3 "Rookie Mistakes" That Cause AWS Free Tier Bill Shock.
A quick guide to avoiding unexpected Free Tier charges. Don't let a forgotten resource ruin your cloud learning journey!
We’ve all been there: you spin up a few resources to test out a tutorial, close your laptop, and wake up weeks later to a surprise bill. When you are just starting out on AWS, managing costs is just as important as managing infrastructure.
Here are the top three mistakes to avoid:
- Orphaned EBS Volumes: Terminating an EC2 instance doesn't always delete the attached storage. Always check the box to "Delete on Termination" or manually clean up your Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes.
- Leaving NAT Gateways Running: NAT Gateways charge an hourly rate plus data processing fees. If you build a VPC for a lab, tear the gateway down the second you are done.
- Forgetting Billing Alerts: Before you build anything, set up AWS Budgets. Creating a zero-dollar or $1 budget alert takes two minutes and will email you the moment you cross the Free Tier threshold.
Question for the community: What was the resource that caused your first unexpected AWS bill? Let me know in the comments! (And drop a like if this saved you a few dollars today!)
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