Cloud Infrastructure
Microsoft Azure SLA credit guide
What Microsoft Azure owes you when it misses its uptime commitment — the credit tiers, the filing deadline, how to file, and a calculator to estimate your credit.
What SLA credit are you owed when Microsoft Azure is down?
When Azure (generic service) falls below its 99.9% rolling 30-day uptime commitment, you're owed an SLA service credit worth 10%–100% of the affected service's monthly spend — larger the further uptime fell — claimable within 60 days of incident onset. It's a credit toward a future invoice, not a cash refund.
Full Microsoft Azure claim guide · What is an SLA credit? · SLA glossary
Uptime commitment
99.9%
Filing window
60 days
counted from incident onset
Services with SLA data
4
Credit calculator
SLA target is 99.9% — enter what you actually observed.
Enter your monthly spend above to see the dollar credit for a 10% tier.
Estimate only, from the vendor’s published tiers — the final credit is set by the vendor against your actual invoice and their SLA definitions.
Credit tiers by service
| Measured uptime | Credit |
|---|---|
| 99% – under 99.9% | 10% of spend |
| 95% – under 99% | 25% of spend |
| below 95% | 100% of spend |
GENERIC AZURE PROFILE — the commitment and the credit table above are the Azure family's common shape, not your service's terms. ⚠️ ON AZURE, BOTH ARE INDEXED ON DEPLOYMENT CONFIGURATION RATHER THAN ON THE SERVICE, which is a level below the per-service split and the reason a vendor-level figure cannot be trusted here: Virtual Machines alone publishes five commitments across three credit tables, and its single-instance tables move the BANDS as well as the commitment (Standard HDD pays 10% below 95%, where the table above would price 100%). Azure SQL Database and App Service each publish a higher commitment for zone-redundant deployments than for ordinary ones. ⚠️ THE PER-SERVICE SLA PAGES NO LONGER EXIST: azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/sla/<service>/ now 301-redirects to Microsoft's consolidated Online Services SLA at https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Service-Level-Agreements-SLA-for-Online-Services, whose landing page serves only a list of versions and download links — download the current version and find your service's own section, and read the table that names your deployment configuration.
| Measured uptime | Credit |
|---|---|
| 99% – under 99.95% | 10% of spend |
| 95% – under 99% | 25% of spend |
| below 95% | 100% of spend |
⚠️ ONTRACKO SCORES APPS WITHOUT AVAILABILITY ZONES (99.95%) — IF YOURS ARE ZONE-REDUNDANT, YOUR COMMITMENT IS 99.99% AND THIS PAGE UNDERSTATES YOUR CLAIM. Azure App Service publishes two tables: apps running WITHOUT Availability Zones commit 99.95% (the figure above), apps running WITH them commit 99.99%. Both carry the same bands — 10% below the commitment, 25% below 99%, 100% below 95% — so as with Azure SQL Database it is the commitment that moves, not the tariff. A zone-redundant app at 99.96% is owed 10% and would be scored compliant against the figure above.
| Measured uptime | Credit |
|---|---|
| 99% – under 99.99% | 10% of spend |
| 95% – under 99% | 25% of spend |
| below 95% | 100% of spend |
⚠️ ONTRACKO SCORES THE NON-ZONE-REDUNDANT CLASS (99.99%) — IF YOU RUN ZONE-REDUNDANT, YOUR COMMITMENT IS HIGHER AND THIS PAGE UNDERSTATES YOUR CLAIM. Azure SQL Database publishes THREE tables. General Purpose, Business Critical, Premium or Hyperscale CONFIGURED FOR ZONE REDUNDANT DEPLOYMENTS commit 99.995%; the same tiers NOT so configured commit 99.99% (the figure above); Basic and Standard commit 99.99%. All three share the bands above — 10% below the commitment, 25% below 99%, 100% below 95% — so here it is the COMMITMENT that moves and the tariff that holds, the mirror of the Virtual Machines case. A zone-redundant database at 99.992% is owed 10% and would be scored compliant against the figure above. Microsoft also excludes the monthly maintenance window that patches the server and infrastructure from the uptime calculation.
| Measured uptime | Credit |
|---|---|
| 99% – under 99.99% | 10% of spend |
| 95% – under 99% | 25% of spend |
| below 95% | 100% of spend |
⚠️ ONTRACKO SCORES THE AVAILABILITY-ZONE CLASS (99.99%) — CHECK YOUR DEPLOYMENT BEFORE FILING. Azure's Virtual Machines SLA publishes FIVE commitments and THREE credit tables, and unlike AWS's second tables THE BANDS THEMSELVES MOVE, so reading the wrong one misprices the claim rather than merely mislabelling it. The commitments: 99.99% for two or more instances across two or more Availability Zones (the figure above); 99.95% for two or more instances in the same Availability Set or Dedicated Host Group; and for a SINGLE instance, 99.9% on Premium SSD or Ultra Disk, 99.5% on Standard SSD, 95% on Standard HDD. The multi-instance tables share the bands above (10% below the commitment, 25% below 99%, 100% below 95%). THE SINGLE-INSTANCE TABLES DO NOT: on Standard SSD it is 10% below 99.5%, 25% below 95%, 100% below 90%; on Standard HDD it is 10% below 95%, 25% below 92%, 100% below 90%. A single Standard-HDD VM at 94% uptime is therefore owed 10%, not the 100% this profile's table would price — and at 96% it is not in breach at all.
How to file a Microsoft Azure SLA credit claim
Portal: Azure Portal — Help + Support ↗
- Sign in to the Azure portal with an owner/contributor on the affected subscription.
- Go to Help + Support → "Create a support request" → Issue type: Billing → Problem type: Refund request / SLA credit.
- Reference the Azure incident/tracking ID from section 3 and paste the claim text from section 8.
- CHECK WHICH TABLE YOU ARE CLAIMING UNDER — on Azure the commitment AND the tariff are indexed on your DEPLOYMENT CONFIGURATION, not on the service, and the bands can move as well as the target. Virtual Machines publishes five commitments across three 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, 95% on Standard HDD. The multi-instance tables pay 10% below the commitment, 25% below 99% and 100% below 95%; THE SINGLE-INSTANCE ONES DO NOT — Standard SSD pays 10% below 99.5%, 25% below 95%, 100% below 90%, and Standard HDD pays 10% below 95%, 25% below 92%, 100% below 90%. Azure SQL Database commits 99.995% when zone-redundant against 99.99% otherwise, and App Service commits 99.99% with Availability Zones against 99.95% without. Quote the table that names your configuration, not the one for the service.
- READ THE TERMS IN THE CONSOLIDATED DOCUMENT — Microsoft retired the per-service SLA pages, so azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/sla/<service>/ now 301-redirects to https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Service-Level-Agreements-SLA-for-Online-Services, which serves only a list of versions and download links. Download the current version and find your service's own section; there is no per-service page left to link a reviewer to.
- Confirm exact impact times from Service Health → Health history in your portal (account-scoped evidence).
- ⏰ SIXTY DAYS FROM THE INCIDENT, counted from the incident itself and NOT from the end of any billing month. Microsoft's Online Services Consolidated SLA says it 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 M365 and the rest of Microsoft's non-Azure estate; reading it as the Azure rule pushes your deadline up to a month past the real one.
Evidence you’ll need
- •Subscription ID
- •Resource IDs
- •Incident timestamps
Common exclusions
- •Planned maintenance
- •Preview services
Frequently asked
What is Microsoft Azure's SLA uptime commitment?
Azure (generic service) carries a 99.9% rolling 30-day uptime commitment.
How much credit can I claim if Microsoft Azure misses its SLA?
Credits are tiered by measured uptime, from 10% up to 100% of the monthly service spend for the affected service, depending on how far below 99.9% availability fell.
What is the deadline to file a Microsoft Azure SLA credit claim?
Claims are generally due within 60 days of incident onset (verify the exact clause in Microsoft Azure's SLA before filing).
Does Ontracko file Microsoft Azure SLA credit claims for me?
Ontracko monitors Microsoft Azure for free, detects SLA breaches automatically, and assembles the complete claim package (evidence + credit math + claim text). You file it; Ontracko charges 8% only on credits that are actually recovered.
Let Ontracko file it for you
Connect Microsoft Azure and Ontracko monitors the SLA, catches every breach, and drafts the claim with the evidence attached. Free — 8% only on recovered credits.