A startup says Azure credits did not cover Claude in Microsoft Foundry and left it with a $17,600 bill

The Register reports that Norwegian startup Vegalabs received $25,060 in Azure credits through Microsoft for Startups, deployed Claude in Microsoft Foundry in August and expected the credits to cover it. Microsoft's sponsorship rules exclude Anthropic models bought through Azure Marketplace, and Vegalabs says charges reached $17,600 before tax while the portal still showed credits. It says $21,168 of unused credits expired on 8 September, and that Microsoft and Anthropic each sent it to the other for a waiver. Microsoft had no comment beyond an acknowledgment, and Anthropic did not respond. The account comes from the customer.

• If you start using an AI model through a cloud provider, check whether free credits cover that model before you run real work, and set a budget alert with a hard limit.
• Look at the billing page a day after first use, not at month end, and delete test deployments you are not using.

Source: The Register. This is our short summary of their reporting. The paragraphs marked "Our read" and the things to do are SeedFoundry's opinion. The summary is drafted with AI tools. Image: Claude, from its own announcement. How we source and credit