blob Storage	Use massively scalable object storage for any type of unstructured data.	Storage	5 GB locally redundant storage (LRS) hot block with 20,000 read and 10,000 write operations	12 months
Bot Service	Develop intelligent, enterprise-grade bots that scale on demand.	AI + machine learning	10,000 premium channel messages and unlimited standard channel messages	Always
Cloud Shell	Manage Azure resources in a browser-based shell using popular command-line tools and programming languages.	Management and governance	5 GB free storage in Azure Files for 12 months	Always
Cognitive Search	Include a cloud search service in your web and mobile application.	AI + machine learning	50 MB storage for 10,000 hosted documents and 3 indexes per service	Always
Cognitive Service for Language	Extract information such as sentiment, key phrases, named entities and language from your text.	AI + machine learning	5,000 text records	Always
Computer Vision	Extract rich information from images to categorise and process visual data.		5,000 transactions for each S1, S2 and S3 tier	12 months
Container Apps	Build and deploy modern apps and microservices using serverless containers.	Containers	180,000 vCPU seconds, 360,000 GiB seconds, and 2 million requests	Always
Container Registry	Store and manage container images across all types of Azure deployments.	Containers	1 Standard tier registry with 100 GB storage and 10 webhooks	12 months
Content moderator	Moderate text and images to provide a safer, more positive user experience.	AI + machine learning	10,000 transactions S0 tier to moderate or review	12 months
Cost Management	Monitor, allocate and optimise cloud costs with transparency, accuracy and efficiency.	Management and governance	Free	Always
Custom Vision	Easily customise computer vision models for your unique use case.	AI + machine learning	10,000 predictions S0 tier, one training hour, two projects with 5,000 training images each	12 months
Data Catalog	Get more value from your enterprise data assets.	Analytics	Unlimited users	Always
Data Factory	Compose and manage data services at scale.	Analytics	5 low-frequency activities	Always
Database Migration Service	Simplify on-premises database migration to the cloud.	Databases	Free Standard Compute	Always
DevTest Labs	Enable fast, easy and lean dev-test environments.	Developer tools	Free	Always
Event Grid	Get reliable event delivery at massive scale.	Integration	100,000 operations per month	Always
Face	Detect, identify, analyse, organise, and tag faces in images.		30,000 transactions S0 tier	12 months
Face	Detect, identify, analyse, organise, and tag faces in images.		30,000 transactions of Free instance	Always
Form Recogniser	Automate the extraction of text, key/value pairs and tables from your documents.	AI + machine learning	500 pages S0 tier	12 months
Functions	Process events with a serverless code architecture.	Compute	1 million requests	Always
Health Bot	Build and deploy AI-powered, compliant, conversational healthcare experiences at scale.	AI + machine learning	3,000 messages (up to 10 messages per second)	Always
Health Data Services	Unify and manage health data and protected health information (PHI) in the cloud.	Integration	1 GB structured and blob storage, 50,000 API requests, .5 GB transformation operations, 100,000 events	Always
Immersive Reader	Embed text reading and comprehension capabilities into applications.	AI + machine learning	3 million characters	Always
IoT Edge	Extend cloud intelligence and analytics to IoT edge devices.	Internet of Things	Free, open-source edge runtime	Always
IoT Hub	Connect, monitor, and manage IoT assets with a scalable platform.	Internet of Things	8,000 messages per day and .5 KB message metre size of Free edition	Always
Key Vault	Safeguard and maintain control of keys and other secrets.	Security	10,000 transactions RSA 2048-bit keys or secret operations, Standard tier	12 months
Language Understanding (LUIS)	Build natural language understanding into apps, bots and IoT devices.	AI + machine learning	10,000 text request transactions S0 tier	12 months
Load Balancer	Instantly add scale, availability, and network performance to your applications.	Networking	750 hours, 15 GB of data processing, and up to five rules with Standard Load Balancer	12 months
Logic Apps	Build automated integration solutions across clouds and on-premises systems.	Integration	4,000 built-in actions with the Consumption plan	Always
Machine Learning	Develop and run R and Python models on your platform of choice.	AI + machine learning	Free	Always
