Recent Discussions
Business Verification failure, no reason?
I've tried repeatedly to verify my business which is failing. My credits are expiring soon so I need urgent help. I have not received a reply from the support ticket in the founder's home. My company is registered in the UK with Company House, it's clearly visible publicly that I am the owner. I've submitted a unified PDF with the Articles of Incorporation, Company Certificate showing it's address and company number, and everything else. These match the exactly details I put in the Founder's Hub. Yet I keep being rejected. I only have 2 appeals left. I do not know what to do when I'm not even told what the rejection reason is? How do I find out why my business verification is being rejected? The box states: "Unfortunately, we are unable to verify the information provided. Please provide documentation (tax invoices, bank statements, business registration certificate, etc.) that displays the registered business name and address to complete the verification process. If the business information was entered incorrectly, you can update the account information and restart the verification process." I have provided exactly this information. What do I do?Unable to pass Employment Verifcation step in Partner Center
Hi, I have been trying to enroll in the partner center since January. I am stuck at the step Employment Verification. I have uploaded all requested documents like domain name registration, domain name invoice, TXT file, etc, but everytime I get the message ' Based on the information you have provided to date, we have determined that your organization does not currently meet the requirements to pass verification' without any further explanation what exactly is wrong or why I am not meeting the requirement and how to fix it. It is driving me crazy, and making me very frustrated to be frank, that Microsoft is not able (or not willing) to help me in a decent way by letting me talk to a real life person. Because in my honest opinion the issue would be solved quite easily. I have opened several tickets already, but the answer is every time the same without any clear explanation what the problem is and how to solve it. Can please someone help me. I am a self employed developer who wants to enroll in the partner center and buy the partner benefits to use them for my every day work. Best regards, Erik
Azure Startup Credit Issue
Hi, I've been trying to verify my LinkedIn account to unlock $1,000 in Azure startup credits for over a week. Every time the OAuth callback hits error and, I get: {"error":{"code":"BadRequest","message":"BadRequest (Conflict)"}}. I've revoked all LinkedIn app permissions on both LinkedIn and Microsoft sides. I suspect that the issue is an orphaned LinkedIn identity record in your backend from a previous failed attempt. My support ticket has gone unanswered for over a week now and I also created a post in the learn community that went unanswered for days now. Could you point me to the right person? Happy to provide any account details needed.
$17,493 in Undisclosed Marketplace Charges with No Cost Visibility, No Recourse, No Accountability
I'm a co-founder of a 13-person startup in the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub program. I'm posting here because after two months of support tickets, calls, and emails across both Microsoft and Anthropic, I have been unable to get anyone with decision-making authority to address this issue. I'm hoping this reaches someone at Microsoft who can help, and that other affected founders in the program will share their experiences. What happened: In February 2026, we deployed Claude Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 through Azure AI Foundry as part of a migration of our AI infrastructure. We are active users of our Azure sponsorship credits and assumed, as anyone would, that these models were covered the same way Azure OpenAI models are. There was no indication otherwise during deployment. In early March, we received our first invoice: $1,078.07 (invoice G144899694, billing period 02/01–02/28). We were shocked, but we paid it immediately and removed all Anthropic model deployments from our account to prevent further charges. It didn't matter. On April 9, we received a second invoice: $16,414.94 (invoice G151890529, billing period 03/01–03/31). Despite removing the deployments in mid-March, charges had already accumulated for the first half of the month. We are unable to pay this invoice. Our total exposure across both invoices is $17,493.01. Why we had no way to prevent this: No billing distinction at deployment. Azure AI Foundry presents all models (Microsoft-native and third-party) in the same unified interface. There is no warning, label, or confirmation step indicating that certain models are excluded from sponsorship credits. No cost visibility whatsoever. The Azure AI Foundry monitoring dashboard has an "Estimated Cost" section that is completely blank for these models, with a disclaimer: "Cost monitoring is available for Foundry Models sold directly by Azure only." We could see token counts but had zero visibility into what we were being charged. Token counts that don't explain the charges. The dashboards show our Claude Opus 4.6 deployment used 63.4M tokens and our Sonnet 4.6 deployments used roughly 170M tokens combined. At published rates, that should be in the low thousands, not $17,500. My analysis shows the dashboard hides billions of cached tokens (prompt caching reads and writes) that are invisible in the monitoring UI but account for the vast majority of the bill. There is no view in Azure that provides a breakdown of these charges by token type. No alerts or notifications. There were no cost alerts, no threshold warnings, and no notifications at any point. No indication in any Azure portal that charges were hitting our credit card. There was no line item, no pending charge, no Marketplace spend summary - nothing