Ing. Calogero Bono
After the global outage that knocked out Outlook, Teams and Copilot for nearly 24 hours, Microsoft 365 business customers can claim a credit on their subscription. Wired reports this after reading the Service Level Agreement for online services. The refund is not automatic and must be requested for each incident, by the end of the following month. For a company of 100 people, Wired estimates a credit of over 1,000 dollars.
A few terms before we get into the facts. SLA (Service Level Agreement) is the contract that sets the promised availability of a service. Uptime is the percentage of time the service works. Downtime is the time it does not work, measured here in minutes per user. Service credit is a discount on future invoices, not a cash refund. Exchange Online is Microsoft's mail service, the one behind Outlook.
What happened on November 12?
The outage began on Thursday morning and, according to ZDNET, affected Microsoft 365, Copilot and Outlook in 74 countries, according to Downdetector. At 1 p.m. US Eastern time, reports for Outlook were nearly 83,000.
According to MacRumors, Outlook mail could not be accessed and some Teams and Copilot functions were down. Exchange accounts in Apple Mail were also hit. Calls, meetings and messages remained largely active, but there were errors in scheduling meetings and calendar entries.
We have already followed the story in our articles, including the Exchange Online outage lasting over 12 hours.
What was the cause?
Microsoft rules out a cyberattack. Charles Lamanna, executive vice president of Copilot, Agents and Platform, wrote on X "I can confirm there is no indication that this is the result of malicious activity or a cyberattack."
In its final note the company describes a technical problem, not linked to cyber or to AI or agents. The incident was reportedly introduced during an earlier update to network capacity, and surfaced after a recent change. According to Windows Central, recovery was slow because services were brought back online gradually, with checks at each stage.
During the emergency, Microsoft had explained that the high load was not due to traffic but to servers that suddenly became unavailable. We had covered this as well in the article on servers in trouble after health checks.
Who is entitled to the credit?
According to Wired, customers with a business account are entitled to it, even a small one, because the service is governed by the SLA. Those with a Family or personal plan are effectively excluded.
The consumer contract, Wired notes, provides refunds or credits at Microsoft's "sole discretion" and mentions neither SLAs nor uptime guarantees. Those with a personal plan can ask, but the chances of getting anything are low.
The official page for Microsoft 365 business plans indicates that the basic plans are designed for organizations of up to 300 users.
How is the service credit calculated?
For Exchange Online, Wired explains that downtime is any period in which users cannot send or receive mail through Outlook Web Access. It is measured in minutes per user. The uptime formula is simple. You subtract the downtime minutes from the total user minutes, divide by the total minutes and multiply by 100.
- Below 99.9%, a 25% credit.
- Below 99.5%, a 50% credit.
- Below 95%, a 100% credit.
Wired gives an example with 18 hours of interruption over a 30-day cycle. Uptime would be 97.5% and the credit 50%. The author, with an invoice of 24.88 dollars, calculates a credit of 12.44 dollars. For a company of 100 people he estimates over 1,000 dollars. These are Wired's estimates, not figures guaranteed by Microsoft.
How is the request submitted?
According to Wired, the request should be sent to customer support with all the information needed for validation. You need the name of the affected resource and the number of affected users. Wired suggests citing the incident codes for Exchange (EX1550543), Outlook (MO1550821) and Teams (TM1550488), where relevant.
Billing data can be found under Billing, then Bills and payments, in the Microsoft 365 admin interface. The email form is reached from the headset icon at the bottom right, then Help & support and Contact support. You first arrive at an AI chatbot.
The deadline is the end of the following month. For the November 12 incident, Wired writes, there is time until December 31, 2026.
When will Microsoft's report arrive?
Microsoft has promised a full report after internal review, without giving a precise date. Windows Central speaks of a report in the days and weeks that follow.
MacRumors also recalls that, a little over two weeks earlier, the company had announced staff cuts, with voluntary severance offered to 60,000 people. The link between the two facts is not proven by the sources and is only a contextual observation.
If you want to understand how the matter ended, read the account of the return after nearly two days.
Limits to know
Microsoft has not yet published the post-incident report, so the cause remains the one the company has declared. We do not know how requests will be assessed or how long it will take. Wired had only received a confirmation of receipt. The 18-hour calculation is an example, while the actual duration for your company depends on your data. It is not clear whether credits apply in the same way to every service. Wired's estimates are its own, and the 7 billion dollar loss figure comes from a think tank cited by ZDNET via CNN.
What changes for those who work digitally
If you have a business plan, check the request window right away and prepare your data. You will need the affected users, the perceived duration, the resources and the invoice amount. Those who manage several clients must file a request for each tenant.
The credit arrives as a discount rather than money, so you are counting on the next renewal. It is also worth noting when the problem actually blocked you, because your experience may differ from the global data. Many Microsoft 365 plans do not guarantee more than 99.9% uptime, and a full day of downtime weighs more than the credit.
Our take
The SLA credit is fair, but it does not cover the real damage. A day without mail and without Teams costs hours of work, missed appointments and irritated clients, far more than 50% of a monthly subscription. The mechanism, moreover, leaves the customer with the job of asking, through a poorly visible process and steps routed through a chatbot. Microsoft claims transparency about the numbers, but leaves the procedure poorly guided. For a small company the real problem is depending on a single provider for mail, documents and telephony. An emergency plan, even a simple one, is worth more than the refund. We also discuss this in our comparison between Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
Frequently asked questions
Who can claim the credit after the Microsoft 365 outage?
Customers with a business account can claim it, even a small one. Personal and Family plans are practically excluded, because the consumer contract does not mention SLAs. For them a refund remains at Microsoft's discretion.
Is the SLA credit a cash refund?
No, it is a credit on subsequent invoices. According to Wired, the amount depends on the month's uptime and can reach 100% below 95%. It depends on how long the downtime lasted for your users.
By when must the request be submitted?
By the end of the month following the incident. For the November 12 outage, Wired indicates December 31, 2026. After that date the request risks not being accepted.
Is the request automatic?
No, it must be made for each incident. It is sent to support from the Microsoft 365 admin interface, with the name of the resource and the number of affected users. You then receive a case number.
Was it a cyberattack?
No, according to Microsoft. The company speaks of a technical problem caused by an update to network capacity, not linked to cyber or AI. The full report will arrive after review.
What to watch in the coming weeks, between the report and the requests
Microsoft's report and the outcome of the first requests will show how well the SLA mechanism really works. It is worth following both.
- Read the post-incident report as soon as it comes out and compare the declared cause with the one already indicated.
- Check whether Microsoft responds to requests and how long it takes, noting the case number.
- Verify the monthly request deadlines for any other incidents, so you do not lose future credits.
Sources
- microsoft.com
- wired.com, Outlook Went Down? Microsoft May Owe You Money
- zdnet.com, Microsoft doesn’t ‘have an ETA for full recovery’ on outage yet
- macrumors.com, Microsoft 365 Outage Resolving After Nearly 24 Hours
- windowscentral.com, Microsoft apologizes for major network outage that knocked Outlook, Teams offline
