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An amazon EC2 micro instance is something like $60/mo. I know this because I tried to sign up for their "free" tier a few months ago, and got charged. Luckily

by blhack 15y ago

An amazon EC2 micro instance is something like $60/mo. I know this because I tried to sign up for their "free" tier a few months ago, and got charged. Luckily amazon had my account information on file, so they went ahead and just charged me for the balance. (It took a few weeks/months to get my money refunded...and forever convinced me that amazon's customer support is completely worthless) I'm sure AWS works for some people, but that left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

jat850 15y ago
I feel as though you may have encountered the same problem as I did when starting my Amazon service. The micro instance - the free tier - is actually free, and if you run more than one, additional ones cost roughly $15/month. However, what most likely happened is that when spinning up your first instance, you started a "Small" instance instead of a micro. "Small" is the default server selected when adding a new instance through the AWS webpage, and I did the same thing without realizing right away that it was not the free tier. Small instances cost roughly $67.50 per running month, so it would seem to me that this could have been what happened to you.
- blhack 15y ago
  Yeah, I think that's what happened to me to. I guess it just felt kindof "bait-and-switch"y to me. Imagine going into a restaurant that says "free buffet", where there are some non-free things mixed in that aren't really labeled all that well. The thing is, yeah, I made a mistake and clicked the wrong thing. That happens. What was frustrating to me, though, and why I'll never use AWS again was how long it took to find out what happened. There was no support email, no support chat, nothing.
awj 15y ago
> An amazon EC2 micro instance is something like $60/mo. An EC2 micro instance is around $15/mo (0.02 x 24 x 30). If you were charged $60 (0.085 x 24 x 30), you were running a small instance. They aren't the same thing, and Amazon did/is doing a shit job of making people looking for the freebie account aware of the difference. AWS is pretty awesome if it meets your needs. We use it at work, and don't have many problems with customer support. That said, it seems like there's obvious support prioritization based on account value. I'm sorry you had a bad experience. For what it's worth what you saw was more terrible marketing/support handling for freebie accounts than anything related to the service as normally used.

by blhack 15y ago

jat850 15y ago

I feel as though you may have encountered the same problem as I did when starting my Amazon service. The micro instance - the free tier - is actually free, and if you run more than one, additional ones cost roughly $15/month. However, what most likely happened is that when spinning up your first instance, you started a "Small" instance instead of a micro. "Small" is the default server selected when adding a new instance through the AWS webpage, and I did the same thing without realizing right away that it was not the free tier. Small instances cost roughly $67.50 per running month, so it would seem to me that this could have been what happened to you.

blhack 15y ago
Yeah, I think that's what happened to me to. I guess it just felt kindof "bait-and-switch"y to me. Imagine going into a restaurant that says "free buffet", where there are some non-free things mixed in that aren't really labeled all that well. The thing is, yeah, I made a mistake and clicked the wrong thing. That happens. What was frustrating to me, though, and why I'll never use AWS again was how long it took to find out what happened. There was no support email, no support chat, nothing.

awj 15y ago

> An amazon EC2 micro instance is something like $60/mo. An EC2 micro instance is around $15/mo (0.02 x 24 x 30). If you were charged $60 (0.085 x 24 x 30), you were running a small instance. They aren't the same thing, and Amazon did/is doing a shit job of making people looking for the freebie account aware of the difference. AWS is pretty awesome if it meets your needs. We use it at work, and don't have many problems with customer support. That said, it seems like there's obvious support prioritization based on account value. I'm sorry you had a bad experience. For what it's worth what you saw was more terrible marketing/support handling for freebie accounts than anything related to the service as normally used.