6 ms·

I want to offer two counterpoints to common sentiments here regarding AWS billing. 1. Don't be afraid of playing around with AWS (and even spending some money)

I want to offer two counterpoints to common sentiments here regarding AWS billing. 1. Don't be afraid of playing around with AWS (and even spending some money). AWS is really good at refunding you if you accidentally rack up a couple grand in surprise bills. Also even if you legitimately spin up big servers to try a kubernetes cluster for a couple of days, that $20 you spent is almost certainly great bang-for-buck for the benefit of learning that experience and getting your hands dirty with AWS. 2. AWS billing is actually really good for what it is. If you've ever run any non-trivial operational system (in the real world), you would know how hard it is to collate all expenses and get them tallied up. AWS collates all billing data with ~24h lag and you can slice and splice it to your heart's content. After all it's a complicated distributed system that they've managed to build that doesn't slow down your services or otherwise get in the way!

pvillano 4y ago
I just want my hobby server to shut off at if I spend over $XX in a billing period. Is that so insane?
noasaservice 4y ago
Azure supports hard stops on services with billing maximums. It does mean that stuff gets turned off if you enable that. Then again, as an individual, that's a superb way to control costs. And since Scamazon doesn't do that and INSTEAD "gives" you a 1 month unlimited credit, there's no telling just how stratospheric your bill can be. > AWS is really good at refunding you if you accidentally rack up a couple grand in surprise bills. If there were hard limits, there'd be no need to beg AWS support for leniency, which they can capriciously choose you don't deserve.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  Azure doesn’t support spending limits on all subscription types though. https://azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/offer-details/ https://azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/offer-details/
  - noasaservice 4y ago
    Completely true. However if what you're doing is highly price sensitive and willing to accept downtime over ScaryBill, then this the option you all need. And it's completely (and I bet intentionally) not available on AWS. AWS's message is "bend over and we'll tell you how far and long". Larger companies see $4k as a nothing; pay and move on. Household budgets, not so much.
- joatmon-snoo 4y ago
  If there were hard limits, that would also mean that the billing system is on the critical path for all systems, and not just an after-the-fact ETL.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    Just like in real life, if you run out of money you have to stop doing things.
    - logifail 4y ago
      > Just like in real life, if you run out of money you have to stop doing things In real life when you hit your card's limit, your transactions get declined. Straight away. I had this last month in a supermarket after my (personal) checking account didn't have enough money to cover my purchase, I'd completely forgotten to transfer money from my business account. My bank wasn't prepared to let my account go overdrawn, not even by the equivalent of $20, which is absolutely their right. Amazon, OTOH, benefits in lots of ways by not implementing this mechanism.
      - noasaservice 4y ago
        A better analog to the store and Scamazon's implementation would be: You put stuff in your cart. You go through the register. You agree to "prevailing price". No prices show up because they are "calculating". You leave the store. A day later, you're hit with a surprise bill that's 10-100x more than you though. A $100 transaction ends up being $1000-$10000. There's no refunds. The dispute procedure is to beg and hope they "let you ignore it".
      - maccard 4y ago
        > In real life when you hit your card's limit, your transactions get declined. Straight away. Except for when it doesn't. I've got two primary current accounts, one with a "legacy" bank in the UK and one with a modern bank. The legacy bank is happy to let me go into an unplanned overdraft, and charge me for the privilege of doing so.
Lorin 4y ago
Interestingly, AWS won't refund service credits provided by an accelerator if you've accidentally blown through those instead.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Possession is 9/10ths of the law. If they have already been paid, they are not likely to refund you.
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  How the fuck do you blow through $150k at an early stage startup???
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    As someone who worked at an early stage video intelligence startup, surprisingly easy. Redshift + Elastic Transcode + Cloudfront makes it extremely easy to spend thousands and thousands of $ per month.
  - zamalek 4y ago
    I've had "it needs the RAM" while staring at a 15% memory usage plot on a very expensive CI VM. Choosing a 20x cheaper machine had no effect on build time and stability, but this was the PR comment. This overprovisioned machine was possibly $20k. The truth is that developers sometimes require expensive things to get their job done efficiently. The other truth is that we often vastly overestimate the SKU. And we also leave things running.
  - perrygeo 4y ago
    Storage, compute and networking mostly. I'm confused by your question - are you suggesting that early stage startups couldn't possible generate a workload to warrant that cost? Maybe if your idea of a startup business is limited to running a basic CRUD app. But other data-intensive projects have engineering needs that can easily reach that scale, especially in the early days when you're trying to bootstrap your data catalog or ML models or whatever.
CJefferson 4y ago
With regards (1), I feel like there are two different worlds (and given how non-transparent Amazon is, that's very believable). I've never run up a huge AWS bill accidentally, but I personally know 2 people who have, and neither was refunded, even after asking. In both cases we are talking $400-$800, enough to really hurt someone, but not bankrupt them.
joemi 4y ago
> AWS is really good at refunding you if you accidentally rack up a couple grand in surprise bills. I wouldn't bet my bank account on that always holding true. If it's not in the terms and conditions that they'll refund you for accidental mistakes that lead to high billing, then you're gambling if you assume they will.