Managed Disks	Get high-performance, durable block storage for Azure Virtual Machines with simplified management.	Storage	2 64 GB (P6) solid state drives SSD storage, plus 1 GB snapshot and 2 million I/O operations	12 months
Media Services, Encoding feature	Index, package, protect and stream video and audio at scale.	Media	20 output minutes Standard encoder video or audio source file encoding	12 months
Media Services, Live and on-demand streaming	Deliver content to virtually any device at scale.	Media	5 hours each of Standard Passthrough, Live Transcription, and Standard Streaming endpoint	12 months
Metrics Advisor	Embed AI-powered monitoring features to proactively diagnose issues.	AI + machine learning	25 time series	Always
Monitor	Gain full observability into your applications, infrastructure, and network.	Management and governance	See Azure Monitor pricing details for free amounts per feature	Always
Network Watcher	Monitor, diagnose and gain insights into your network performance and health.	Networking	5 GB storage with 1,000 checks, 10 tests and 10 connection metrics	Always
Notification Hubs	Send push notifications to any platform from any back-end.	Mobile	1 million push notifications with free namespace	Always
Open Datasets	Accelerate machine learning with curated datasets.	AI + machine learning	Free (egress charges may apply)	Always
Personaliser	Deliver rich, personalised experiences for every user.	AI + machine learning	50,000 transactions S0 tier	12 months
Private Link	Privately access services on Azure, keeping your data on the Microsoft network.	Networking	Free	Always
Resource Manager	Simplify how you manage your app resources.	Management and governance	Free	Always
Security Center	Prevent, detect and respond to threats with increased visibility and control over the security of your Azure resources.	Security	Free policy assessment and recommendations	Always
Service Bus	Get reliable cloud messaging as a service with simple hybrid integration.	Integration	750 hours and 13 million operations Standard tier base unit	12 months
Service Fabric	Build and operate always-on, scalable, distributed apps.	Containers	Free	Always
Spatial anchors	Build mixed-reality apps that map, share and persist 3D content.	Mixed reality	10,000 anchors queried	Always
Speaker Recognition	Accurately verify and identify speakers by their unique voice characteristics.	AI + machine learning	10,000 transactions each of speaker verification, speaker identification, and voice storage	Always
Speech to Text	Transcribe spoken audio to text.	AI + machine learning	5 audio hours each of Standard, Customised, and Conversation Transcription Multichannel Audio, 1 Customised endpoint hosting model	Always
Speech Translation	Integrate real-time speech translation into your app.	AI + machine learning	5 audio hours Standard	Always
SQL Database	Create a SQL database that delivers intelligence built in.	Databases	250 GB S0 instance with 10 database transaction units	12 months
SQL Server 2019 Developer Edition	Build, test and demonstrate applications in a non-production environment.	Developer tools	Free	Always
Static Web Apps	Streamline full-stack development from source code to global high availability.	Compute	100 GB bandwidth per subscription, 2 customised domains and .5 GB storage per app	Always
Text to Speech	Build apps that convert text to lifelike speech.	AI + machine learning	5 million characters Standard, 500,000 characters Neural, and hosting model	Always
Translator	Add real-time, multi-language text translation to your apps, websites and tools.	AI + machine learning	2 million characters S0 tier	12 months
Virtual Machines – Linux	Create Linux virtual machines with on-demand capacity in seconds.	Compute	750 hours B1s burstable virtual machines	12 months
Virtual Machines – Windows	Create Windows virtual machines with on-demand capacity in seconds.	Compute	750 hours B1s burstable virtual machines	12 months
Virtual Network	Provision private networks and connect to on-premises data centres.	Networking	50 virtual networks	Always
Visual Studio Code	Boost productivity with a powerful, lightweight code editor for cloud development.	Developer tools	Free	Always
VPN Gateway	Establish secure, cross-premises connectivity.	Networking	750 hours VpnGw1 Gateway Type	12 months
Web PubSub	Build real-time, two-way communication into your web and mobile apps.	Web	20,000 messages per unit per day and 20 concurrent connections per unit (1 unit max)	Always