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Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

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Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#101

Post by ozfive »

SXX wrote: post #82
mythz wrote: post #46

More reasons why I avoid clouds with outrageous bandwidth fees, and prefer Hetzner's low cost fixed pricing with Cloudflare R2's 0 egress fees. Even if the DDoS wasn't caught by Cloudflare, the total cost for 192TB bandwidth on Hetzner would be €172. Although even after 10 years on Hetzner I've never paid for any bandwidth, always well within their generous 20TB free bandwidth.

First of all Hetzner would't let your server to be DDOSed for 192TB if it's not your normal usage. They'll likely just null route your IP if serious attack hit. They also likely drop any charges if you escalate via support in case it was actually DDOS. E.g if you normally have 100GB / month and now you magically have 50TB / day. What Netlify does is a scam.

I feel a class action lawsuit is incoming. Potentially with FTC support...

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#102

Post by apsurd »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #75
gullevek wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like in the past, when you went over your limit your page went offline. The good old Slashdot effect

Yeah Like wtf is wrong with that? Are people just to lazy to check what the conditions are when exceeding traffic? I'd never ever sign up for anything that just keeps charging...!?

too lazy is a bit uncharitable. These terms tend to be buried 8pt font disclaimer text and esoteric metering matrixes.

meanwhile in size 72 font on the marketing page it says FREE STATIC SITE HOSTING!

that's why this thread is more or less condemning scammy business practices.

[edit] check out this forum explanation from render.com billing:

> Free Tier Services are suspended, no overage charges. Paid Tier Services are unaffected (Free Tier Services can be upgraded to a Paid Tier, this isn’t an overage because you are manually intervening.) Exceeding allotted Bandwidth does result in automatic overage charges. $30 for additional 100 GB blocks. Exceeding Pipeline Minutes results in deployments failing and no overage charges by default, you can configure whether you want to allow overage charges for additional blocks of Pipeline Minutes.

I still don't understand, free tiers are suspended so no overage charges, but then how can they exceed bandwidth of which we're liable? x_X

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#103

Post by ashconnor »

mythz wrote: post #46

More reasons why I avoid clouds with outrageous bandwidth fees, and prefer Hetzner's low cost fixed pricing with Cloudflare R2's 0 egress fees. Even if the DDoS wasn't caught by Cloudflare, the total cost for 192TB bandwidth on Hetzner would be €172. Although even after 10 years on Hetzner I've never paid for any bandwidth, always well within their generous 20TB free bandwidth.

Hetzner will just null route your server if you’re DDoS’d.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#104

Post by fabian2k »

A successful distributed denial of money is likely much more devastating to anyone except really large companies than a successful DDoS. For a personal accounts it is entirely devastating with no upside, but even for a startup it would probably be better for your site to just go down instead of having huge bills generated.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#105

Post by bsimpson »

isoprophlex wrote: post #14

There's no way in hell anyone should ever under any circumstance use a free service that might, for reasons entirely outside your control, suddenly bill you 5k, or 104k... or any non trivial amount really. Just suspend service on excessive overages...

I believe that's what Firebase Hosting does.

As I recall, you have to actively sign up for the paid plan (Blaze) to get pay-as-you-go billing. Otherwise, you get free quota, and if it's up, it's up.

I think it also integrates into all of Google Cloud's billing management stuff, but I've never had to bother with that.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#106

Post by kobalsky »

LiamPowell wrote: post #45
romwell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Netlify and others are extremely transparent about the fact that there are no limits Are they also transparent about the fact that they 1. Won't do anything about a DDoS, and 2. In case there's a DDoS (or some other unusual traffic spike), you'll only get notified waaaaay after the fact when you get the $100K bill, instead of getting a timely alert that would allow you to shut your site down to prevent getting extre…

The primary purpose of these services is to be able to scale up and continue working under heavy load, shutting the site down when this occurs would defeat the entire purpose of the service. I would say that they are transparent about both of the things you have listed by virtue of being one of those scaling serverless hosting services.

there is a middle ground between “I missed the spotlight because the service went down” and “this bill has ruined my life”.

they could ask the user for their budget when they are setting up their account as a basic guardrail, or they could give you a call

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#107

Post by xyzzy123 »

PaoloBarbolini wrote: post #63
Lammy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.netlify.com/security/ sez “Active DDoS mitigation — Netlify monitors for traffic pattern anomalies and spikes, and effectively controls for them as needed” and now I'm curious about what that actually means .

It means they protect themselves from layer 3 and 4 DDoS. For layer 7 you're mostly on your own. That's what most companies mean when they talk about DDoS anyway.

Right and as a CDN they HAVE to handle layer 3 & 4 DDoS themselves so it's not like they're doing you any favours. The traffic is typically routed to the customer based on SNI.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#108

Post by baq »

ji_zai wrote: post #74

This is my worst nightmare as a bootstrapped founder. And that there's no way to put a limit on spend is ridiculous. Someone that doesn't want me to do well can simply ddos me into bankruptcy out of nowhere. Just went through Vercel's docs: --- "Vercel helps to mitigate against L3 and L4 DDoS attacks at the platform level. Usage will be incurred for requests that are successfully served prior to us automatically miti…

Host on a provider which bills per hour. This caps your cost. It also makes your users pissed because you will go down, but if you’re small, you can afford that. If you’re big, you already have scaling options and should have a team to handle ddos.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#109

Post by WyvernDrexx »

kendriklampar wrote: post #4

You just posted it on Reddit and I already see few comments of people say they will never use it. Stuff like this can cause PR damage worth millions to a company. I'm pretty sure that it will go viral and they won't charge you.

Exactly. I think this also might be a reason why they didn't implement ddos protection on this level. So, they can grab as much as they can.
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