App Service Plan deleted (confirmed via Activity Log) but still incurring charges and not visible in portal/CLI

Question

App Service Plan deleted (confirmed via Activity Log) but still incurring charges and not visible in portal/CLI

thijs hommes 0

We are experiencing an issue where an Azure App Service Plan continues to incur charges even though it appears to have been successfully deleted.

Resource type: Microsoft.Web/serverfarms (App Service Plan)
Region: West Europe
Pricing tier: Premium/Dedicated (based on ~€70/day cost)
Scope: Single subscription and resource group

What we did

Deleted the App Service Plan
- Performed deletion via Azure Portal
Verified deletion via Activity Log
- Found Microsoft.Web/serverfarms/delete
  - Status: Succeeded (HTTP 200)
    - Timestamp matches deletion action
Checked for recreation

Queried Activity Log for serverfarms/write
- Result: No recreate events found

Checked if resource still exists

Azure Portal:

- Not visible in *App Service Plans*

      - Not visible in *All Resources*

            - Not found via global search

               Azure CLI:

               ```yaml
               az resource list --query "[?name=='

Bharath Y P 10,610 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-27T12:13:37.83+00:00
Hello Thijs, it sounds like you’ve successfully deleted your App Service Plan but you’re still seeing ~€70/day in charges. Let’s break this down:

Double-check what’s actually generating the cost

Go to Cost Management + Billing > Cost analysis in the Azure portal

Filter by your subscription and time range, then group by Service type, Resource name or Meter

This will show you exactly which resource (or meter) is driving the daily ~€70

Look for “orphaned” or related resources Even though the serverfarm itself is gone, other resources tied to your Premium/Dedicated plan can keep billing you:

Virtual Network created for an Isolated plan

Storage accounts for backups or diagnostic logs

Log Analytics workspaces for App Service diagnostics

App Service certificates in Key Vault

Instance-stamp reservations that haven’t expired

If any of these weren’t deleted, they’ll continue to incur cost.

Use Copilot in Azure (if available) Try prompts like: • “Which resources are consuming money this month?” • “Show costs grouped by service for the last 6 months” It can give you a quick breakdown without manually building queries.

Confirm there are no recurring charges (support plan, Marketplace, etc.)

In Cost Management + Billing > Products + services (or Recurring charges), ensure you’ve turned off any support plan auto-renewal or Marketplace subscriptions.

Understand billing cycle timing

Azure finalizes usage within ~72 hours of a cancellation. If your plan deletion happened recently, you may see residual estimated charges.

However, continuous €70/day beyond that window usually means something is still running.

Next steps Open a billing support request so the back-end team can reconcile your usage vs. your deletion events • In your ticket, include:

Subscription ID

Exact dates of deletion vs. observed charges

Screenshots or export of your Cost analysis chart

Hope that helps you pinpoint what’s really costing you and get it resolved quickly!

Reference links

Troubleshoot getting charged for a canceled service (refunds & recurring-billing): https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/cost-management-billing/understand/plan-manage-costs#prevent-unwanted-charges

Cost analysis in the Azure portal: https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Billing/SubscriptionsBlade

App Service plan after deleting an app: https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/app-service/manage-scale-up#scale-up-your-pricing-tier

Cancel a support plan / turn off auto-renewal: https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/cancel-azure-subscription#cancel-a-support-plan

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Yes, this scenario is possible and is consistent with a “stuck” or back-end billing issue rather than an App Service Plan that still exists in ARM.

From the details provided:

The Microsoft.Web/serverfarms/delete operation shows Succeeded (HTTP 200) in Activity Log.
The App Service Plan no longer appears in the portal (App Service Plans, All resources, global search).
az resource list and az resource list --resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms do not return the resource.
There are no subsequent serverfarms/write (recreate) events.

When an App Service Plan is actually deleted, it should no longer accrue compute charges. Official guidance is explicit that:

App Service plans do continue to accrue charges when they still exist but have no apps attached.
To stop charges, the plan must be deleted or scaled to the Free tier.

“When you delete all apps in an App Service plan, the plan continues to accrue charges… To avoid unwanted charges, delete the plan or scale it down to Free tier.”

“App Service plans that have no apps associated with them still incur charges because they continue to reserve the configured VM instances.”

In the described case, the plan is already deleted and not present in ARM, so normal cost behavior (charging for an existing plan) should no longer apply. This aligns with the type of “phantom billing” issue described for other Azure resources:

“Sometimes even after deleting a resource the billing for it gets "stuck". In these cases you need to create billing support request and have billing engineer investigate… Once they investigate and get rid of the phantom billing they will issue refund/waiver of charges.”

There is also a documented pattern for Azure Container Instances where a resource continues to run and be billed after a stop/delete operation due to underlying platform issues:

“This issue might occur due to stuck deactivations or errors in the underlying platform during stop or delete operations.”

That article’s mitigation (recreating the same resource to force cleanup) is specific to container instances, not App Service Plans, but it confirms that:

Platform-level stuck deletions can occur.
Billing can continue even when a delete was requested.

Given that:

The App Service Plan is not discoverable via ARM (portal/CLI/Activity Log beyond the delete event).
Charges are still accruing at the previous App Service Plan rate.

This matches a back-end/billing synchronization issue rather than a still-existing App Service Plan.

Actionable steps:

Use Cost analysis → Cost by resource at the subscription level to confirm which resource ID is being billed (similar to the Azure Firewall guidance). Capture:
- Resource ID
- Meter details
- Time range showing charges after the delete timestamp.
Open an Azure Billing support request and provide:
- Activity Log evidence of the successful serverfarms/delete operation.
- Screenshots/exports from Cost analysis showing ongoing charges for that resource ID after deletion.

Resolution for this type of phantom billing requires intervention by Azure Support; there is no self-service ARM/CLI operation that can fix a resource that is already gone from ARM but still being billed.

References: