There is a difference between shutting down an Azure VM from outside vs from within the VM.
Stopping the VM from outside (e.g. from the Azure portal) will stop and deallocate the VM & you will not be charged for it while it is in this state.
On the other hand, shutting down within the VM (via the usual Start Menu & Shut Down method) will stop it but not deallocate the resources associated with it & you may still be charged for some of these resources.
While there is information about this difference in Microsoft’s documentation & elsewhere, it’s not something I’ve seen shouted about a lot & it’s useful to be aware of the distinction to avoid unnecessary charges. There is more information about this available in the Azure Linux VM FAQ although this particular piece of information applies to Windows VMs also.
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