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Never Get an Unexpected AWS Bill Again!

Ceora Ford on September 08, 2020

One of the things that prevents a lot of people from exploring AWS is the cost. Some AWS services are very expensive. Accidentally forgetting to cu...
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Rafael Ribeiro • Edited

Great article! I definitely have a lot of horror stories πŸ˜‚

For those who use Terraform I recently created a module to define budgets and receive the alerts via Slack channel, I will let the link here just in case any of you want to give it a try.

Terraform Registry: registry.terraform.io/modules/rrib...
Github: github.com/rribeiro1/terraform-aws...

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Ceora Ford

Thanks for sharing!

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Ross Coundon

Very good article and timely. This is exactly what we implemented last week after a development lambda running on a schedule went a little rogue writing out 1000s of failed axios error objects to CloudWatch every minute for days. Our CloudWatch bill went from around $8 to $8000. That bill was not a fun thing to wake up to.

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Lou (πŸš€ Open Up The Cloud ☁️)

You should also checkout and have a play with ACG playground (if you haven't already).

help.acloud.guru/hc/en-us/sections...

I'll be recommending it for most beginners going forward.

Would be cool if AWS offered such functionality...

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Mick Jacobsson

Check out AWS budgets instead, easier, more info, I've setup a github with a CDK project and deploy stack button with CF template as a starter for those interested:

talkncloud.com/aws-essential-setti...

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Steve Ziegler

But, the big, unexpected bill is a right of passage! Love that this is your 2nd post on AWS.

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Ceora Ford

Hopefully not anymoreπŸ˜… and thank you!

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Ceora Ford

Agreed! And thank you!

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jrkessl

Ceora, I think this topic is outdated. In CloudWatch, the billing button does not exist anymore, in the upper left section. I think they took it out.
But I managed to create this functionality using the Budgets feature of the Billing service.
Maybe the Budgets feature didn't exist back when you wrote this article?

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Ben Schaechter

This is a great overview. I also work on a product that helps notify you of costs along the way that removes a lot of the management overhead mentioned above. You should check it out - would love to hear what you think! vantage.sh/

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MAX | MODERN TECH BLOG

Great post! AWS is too easy to leave on and incur an bill.

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Ceora Ford

Thank you!

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Tobias Weichart

What's the thought behind using CloudWatch over creating a budget with a threshold?

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Hafiz Arsam Rahmaan

thanks for sharing.. applied the steps to my account :p

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Ceora Ford

Yay! Glad to hear that😊

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Ishan Sharma

Thanks for sharing this! 🎊

I still remember the first time I tried my hands on AWS, I forgot to turn off my EC2 instance and Route53 service. Incurred a bill of around 30$ after a month πŸ€¦πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ

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Ceora Ford • Edited

I left my RDS instance running and almost got charged $80+πŸ™ƒ so i speak from experience😭