pvillano 4y ago

I just want my hobby server to shut off at if I spend over $XX in a billing period. Is that so insane?

noasaservice 4y ago

Azure supports hard stops on services with billing maximums. It does mean that stuff gets turned off if you enable that. Then again, as an individual, that's a superb way to control costs. And since Scamazon doesn't do that and INSTEAD "gives" you a 1 month unlimited credit, there's no telling just how stratospheric your bill can be. > AWS is really good at refunding you if you accidentally rack up a couple grand in surprise bills. If there were hard limits, there'd be no need to beg AWS support for leniency, which they can capriciously choose you don't deserve.

speedgoose 4y ago
Azure doesn’t support spending limits on all subscription types though. https://azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/offer-details/ https://azure.microsoft.com/support/legal/offer-details/
- noasaservice 4y ago
  Completely true. However if what you're doing is highly price sensitive and willing to accept downtime over ScaryBill, then this the option you all need. And it's completely (and I bet intentionally) not available on AWS. AWS's message is "bend over and we'll tell you how far and long". Larger companies see $4k as a nothing; pay and move on. Household budgets, not so much.
joatmon-snoo 4y ago
If there were hard limits, that would also mean that the billing system is on the critical path for all systems, and not just an after-the-fact ETL.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  Just like in real life, if you run out of money you have to stop doing things.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > Just like in real life, if you run out of money you have to stop doing things In real life when you hit your card's limit, your transactions get declined. Straight away. I had this last month in a supermarket after my (personal) checking account didn't have enough money to cover my purchase, I'd completely forgotten to transfer money from my business account. My bank wasn't prepared to let my account go overdrawn, not even by the equivalent of $20, which is absolutely their right. Amazon, OTOH, benefits in lots of ways by not implementing this mechanism.
    - noasaservice 4y ago
      A better analog to the store and Scamazon's implementation would be: You put stuff in your cart. You go through the register. You agree to "prevailing price". No prices show up because they are "calculating". You leave the store. A day later, you're hit with a surprise bill that's 10-100x more than you though. A $100 transaction ends up being $1000-$10000. There's no refunds. The dispute procedure is to beg and hope they "let you ignore it".
    - maccard 4y ago
      > In real life when you hit your card's limit, your transactions get declined. Straight away. Except for when it doesn't. I've got two primary current accounts, one with a "legacy" bank in the UK and one with a modern bank. The legacy bank is happy to let me go into an unplanned overdraft, and charge me for the privilege of doing so.

Lorin 4y ago

Interestingly, AWS won't refund service credits provided by an accelerator if you've accidentally blown through those instead.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
Possession is 9/10ths of the law. If they have already been paid, they are not likely to refund you.
TameAntelope 4y ago
How the fuck do you blow through $150k at an early stage startup???
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  As someone who worked at an early stage video intelligence startup, surprisingly easy. Redshift + Elastic Transcode + Cloudfront makes it extremely easy to spend thousands and thousands of $ per month.
- zamalek 4y ago
  I've had "it needs the RAM" while staring at a 15% memory usage plot on a very expensive CI VM. Choosing a 20x cheaper machine had no effect on build time and stability, but this was the PR comment. This overprovisioned machine was possibly $20k. The truth is that developers sometimes require expensive things to get their job done efficiently. The other truth is that we often vastly overestimate the SKU. And we also leave things running.
- perrygeo 4y ago
  Storage, compute and networking mostly. I'm confused by your question - are you suggesting that early stage startups couldn't possible generate a workload to warrant that cost? Maybe if your idea of a startup business is limited to running a basic CRUD app. But other data-intensive projects have engineering needs that can easily reach that scale, especially in the early days when you're trying to bootstrap your data catalog or ML models or whatever.

CJefferson 4y ago

With regards (1), I feel like there are two different worlds (and given how non-transparent Amazon is, that's very believable). I've never run up a huge AWS bill accidentally, but I personally know 2 people who have, and neither was refunded, even after asking. In both cases we are talking $400-$800, enough to really hurt someone, but not bankrupt them.

joemi 4y ago

> AWS is really good at refunding you if you accidentally rack up a couple grand in surprise bills. I wouldn't bet my bank account on that always holding true. If it's not in the terms and conditions that they'll refund you for accidental mistakes that lead to high billing, then you're gambling if you assume they will.