How to Cancel Microsoft Azure in 2026 (Close Subscriptions + Stop Billing)

Updated 2026-03-03 · 8 min read

Azure Services That Silently Bill You

• Virtual Machines: Billed per minute while running. Stopped (deallocated) = free. Stopped (still allocated) = still billing.
• Azure SQL / Cosmos DB: Billed for provisioned capacity even with zero queries
• Storage Accounts: Billed for stored data, even a few cents/month adds up over time
• Public IP Addresses: Static IPs cost ~$3.65/month even if nothing uses them
• App Service Plans: Free tier exists, but Basic/Standard/Premium bill monthly
• Azure Active Directory Premium: Per-user-per-month licensing
• Managed Disks: Billed even when detached from a VM

Step 1: Find Everything That's Billing You

1. Go to portal.azure.com → Cost Management + Billing
2. Click Cost Analysis to see what's generating charges
3. Group by Resource group to see costs by logical grouping
4. Group by Service name to see which Azure services cost the most
5. Check Invoices for the last 3 months to understand your baseline spend

Step 2: Delete All Resource Groups

This is the nuclear option — it deletes everything inside the resource group. Make backups first if needed.

1. Go to Resource Groups in the Azure portal
2. Select a resource group
3. Click Delete resource group
4. Type the resource group name to confirm
5. Repeat for EVERY resource group
6. Deletion takes a few minutes — some resources have dependencies that must be removed first

Step 3: Cancel Azure Subscription

1. Go to Subscriptions in the Azure portal
2. Select the subscription to cancel
3. Click Cancel subscription
4. Select a reason and confirm
5. Azure enters a 90-day disabled period — resources are preserved but stopped
6. After 90 days, everything is permanently deleted
7. You can reactivate during the 90-day window if you change your mind

Cancel Azure Free Trial

1. Azure free trial gives $200 credit for 30 days
2. After 30 days or $200 used, subscription is disabled automatically
3. If you upgraded to pay-as-you-go from free trial, you must cancel explicitly
4. Go to Subscriptions → select the pay-as-you-go subscription → Cancel
5. Free tier services (12 months) stop when you cancel

Cancel Azure DevOps

1. Go to dev.azure.com
2. Organization Settings → Billing
3. Set all paid user counts to 0
4. Free tier: 5 users with Basic access, unlimited stakeholders
5. To delete the organization entirely: Settings → Delete organization

Cancel Microsoft 365 (Often Bundled)

If you subscribed to Microsoft 365 through Azure or your Microsoft account:

1. Go to account.microsoft.com/services
2. Find Microsoft 365 subscription
3. Click Manage → Cancel
4. Choose immediate cancellation or end-of-period

Common Azure Billing Traps

• Stopped but not deallocated VMs: A "stopped" VM from the OS still incurs compute charges. Use Stop (Deallocate) from the Azure portal.
• Orphaned disks: Deleting a VM doesn't always delete its disks. Check Disks in the portal.
• Reserved instances: If you bought 1-year or 3-year reserved capacity, you're committed — cancellation penalties apply (check your agreement).
• Bandwidth egress: Data leaving Azure is metered. Large data transfers can spike bills unexpectedly.
• Log Analytics workspace: Ingestion charges can grow silently as your apps generate more logs.

Alternatives to Azure

• AWS: Largest cloud — more services, bigger community, more documentation
• Google Cloud (GCP): Best for data/ML workloads, generous free tier, simpler pricing
• DigitalOcean: Simpler, cheaper for small-medium projects — flat-rate droplets
• Vercel/Netlify: Best for frontend/Jamstack — zero-config deploys
• Hetzner: Cheapest dedicated servers and VPS in Europe — excellent value

Bottom line: Azure cancellation is 90% about finding and deleting resources, 10% about clicking the cancel button. Use Cost Analysis religiously before canceling to make sure you're not leaving orphaned resources that will generate a surprise final bill.