Question regarding Azure Sponsorship membership and how is billing

Hello Sistemas ARQ It looks like everything’s working as designed: your Azure Sponsorship credit up to $2,000/year automatically offsets any Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) charges you rack up—including Blob Storage usage. Even though your subscription shows “Pay-As-You-Go” as the offer type, Azure is applying your Sponsorship credits behind the scenes.

Here’s how to confirm and manage everything:

1. Check your Sponsorship balance and usage
   • Go to https://www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com/ and sign in.
   • You’ll see your remaining credit and a breakdown of what services have consumed it (storage, compute, networking, etc.).
2. Review your storage charges and Credit application
   • In the Azure portal, go to Cost Management + Billing → Cost analysis.
   • Filter by your subscription and by service (e.g., “Storage”). You’ll see the raw PAYG rates and then the credit applied from your Sponsorship.
3. Why you can’t remove the credit card
   • Azure requires a payment instrument (PI) on file so that, if you exhaust your $2,000 credit or reach your end date, your subscription can automatically convert to standard PAYG and continue running without interruption.
   • Because the card is tied to that PI, the portal won’t let you delete it while the subscription is active. If you truly want to remove it, you’d have to cancel/deactivate the subscription first—but that also stops all resources.
4. What happens at credit exhaustion
   • When you hit $2,000 of cumulative usage or the end date of your Sponsorship, any new usage will be billed at PAYG rates to your credit card.
   • If you’d rather not continue past your Sponsorship, be sure to delete or shut down unneeded resources before then.

Let me know if you need help locating any of these portals or interpreting your usage report!

Reference docs:

• ST- Help me validate or confirm my discount – Legacy CustomerLed Sponsorship https://azure.microsoft.com/offers/ms-azr-0036p/
• Alchemy-Azure Sponsorship entitlement check and activation – Legacy CustomerLed https://www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com/
• How you’re charged for Azure Blob Storage https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/pricing/details/storage/blobs/
• Cost Management + Billing in the portal https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/quick-acm-cost-analysis

For a nonprofit Azure Sponsorship, the behavior being seen is expected:

1. Why the subscription shows Pay-As-You-Go
   Azure Sponsorship grants are applied as credits on the billing profile, not as a special “sponsorship” subscription type in the portal UI. The underlying subscription often appears as Pay-As-You-Go (PayGo), but charges for eligible Azure services (such as Blob Storage) are first offset by the sponsorship credits. For nonprofit grants and other sponsorships:
   • Credits are assigned to a billing profile.
   • Each month, an invoice is generated and credits are automatically applied to the total charges for that billing profile.
   • Only any remaining amount after credits is charged to the payment method (credit card or invoice).
   This is why usage appears as normal Pay-As-You-Go consumption, but the actual amount due is reduced by the grant credits.
2. How to confirm that Blob Storage is consuming the grant credits
   To verify that the correct solution (the sponsorship) is being used:
   • In the Azure portal, use Cost Management + Billing for the billing profile that has the nonprofit grant.
   • Check the credit balance and usage for that billing profile. For Microsoft Customer Agreement–based billing, credits are automatically applied to the invoice total for that profile.
   • Ensure the subscription where Blob Storage is deployed is linked to the same billing profile that holds the Azure Sponsorship grant. If a subscription is linked to a different billing profile, its usage will not be covered by the grant and will be billed directly.
   If the grant was activated under the wrong billing profile or the subscription is attached to the wrong profile, a product transfer request can be used to move the subscription so that the sponsorship credits apply correctly.
3. Why a credit card is required and cannot be removed
   For nonprofit Azure grants and sponsorships:
   • A valid credit card might be required during setup, but it is only charged if usage exceeds the grant amount or if there is usage not covered by credits.
   • Because the card is the active payment method for the billing profile, the portal typically does not allow removing it while it is in use.
   • As long as total eligible usage stays within the $2,000 annual grant and there is no excluded usage (for example, third-party marketplace items or other non-covered services), the card should not be charged.
4. What to do next
   • In Cost Management + Billing, confirm:
     • The billing profile that holds the nonprofit Azure Sponsorship grant.
     • That the Blob Storage subscription is under that billing profile.
     • The remaining credit balance and how much of the Blob Storage usage is being offset by credits.
   • If usage is being billed outside the sponsorship (for example, because the subscription is on a different billing profile), submit a product transfer request to move the subscription under the sponsorship billing profile so that future usage draws from the grant.
   • Monitor the grant balance regularly, because unused credits do not roll over and usage beyond $2,000/year is billed at standard Pay-As-You-Go rates to the configured payment method.

References:

• Renew your Azure grant
• Activate your Azure grant
• Track Microsoft Customer Agreement Azure credit balance