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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

#461

Post by noir_lord »

raiyu wrote: post #418
noir_lord wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any cloud platform should have a spend-stop amount built in. i.e. if I know I average $10 a day, I should be able to put in a "If it hits $50, email me and take it offline". Of course the opposite problem is then people setting that limit too low but since the user defines the limit that's on them not you. This is one of the reasons I still in 2024 rent physical boxes and run the modern stuff on top of them directly,…

We did this at DigitalOcean for similar reasons, wasn't a feature that was commonly used. Additionally, when you set that limit people then get upset because usually when they go over it for a good reason, like going viral, they aren't anticipating it, and just when their traffic is most valuable the site is down. What Netlify is doing here is really the best approach for both parties. And typically speaking a $104k…

> Also, that's the benefits of credit cards - that you can still issue a charge back, and credit card companies very much favor the consumer rather than the merchant.

So your suggestion is to issue a chargeback.. to get money back that should under the terms of whatever service you signed up for be owed?.

That seems like bordering on fraud tbh.

> Additionally, when you set that limit people then get upset because usually when they go over it for a good reason, like going viral, they aren't anticipating it, and just when their traffic is most valuable the site is down.

Legit concern and something I mentioned, I'm gonna guess there are broad two camps on that one - mine which is "I want a safety ripcord" and "whee, nice problem to have".

However since this entire conversation is around a guy who got a massive invoice because of a bill he wasn't expecting and couldn't have set such a limit I'm still gonna go with a "I want a way to constrain the financial downside - hell turn it off by default but give me the option".

Since broadly a lot of cloud stuff doesn't, I'll constrain it a different way.

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

#462

Post by hirako2000 »

bobfunk wrote: post #351
aurareturn wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only two questions everyone have: 1. Would Netlify forgive the bill if this didn't go viral? 2. How do you plan to address this issue so that it never happens again? Everyone here knew someone from Netlify would come and say OP wouldn't have to pay. That was a given. Now we want to know the important answers.

1. Yes. We've forgiven lots and lots of bills over the last 9 years and they haven't gone viral 2. While I've always favored erring towards keeping people's sites up we are currently working on changing the default behavior to never let free sites incur overages

1. Forgiven many, is Netlify forgiving all obvious anomalies? Is the question, which if so but you said many so it is a no, it would make you reconsider the next point 2. Favoring keeping people site up ? Would you go as far as keeping them up if they stopped paying for the meter? If not you simply should not let that meter go overboard.

Hey I'm a taxi driver. Hailer fell asleep on the back, so I kept driving all night, once he woke up I dropped him to his place and asked for my monthly wage. I "forgive" many, but just a few are juicy income so I adopted the policy to never wake any customer up. If people ask I say it would be impolite, principles prime.

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

#463

Post by [deleted] »

renonce wrote: post #313

Here is my shiny new super business plan for a startup that will profit thousands from a supposedly non-paying customer: 1. Offer “free static website” with lots of templates and guides to help you build one 2. The first 100GB is free and beyond that it’s $0.01/MB. But no worries! Very few customers actually use up that free bandwidth and in case you need more you can purchase packages for $100/TB. Also we offer a fr…

[deleted]

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

#464

Post by leerob »

dstroot wrote: post #301
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…

Can anyone share an example of edge middleware that might protect you on Vercel?

You can also turn on soft and hard spend limits on Vercel (including SMS alerts) https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-spend-management-realtim...

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

#465

Post by hasty_pudding »

altin0 wrote: post #458
bobfunk wrote: post #317

Netlify CEO here. Our support team has reached out to the user from the thread to let them know they're not getting charged for this. It's currently our policy to not shut down free sites during traffic spikes that doesn't match attack patterns, but instead forgiving any bills from legitimate mistakes after the fact. Apologies that this didn't come through in the initial support reply.

Lol this deescalated pretty quickly, went from $104K to $20K to $5K to $0 Which basically means you almost scammed the customer for $5K or $20K. Super negative practices. I for one could never trust a company operating in that manner. It would be much more honest to say "unlimited bandwidth" and set a hard-limit for maximum budget, then people know they won't be charged, than to go through all this crap and then pret…

The fact that the CEO had to step in after this blew up online otherwise they were going to try to extort that poor dude for thousands of dollars!

Moving my sites off of netlify ASAP.

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

#466

Post by neocritter »

apsurd wrote: post #102
iforgotpassword wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

Possibly making explicit that while it might go over before their suspension logic kicks in, you won't be charged for it on a free tier.

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

#467

Post by leerob »

xdennis wrote: post #312
arthur_sav wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need regulation for everything. Let customers vote with their wallet or even start a few lawsuits. Adding more regulation makes the system slower.

Microsoft is the only cloud provider with a spending limit. One choice is not competition. That's why regulation is needed.

Vercel offers spend limits: https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-spend-management-realtim...

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

#468

Post by leerob »

interstice wrote: post #211
jpalomaki wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing ”devil’s” advocate: tracking spend in real-time is not trivial. It adds complexity to stack. Bugs in the feature can cause sites to go down (for long time) without a reason. Larger online businesses likely rather sort out the problems later than risk shutting down in the middle of unexpected success. (But I also would like to see this feature)

Vercel will happily tell you how much you are spending in pretty much realtime as it sails past your budget

OP is right though, realtime alerting is non-trivial to build. It looks us a lot of work at Vercel to get right. We also offer budgeting options where you can set spend limits now, too.

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

#469

Post by canyonero »

altin0 wrote: post #458
bobfunk wrote: post #317

Netlify CEO here. Our support team has reached out to the user from the thread to let them know they're not getting charged for this. It's currently our policy to not shut down free sites during traffic spikes that doesn't match attack patterns, but instead forgiving any bills from legitimate mistakes after the fact. Apologies that this didn't come through in the initial support reply.

Lol this deescalated pretty quickly, went from $104K to $20K to $5K to $0 Which basically means you almost scammed the customer for $5K or $20K. Super negative practices. I for one could never trust a company operating in that manner. It would be much more honest to say "unlimited bandwidth" and set a hard-limit for maximum budget, then people know they won't be charged, than to go through all this crap and then pret…

This is very weird take. I'm struggling to understand why this is incident as a reflection of "super negative practices" or is somehow a "scam". The CEO came here and publicly apologized for the mistake and mis-communication, and the issue is resolved for the user with no charges. What am I missing?

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

#470

Post by kloogans »

Been using Netlify for 7 years now and I'll be moving all of my projects to cloudflare this week. That's a hell of a lot of risk to host a few hobby sites that virtually nobody visits. Cant imagine running a bootstrapped business and having this happen. Seems extremely predatory.
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