anywhere in the Azure ecosystem that showed dollars accumulating against our payment method for these deployments. What happened when we asked for help: Azure Support (TrackingID#2603090040002936): After a month-long wait, a support engineer told us Microsoft cannot issue credits for Marketplace charges and directed us to Anthropic. The first version of the response email referenced "Azure DDoS Protection Standard" instead of our actual issue, suggesting the volume of similar cases in the queue. Anthropic: Their AI support bot responded within one minute with a blanket statement and closed the ticket four hours later. I escalated, but have still not received a response over a month later. Microsoft for Startups Team (TrackingID#2604070040009778): Told us they cannot apply Marketplace charges against sponsorship credits and referred us to a Marketplace billing contact. Azure Marketplace billing contact: Pending response. The pattern is clear: Microsoft directs us to Anthropic. Anthropic directs us to Microsoft. The Microsoft for Startups team directs us to Azure Marketplace billing. No one takes responsibility. What I'm asking for: A full refund of $17,493.01 across invoices G144899694 and G151890529 That Microsoft implement clear billing warnings in Azure AI Foundry before deploying models that are excluded from sponsorship credits. That Microsoft provide actual cost visibility in the monitoring dashboard for all models deployed through AI Foundry, not just first-party models. To other founders in the program: If you have experienced this same issue, please reply to this thread. I know I'm not alone because this has been covered by The Register, InfoWorld, and Computerworld, and at least 20 founders have signed a Change.org petition about it. The more founders who come forward with specific amounts and case numbers, the harder this is to ignore. We joined Microsoft for Startups because the program was supposed to help early-stage companies manage infrastructure costs during the most financially vulnerable period of our growth. Instead, the program's own platform generated charges within 2 weeks that exceed the total sponsorship credits we've consumed over the past year, with no visibility, no warning, and no path to resolution. With Further Inc. | Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub Azure Support TrackingID #2603090040002936 Startup Support TrackingID #2604070040009778
Cannot access startup verification flow
I signed up for Azure startup credits (self-service path, no investor code) approximately 83 days ago and received my initial $1,000 in credits on an Azure Sponsorship subscription. My 90-day business verification window to unlock the additional $4,000 closes within the next week. I'm writing in hope that either someone from Microsoft can get me in touch with the right team, or a fellow founder has located a viable workflow that I didn't. What I've tried: Founders Hub portal (portal.startups.microsoft.com): Redirects to azure portal. Azure portal home: Shows a "Build your startup" page with an "Unlock $1,000 in Azure credits — Verify with LinkedIn" prompt. This is the initial $1,000 onboarding step, which I already completed months ago. The portal does not recognize that I am already enrolled. Clicking "Verify with LinkedIn" returns a {"error":{"code":"BadRequest","message":"BadRequest (Conflict)"}} response from startupsweb.production.portalrp.azure.com/api/auth/linkedin/callback. Azure support ticket: Filed a ticket under Benefits - Offers / Entitlement check (ticket #2606240010000362). The T1 agent is not reading the content of my messages and keeps directing me back to the Founders Hub portal and the same broken links. He is attempting to close the ticket without resolution. email address removed for privacy reasons: Received an auto-reply that this is an unmonitored inbox directing me to submit a ticket through the Founders Hub portal — which redirects to the aforementioned dead end workflow. I believe this is related to the program experience migration that went live May 29, 2026. My account was created before this date, so per Microsoft's own documentation I should be on the pre-migration portal experience, but neither the old nor new experience is functional for my account. It seems like those of us with in-progress states are just getting lost in the shuffle of the migration.Urgent Guidance Needed - Azure Credits Exhausted During Active AI Infrastructure Scaling
Hello Microsoft for Startups Community, My name is Joseph Thomas, and I am currently building our startup through Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. We have recently exhausted both our initial and extended Azure sponsorship allocations ($1,000 and the subsequent $5,000 sponsorship tier). Our team is actively scaling AI infrastructure entirely on Azure, including Azure AI Foundry workloads, multi-model orchestration, inference pipelines, and cloud application infrastructure. As development and deployment activity accelerated, our Azure consumption grew significantly faster than originally projected. We are now beginning to see active billing charges accrue, and I am working proactively to avoid disruption to our ongoing production and development environments. I have already submitted support requests through both the Founders Hub portal and Azure Billing Support. I wanted to reach out to the community here to ask: Has anyone successfully secured additional sponsorship credits or a sponsorship extension after exhausting their initial allocations? What is the best escalation path for an AI startup heavily invested in Azure AI Foundry and Azure infrastructure? Has anyone recently gone through the “Level Up” review or higher sponsorship-tier evaluation process, and if so, do you have any recommendations? We are fully committed to building long term on Azure and would greatly appreciate any guidance, recommendations, or insight from other founders or Microsoft team members who have navigated this stage successfully. Thank you for your time. Joseph Thomas
