Azure Free Tier offers limited usage of popular services to help new customers experiment at no cost. I led design across learning, deployment, and monitoring experiences to clarify usage, reduce billing confusion, and foster trust that encourages users to convert to paid services.
Lead Designer
Jun — Dec 2024
UXR, Product, Engineering
A lack of clarity around free usage limits frequently led to unexpected charges, which hurt customer trust and increased support costs and customer churn.
I participated in interviews with 8 Azure customers who had used free tier services and later incurred unexpected charges, aiming to understand where confusion arose.
Unclear how Free Tier works
Users didn’t fully understand usage limits or when charges would begin.
Confusion during free service creation
Users mistakenly selected paid tiers, assuming all options listed were free.
Low visibility into usage
Users didn’t realize they needed to monitor usage until after being charged.
Strengthen Free Tier learning
Clarify free usage limits, offer durations, and overage charges before service creation.
Clarify free versus paid at setup
Make free and paid tiers clearer at service creation to avoid accidental paid deployments.
Raise monitoring awareness
Surface usage monitoring early so users can manage usage and avoid overages.
At the top of the free tier page, I added cards explaining the two free offer types. User testing showed the two-card layout confused users, who thought they had to choose one offer or the other. Some were also unclear if free amounts reset monthly. The final design uses a unified card with clearer language explaining how both offers work together and reset each month.
In the service creation flow, I separated free and paid tiers in the pricing dropdown and added a banner on free tier overage charges. User testing revealed the banner felt out of place appearing before pricing tier selection. In the final design, it appears only after choosing the free tier, and is placed below the dropdown for better context.
I updated the Free Tier usage monitoring page to show statuses for services nearing or reaching their limit, plus a “Manage” CTA for stopping services. User testing revealed users wanted overage charge details and time estimates until when limits would be reached. While time estimates weren’t feasible, I implemented an overage charges column in the final design.
An explanation card is added at the top of the page to clarify free usage limits and offer durations. Service discoverability is improved through redesigned service cards specifying free durations and the introduction of category-based navigation.
The Pricing Tier dropdown in the Create flow is modified to clearly distinguish free and paid tiers and display free tier usage limits inline. When the free tier is selected, a contextual banner outlines overage charges. An opt-in checkbox is also added to prompt users to receive email notifications when usage nears the limit.
The free tier usage card on the Azure billing dashboard is redesigned to include progress bars for top-used services and usage statuses indicating when limits are nearing or reached. In the details view, overage charges are surfaced, usage status labels are added, and direct “Manage” links are included for each service.
The redesigned Free Tier experience shipped in January 2025. By clarifying usage limits, including opt-in usage reminders, and strengthening monitoring tools, support volume related to unexpected charges was significantly reduced, and free-to-paid conversion increased.
20% decrease
in free usage related support volume
5% increase
in conversion from free to paid usage
80% opt-in rate
for free usage notifications
This project taught me the value of designing across the full end-to-end experience and addressing pain points at every stage. It was also my first time conducting user interviews and usability testing, which showed me how crucial it is to engage with users regularly to fully understand their needs and priorities.
