Microsoft Foundry Free Tier → Tier 1 eligibility requires subscription-specific engineering review

Question

Microsoft Foundry Free Tier → Tier 1 eligibility requires subscription-specific engineering review

vincentzhang-3822 0

I have an open Azure support case regarding Microsoft Foundry subscription-level quota tier eligibility.

The subscription remains on Free Tier with:- tierUpgradePolicy = OnceUpgradeIsAvailable- no tierUpgradeEligibilityInfoWe have already confirmed through the support case that:- there is real Microsoft Foundry usage,- a GPT-5 mini Global Standard deployment is active,- Azure Monitor shows actual request activity,- the account has Subscription Owner access,- the Foundry Quota page is accessible,- the underlying billing account is active under Microsoft Customer Agreement / Azure Plan.

Microsoft Support previously indicated that, if the subscription uses a supported paid offer and still remains on Free Tier, the next step would be an Azure engineering review of the service-side Tier 1 eligibility state. This issue cannot be resolved through public troubleshooting because it requires inspection of subscription-specific backend eligibility state. Could a Microsoft Azure engineer please continue this through the linked support case and privately escalate it to the team responsible for Microsoft Foundry subscription quota tier eligibility and automatic tier upgrades? I can provide the subscription ID and all account-specific evidence privately through the existing support case.

Manish Deshpande 8,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-21T14:44:12.0366667+00:00
Hello Vincent,

Your subscription is still on the Foundry Free quota tier. It shows tierUpgradePolicy = OnceUpgradeIsAvailable with no tierUpgradeEligibilityInfo, even though you're on an active Microsoft Customer Agreement / Azure Plan, have an active gpt-5-mini Global Standard deployment with confirmed request traffic, and hold Subscription Owner access. You've already worked through every self-service check, and we agree the next step is an engineering review.

Where things stand: We haven't confirmed a root cause yet. Your offer type, your usage and your permissions don't appear to be the blocker. A Free Tier status with no eligibility information usually means one of three things in the service's tier record for your subscription:

the tier record was never created

the tier evaluation didn't complete the subscription is being held for an eligibility review

Only the service team can inspect and correct this.

Step 1: Provide a fresh tier snapshot. Run your quota tier query again and attach the full raw response, with the UTC time and the region queried. If you can, query a second region as well.

Why this matters: it gives engineering a current, timestamped baseline. A different result in each region points to a different underlying cause. How to verify: the response and timestamp are attached to this case.

Step 2: Confirm subscription and offer details. Reply with your Subscription ID, Tenant ID and the offer type from Subscriptions > Overview, and confirm whether any Azure credits or sponsorship apply.

Why this matters: engineering checks eligibility against these exact identifiers. How to verify: the details appear in the case record.

Step 3: Confirm the regions you need. Tell us which regions and models you need at Tier 1, along with the TPM you expect to need.

Why this matters: this lets engineering confirm the effective limits once the tier is corrected. How to verify: the regions and models are listed in the case.

When we receive these details, we will raise an engineering escalation with the team that owns Microsoft Foundry subscription quota tiers. We will tell you their findings, including whether the tier is changed or what eligibility criteria still need to be met. We can't commit to a specific tier outcome until that team completes its review.

Thanks,
Manish.

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Alex Burlachenko 26,695 MVP Volunteer Moderator

Hi vincentzhang-3822 & thx for join me at Q&A platform,

based on what u've already verified, I agree that this needs a subscription-specific review by the Microsoft Foundry quota and eligibility team, rather than another round of general troubleshooting.

The important distinction here is that tierUpgradePolicy = OnceUpgradeIsAvailable indicates the subscription's upgrade policy, but it doesn't necessarily mean the subscription has already satisfied every condition for Tier 1. Similarly, the absence of tierUpgradeEligibilityInfo doesn't tell us whether the subscription is ineligible, waiting for evaluation, or affected by a backend state issue.

You've already confirmed actual model usage, an active GPT-5 mini deployment, valid billing, and access to the quota management interface. Those checks help rule out several common explanations, but none of them independently guarantees an automatic upgrade from Free Tier to Tier 1.

