Lost a Day to the Microsoft 365 Outage? You Might Be Owed a Credit

When Microsoft 365 goes down, most businesses wait it out and move on. What many don't know is that Microsoft's Service Level Agreement includes service credits for some outages. Whether a particular outage qualifies is up to Microsoft, and the only way to find out is to ask.

Here's what to gather and where to send it.

What to gather

Pull this together while the outage is still fresh.

• The incident ID. Microsoft posts outages on the Service health page in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Each incident has an ID made of a two letter service code and a number, for example EX followed by digits for Exchange Online.
• Your tenant ID. This identifies your Microsoft 365 organization. An admin can find it in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• When it started and ended for you. Your own times, not just Microsoft's.
• Who was affected. How many users, and where they're located.
• What you tried. Any troubleshooting, plus any support ticket numbers from that day.
• Proof. Screenshots of errors, bounced email messages, or emails from staff reporting the problem.

A notice on Service health on its own may not be enough. Microsoft looks for evidence that your organization was actually affected.

Where to send it

It depends on how you buy Microsoft 365.

If you buy directly from Microsoft

An admin can open a support request in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Support, then New service request. Say you're asking whether the incident qualifies for an SLA service credit, and include the details above.

If you buy through a reseller or IT provider

Microsoft accepts credit requests for these licenses from the provider, not from you directly. Send them the details above and ask them to submit the request.

If you have both

Organizations with paid subscriptions from both Microsoft and a provider can usually go either way. Send the request through whichever one sold you the affected licenses.

Don't wait

Credit requests have a deadline. Microsoft's guidance for providers allows one month after the end of the billing month in which the outage happened, so it's safest to send your request as soon as you can.

If you're not sure how you buy Microsoft 365, or you'd like help pulling the details together, reach out.

Microsoft decides whether a credit applies, and its terms and admin center can change.

Sources

• Microsoft Learn, How and when to request a credit from Microsoft
• Microsoft Learn, Report a service problem on behalf of a customer