Microsoft startup credits are the gift that keeps on billing

Complaints about Microsoft’s startup credits and Azure AI Foundry keep mounting, with users reporting surprise credit card charges and invoices they never saw coming.

The culprit is the use of third-party models: Accessing Anthropic’s Claude via Azure AI Foundry incurs charges that startup credits don’t cover, something a Microsoft support forum moderator initially insisted wasn’t the case.

To make matters worse, the system provides few to no notifications warning users when startup credits are converted into real credit card charges.

The Register spoke to Riyaj Shaikh, who was billed for several thousand dollars after he mistakenly assumed startup credits covered his foray into Anthropic’s products via Azure. Shaikh found himself trapped in a hellish loop – when he sought a refund, Microsoft pointed him to Anthropic and then Anthropic pointed him back to Microsoft.