At this point, I'd ask the engineer handling ur existing support case to escalate it specifically to the Microsoft Foundry Models quota tier eligibility / automatic upgrade engineering team. The investigation should focus on the subscription's effective eligibility state, the last eligibility evaluation, any outstanding upgrade conditions, and whether the automatic upgrade workflow has encountered an error.

I'd also request a clear outcome from that review: whether the subscription is currently eligible, what exact condition is preventing the upgrade if it isn't, and whether backend reconciliation is required. If the subscription is eligible but the upgrade hasn't happened, engineering should be able to investigate the service-side workflow rather than asking u to generate more usage without a documented reason.

One thing worth mentioning: posting here doesn't automatically link this discussion to ur private support case or trigger an engineering escalation. I'd add the Q&A thread to the existing case and explicitly request escalation through that channel. Keep the subscription ID, billing details, and diagnostic identifiers in the private case.

Given how much you've already checked, I wouldn't recommend creating additional deployments or changing billing settings just to trigger another eligibility evaluation.

Has the support engineer confirmed that the case is already assigned to the Foundry quota eligibility team, or is it still with the initial Azure support team? That distinction would help determine the next escalation step.

rgds,

Alex

p.s. if my answer is help - pls mark it as an answer

HUAJIE ZHANG 0 Reputation points

2026-10-22T15:32:38.58+00:00

Thanks Alex — your response was very helpful, and it actually changed how I approached the existing support case.

Before I saw your reply here, the Azure support engineer handling SR 2610190050000846 had essentially reached the position that:

quota tiers are upgraded automatically;

CSS cannot manually upgrade the tier;

individual model quota requests are handled separately by the Quota/Gating team;

and there appeared to be no further action available within the current support scope, so closure of the support request had been proposed.

At that point, there had been no confirmation that the case had been escalated or assigned to the Microsoft Foundry quota-tier eligibility / automatic-upgrade engineering team.

After reading your recommendation, I went back to the private support case and specifically raised the distinction you described: the remaining issue is not whether CSS can manually change the tier, but whether the subscription requires a subscription-specific backend eligibility review.

I asked them to investigate the subscription's effective eligibility state, outstanding upgrade conditions, and whether the automatic upgrade workflow might have encountered a service-side issue, rather than treating the fact that tier upgrades are normally automatic as the end of the investigation. I also referenced this Q&A discussion back to the support case.

Following that clarification, the support team kept the case open and informed me that internal Subject Matter Experts are now involved and reviewing the issue.

So the current situation is:

initially, the case was being handled within the Azure Machine Learning / Azure OpenAI & Cognitive Services CSS support path, and closure had been under consideration;

after I brought the subscription-specific eligibility question back to the case, the case remained open and internal SMEs became involved;

however, the case still appears to remain owned by the original CSS support path;

and I have not yet received confirmation of who the SMEs are, or whether the issue has reached the Microsoft Foundry quota-tier eligibility / automatic-upgrade engineering team you referred to.

Given this updated status, what would you recommend as the most appropriate next step from here?

I would especially appreciate your perspective on how this type of case is normally expected to progress inside Microsoft support, and what I should look for to determine whether it has reached the team that can actually inspect the subscription's backend tier eligibility state.

I ask because I have already spent a considerable amount of time trying to get this specific question to the right place — researching the issue myself, responding to multiple automated or AI-assisted support replies, going through several rounds of clarification, and opening more than one support request along the way.

I have also already tried the separate individual-model quota path several times for the higher-capability models I need. Those requests have repeatedly been declined. The rejection messages have generally pointed to regional capacity or the inability to expand capacity in the requested region.

I understand that different support teams have different scopes and levels of access, and I appreciate the current team's continued effort in keeping the case open and involving additional expertise. My main concern is simply to avoid another cycle of general troubleshooting or documentation references if the remaining question ultimately requires a different internal team with access to the relevant backend eligibility information.

Thank you again — your distinction between “CSS cannot manually change the tier” and “the subscription-specific backend eligibility state still requires engineering review” was exactly the point that had been missing from the support conversation.

Best regards,
Vincent Zhang