Forum Discussion
$17,493 in Undisclosed Marketplace Charges with No Cost Visibility, No Recourse, No Accountability
I'm a Microsoft for Startups participant in Berlin. I deployed Claude models (Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5) through Azure AI Foundry and was charged EUR 794.81 to my card, while my full $1,000 startup credit balance sits completely unused to this day (expires Aug 2026). The deployment flow showed no Marketplace label, no billing warning, and no indication that sponsorship credits would not apply. My subscription was then suspended over the unpaid charges.
I disputed within 24 hours and removed all deployments immediately. What followed was the same loop others have described: Azure Support told me in writing that a refund requires ISV approval and that Microsoft would process it once approved. Anthropic's support then confirmed in writing, on a thread Microsoft was CC'd on, that no approval process or exception pathway exists at all for these charges, and directed me back to Microsoft. Azure Support then closed my case stating there is no further escalation path and Microsoft cannot act without ISV approval. So each company has refused in writing, each pointing at the other, and the remedy Microsoft prescribed is impossible by the ISV's own written admission.
References: SR 2606110050003187 | CRM:0020230000652
"Microsoft publicly acknowledged this issue on February 27, 2026, via its own Q&A moderator, who confirmed the product group was engaged and a bug item was created. I was charged in June 2026 through an interface that remained unchanged
I am experiencing the exact same issue right now as a solo founder in the Microsoft for Startups program. We are an early-stage startup developing an AI platform (Nyra) and were hit with an unexpected charge of R$ 8,189.40 (~$1,500 USD) for Anthropic API usage via Azure AI Foundry / Marketplace (Service Request ID: 2608280040003424 / Subscription ID: 2fdb34a6-f8-7a88-410d-823a-c1d71f98f120). The exact same ping-pong runaround happened to me: 1. The UX Trap: I deployed the model inside Azure AI Foundry believing active Azure Sponsorship credits covered all provisioned resources in the portal, with zero explicit warnings or alerts. 2. Microsoft to Anthropic: Azure Billing Support gave a canned response that Microsoft cannot adjust Marketplace partner charges and redirected me to Anthropic. 3. Anthropic to Microsoft: Anthropic officially answered that billing is processed 100% through Microsoft's platform, so Anthropic cannot issue waivers or refunds, directing me back to Microsoft for a hardship exception. 4. The Dead End: I escalated back to Microsoft Support and management (email address removed for privacy reasons) with Anthropic's refusal, and Microsoft simply denied the request. For an early-stage startup with zero runway, an unexpected bill like this is existential. We joined to build, not to have our infrastructure threatened due to non-existent cost visibility in Azure AI Foundry. Thank you for bringing this to light. Count me in as another founder dealing with this exact flaw.
Adding another case to this thread. India, individual developer, not in Founders Hub — a plain Azure Sponsorship subscription. Same mechanism, same runaround, and it happened in September 2026, six months after Microsoft publicly acknowledged the problem.
WHAT I WAS CHARGED
Offer: Claude in Microsoft Foundry (Azure hosted). Publisher Anthropic, PublisherType Marketplace. Plan claude-ccu-azure-hosted-plan, meter claude-consumption-units. Usage 30 August to 5 September 2026 only.
Tranche 1, invoiced: INR 33,588.38 plus GST 6,045.91 = INR 39,634.29 on invoice G182724257, due 11 September 2026.
Tranche 2, not yet invoiced: INR 31,739.12 pre-tax = INR 37,452.16 with GST.
Combined: INR 77,086.45 (about USD 806).
Meanwhile USD 773.10 of my Azure sponsorship credit sits unused and unexpired in the same billing profile. It expires 20 September 2026. Every single usage record for this meter carries isAzureCreditEligible = false, and azureCreditApplied = INR 0.00 on every invoice line. So the credit was available, was never touched, and the charge went to my card instead.
I am not in a position to pay this invoice.
THE SAME LOOP, AGAIN
Azure Support SR 2609040030004026. The engineer's written position: past 72 hours the refund "requires ISV approval", and separately that "usage and consumption-based charges, including metered billing charges, are not eligible for refunds from Microsoft or the ISV". Those two statements cannot both be true. If the charges are categorically ineligible from Microsoft or the ISV, then ISV approval is meaningless. If ISV approval can trigger a credit, the exclusion is not absolute.
A second case I opened, correctly classified as a Marketplace credit request, was auto-closed by an AI reply from an unmonitored mailbox six minutes after I filed it.
On the ISV side, I did not need to repeat the experiment. It is already documented in this thread and elsewhere that Anthropic has stated in writing that billing is processed entirely through Microsoft's platform and that they cannot issue waivers or refunds for Azure Marketplace transactions — in one case on a thread Microsoft was copied on. Anthropic's own published documentation for Claude in Microsoft Foundry states the integration "works with current Azure agreements and billing, eliminating separate vendor approvals", and directs Foundry users to Azure support. The remedy Microsoft prescribes is one the publisher has said, in its own documentation and in writing to affected customers, does not exist.
THE POINT I WANT TO PUT ON THE RECORD
Microsoft's Q&A moderator acknowledged this on 27 February 2026, said the product group had been engaged, and created a bug item for a documentation update. I was charged between 30 August and 5 September 2026. That is six months later, through an interface that still carried no Marketplace label, no sponsorship-credit warning, and no cost visibility at the point of deployment.
The April 2026 Microsoft for Startups page that names Anthropic as excluded sits behind a sign-in and governs Founders Hub sponsorship. I am not in Founders Hub. Nothing equivalent was surfaced to me, and nothing at all was surfaced in the deploy flow.
ON COST VISIBILITY AND CACHED TOKENS
The point raised in this thread about prompt-cache tokens being invisible in the monitoring dashboard matches what I found in my own logs: large cache-write token volumes with no published rate and no line-item breakdown anywhere in Azure. I am not able to reconcile the consumption units billed against any figure Azure showed me, because Azure showed me nothing. "Cost monitoring is available for Foundry Models sold directly by Azure only" is not adequate for a charge that lands on a payment card.
WHAT I AM ASKING FOR
1. A credit memo for the invoiced tranche and suppression of the un-invoiced September tranche.
2. Before anything else: a hold on the due date of invoice G182724257. That is a billing action, it is in scope for billing support, and it requires no ISV involvement whatsoever.
3. A reconciliation of the consumption units billed, broken down by token type including cache reads and writes.
I am not asking for anything novel. Microsoft has already extended a due date in this situation as a one-time exception, and has already granted a USD 1,000 credit as a special exception. I am asking to be treated consistently with those decisions, for a smaller amount than the one already approved.
Happy to be counted with the other founders and developers in this thread.