Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#11

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:12 AM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #4

Gotta look at your monthly bill every day. I've been wondering about the question of "where did the web go?" and how even technically savvy people have given up on blogging for behavioral sinks like Medium. Part of the story is that $50 a month dedis have given way to the "free" plan on AWS or a system that costs $10 a month to run if you're not successful but has no upper bound on the bills if you are successful. So…

yeah makes sense. the idea that success = risk now is kind of wild. did you end up doing anything to limit that egress, or just ride it out?

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#12

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #10

They look at code on stackoverflow and the web that initializes the SDK resources that have you explicitly put the access key and secret key in code. For instance, the correct way to initialize the s3 client in Python is s3 = boto3.client('s3') The SDK will automatically get the credentials that are configured locally within your environment or the IAM role attached to your Lambda, EC2 instance, Docker (ECS, EKS) con…

yep this is the one. feels like a lot of people just copy-paste from stackoverflow without realizing they're hardcoding keys. have you seen this cause issues in prod or mostly in hobby stuff?

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#13

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

QuinnyPig wrote: post #9

One of the best things you can do is enable AWS’s free Cost Anomaly Detector. I like getting pinged when something substantial changes.

yeah cost anomaly detector is underrated. do you usually set custom thresholds or just let it use the defaults?

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#14

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:16 AM UTC

ArinaS wrote: post #5

https://old.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/1jupura/just_got_compr... - this post you're referring to?

yep that’s the one. rough situation but the replies were interesting

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#15

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:17 AM UTC

chistev wrote: post #7

ArinaS wrote: post #5

https://old.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/1jupura/just_got_compr... - this post you're referring to?

I like that you linked old reddit. Using the normal domain makes the site utterly unusable.

agreed. old reddit actually works. no extra stuff and doesn’t get in the way

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#16

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:17 AM UTC

jalapenos wrote: post #3

Because AWS doesn't have out-of-the-box costs killswitches.

yeah that’s the part that gets me too. feels wild that there’s no built-in way to cap spend at the account level. even a “pause all” button would go a long way

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#17

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

neuroelectron wrote: post #6

Best way to defeat competition is to make sure they never get out of the gate

yeah exactly. feels like the pricing model alone keeps a lot of folks from even starting. one wrong config and you’re done before you ship anything.

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#18

Post by DeborahEmeni_ » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 9:22 AM UTC

8b16380d wrote: post #8

We’re not since cost controls are secondary to building features.

makes sense tbh. i’ve seen teams take that approach and only think about cost once it’s already a problem. ever had that come back to cause issues later?

Re: Why do small teams keep getting wrecked by AWS bills?

#19

Post by QuinnyPig » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 7:43 PM UTC

DeborahEmeni_ wrote: post #13

QuinnyPig wrote: post #9

One of the best things you can do is enable AWS’s free Cost Anomaly Detector. I like getting pinged when something substantial changes.

yeah cost anomaly detector is underrated. do you usually set custom thresholds or just let it use the defaults?

Start with defaults; you can turn it back if it’s too noisy.