Founders Hub billing issue - stuck between Microsoft and ISV with no resolution path
Hi everyone, I'm reaching out to the community because I've hit a wall with standard support channels and hoping someone from the Founders Hub team or other founders who've faced similar issues can help. QUICK SUMMARY I'm a Founders Hub participant who got charged ~€1,000 for using Claude (Anthropic) models through Azure AI Foundry. I assumed these were covered by my $25k Sponsorship credits since: • I used ai.azure.com (not a separate marketplace) • There was no clear warning about separate billing • There's no way to monitor Marketplace spending in Founders Hub THE PROBLEM: I'm stuck in a loop: • Microsoft says "contact the ISV for refund approval" • Anthropic says "billing is handled by Microsoft, not us" • The "Support" link Microsoft points to redirects back to Microsoft Support I've sent detailed emails explaining this circular situation. Support keeps responding with the same copy-paste policy text, ignoring my request for escalation. MY ASK 1. Is there a dedicated support channel for Founders Hub billing issues? 2. Has anyone from the Founders Hub team dealt with similar Marketplace confusion before? 3. Any founders here who successfully resolved unexpected Marketplace charges? I'm not trying to get something for free - I already paid the first invoice (€460). I just want help with the second invoice that surprised me a month later. The Founders Hub program has been great otherwise, but this experience has been really frustrating. Any pointers would be hugely appreciated. Thanks! Bartek
Issue with Startup Application
Hi friends and Microsoft team, I applied for the startup grant last week. I uploaded all the necessary documents and completed every section of the application form. After submitting it, I was able to see the application stages on the Founders Hub page. However, now the status page has disappeared, and I only see the application form again. I haven’t received any email confirming that my application was received or declined, and I’m feeling quite confused about the current status. Could you please advise me on what to do next?
Support Team is not responsive
Could I get assistance with the following issue? I need to unlock more funds, but the support team has been obstructing my progress for over two weeks without any real advancement. This is quite frustrating. Domain or Business Verification - TrackingID#2502270040016357 Hi v-tonydea I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to express my concern regarding the progress of the ticket raised on 28th February 2025. On 1st March, Shalini advised that the provided documentation did not meet the accepted standards. My team sent two separate emails on 2nd and 3rd March requesting clarification, as we believe the documentation meets the requirements as per the MS Startup Hub guidelines. However, Shalini's response on 4th March was identical to the initial email sent on 1st March, without addressing our requests for clarification. This suggests that the emails sent on 2nd and 3rd March were not reviewed, and the response appeared to be a copy-paste from the dedicated team without proper understanding or effort to resolve the issue. My team sent another email on 4th March requesting clarification on the initial email. We also attempted to contact Shalini on 11th March for an update, where he acknowledged and apologized for the delay. Despite this, on 5th March, Shalini replied with the same exact email sent on 1st March, still not addressing our concerns. Since 5th March, my team has repeatedly requested Shalini to share the contact details of his line manager, but these requests have been ignored, raising further concerns. On 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th March, my team tried to get an update and resolve the ticket, but there was no response from Shalini. It is evident that the ticket has been open for more than 12 days now, with very slow and unprofessional progress due to the lack of communication and action from Shalini. This has started to affect our business and the progress of our development. It appears that there is a level of misunderstanding and a lack of proper communication from Shalini, which is concerning. We kindly request that this ticket be assigned to another team member who is more proactive and willing to help us close this ticket as soon as possible. I also request a resolution for this ticket within the next 24 hours. If there is no satisfactory resolution within this timeframe, I will need to escalate this matter through our other Microsoft channels. Our parent company has a gold relationship with Microsoft, and while we value this partnership, we are prepared to escalate our concerns and issues if necessary. We look forward to your prompt response.
Who is in charge of the Bizspark program in Denmark now?
I am a Microsoft partner in Denmark for 30 years now and have worked closely with the Bizspark program since it started! Unfortunately because of the pandemic I haven't been to MS HQ in Lyngby for a number of years so here is the problem: --the people I used to work with ms Bizspark in DK have all left! --who is in charge now? --why can't I log into the Bizspark portal --why have I stopped receiving invitations to seminars and events --and why is the Bizspark portal not listed on the new home page? Scott Hill M.Sc. Microsoft community partnerWindows Licensing for Startups
Our company recently joined the Microsoft for Startups program. We understand that this gives us access to a lot of Azure resources but we are building a physical product that we want to base on a Windows LTSC OS. I can't find any information about whether or not the Startups program includes any OS licensing benefits. Does anyone have any insight?
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