To get an alert before Azure costs exceed a limit, create a budget in the Azure portal for the subscription or resource group you want to monitor. Set a spending amount and actual-cost and/or forecast-cost thresholds, then add email recipients. At subscription or resource group scope, you can also attach an Azure Monitor action group. A budget alert is a notification: it does not pause services or stop charges.
How to set up an Azure budget alert
- Sign in to the Azure portal and open Cost Management + Billing.
- Select the subscription or resource group to monitor. Check the scope selector carefully: a budget applies to the scope where you create it.
- Open Budgets and choose the option to add a budget.
- Enter a clear name, choose a reset period and valid time period, and set the spending limit. If you want the budget period to line up with invoicing, Microsoft’s tutorial recommends a billing month, quarter, or year reset period.
- Add one or more thresholds and choose whether each is based on actual or forecast cost. Actual cost tracks spending already accrued; forecast cost can warn when projected spending is expected to cross a threshold.
- Add at least one email recipient for a threshold, then save the budget. Microsoft’s tutorial says a budget can have up to five thresholds and five email addresses; notifications are normally sent within an hour of evaluation. See Microsoft’s budget tutorial for the current portal workflow.
- Optionally attach an action group if the budget is at subscription or resource group scope. Then open Cost alerts for that scope to review active alerts, including their type, generated date, status, and scope.
Portal wording and menu placement can change. If the labels differ, start from the relevant Cost Management + Billing scope and look for Budgets and Cost alerts.
Choose the alert that answers your question
| Alert type | What triggers it | Scope and availability |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | A user-defined limit based on actual cost, forecast cost, or both. | Listed for Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft Customer Agreement, and Web direct/Pay-As-You-Go accounts. Subscription and resource group budgets can use action groups. |
| Credit | Azure Prepayment balance consumption; alerts are generated at 90% and 100% of the balance. | Listed for Enterprise Agreement accounts. |
| Department spending quota | A department’s configured spending quota. | Listed for Enterprise Agreement accounts. |
| Anomaly | An unexpected change in daily usage or cost, such as a spike or dip. | Subscription scope. This is separate from a user-defined budget; an anomaly alert email is sent once when the anomaly is detected. |
| Scheduled cost alert | A periodic cost summary based on a saved cost view. | Daily, weekly, or monthly reporting cadence; use it for summaries rather than a budget threshold. |
For a planned spending cap, use a budget. For unusual daily movement that might occur below your chosen cap, consider an anomaly alert as a separate signal. Microsoft’s cost-alert overview describes the alert types and offer availability.
What budget thresholds mean
Actual-cost threshold
An actual-cost alert is based on costs that have accrued against the budget. It is useful for tracking usage already recorded, but it is not a promise that charges will be stopped at the threshold.
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Forecast-cost threshold
A forecast alert is intended to give earlier notice when projected costs are expected to pass a threshold. Forecasting is a projection, not a guaranteed final bill, so use it alongside actual-cost alerts when you want both an early warning and a view of accrued spending.
Will an Azure billing alert stop services or charges?
No. A budget notification does not affect resources and does not stop consumption. An action group can notify or initiate configured actions, but automation is separate from the alert itself. If you want an automated response, choose an action suited to the monitored scope and test its permissions and behavior before relying on it. Microsoft’s alert guidance and budget API documentation cover action-group use; the API guidance specifies a fully qualified Azure resource ID, with action-group contacts supported only at subscription or resource group scope.
Permissions and scope limits
For alerts, Microsoft lists Owners, Contributors, and Cost Management Contributors as roles that can read and update alerts. Readers and Cost Management Readers have read-only access. Anomaly-rule creation requires Cost Management Contributor or higher, or the documented Microsoft.CostManagement/scheduledActions/write permission in a custom role. Anomaly rules can be created only at subscription scope, and the anomaly documentation lists availability only in Azure public cloud. Check Microsoft’s alert overview and anomaly guidance if your tenant is in a sovereign cloud or rule creation is unavailable.
Does Azure charge for billing alerts?
Microsoft states that “There’s no charge to use Cost Management and Billing features for your Azure subscriptions.” The Azure services being monitored can still incur charges. See the Cost Management overview.
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