$125,476,749,827? Amazon Web Services shows values in its internal cost tool that would force entire generations into debt traps.
Billion shocker from Amazon AWS – every founder who has stored his website, his cloud applications or simply the backups of his startup on the servers of Amazon’s cloud subsidiary AWS knows the AWS “Cost Explorer”.
The useful tool breaks down in real time how much budget the respective cloud application has already used in the current month and warns if, for some reason, more data budget is suddenly being used than usual.
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It is precisely these warnings that are currently driving various startup managers to the brink of a nervous breakdown. AWS is currently sending cost warnings about cloud bills that range from a few million to over a billion dollars.
Even corporations couldn’t pay it
The bill forecasting application kindly points out that the respective budget limits have already been exceeded and then forecasts sums for the monthly bill that would drive even large corporations to the brink of insolvency.
The budget warnings are likely to cause moments of panic for those responsible for the account in startups and companies, because at first glance they seem consistent and show specific data volumes for Amazon’s S3 storage service and for web applications. Various AWS users are currently making the completely exaggerated billing values public on
nopsled (@nopdels) on X
“For about ten minutes I thought I had made a one-time mistake,” writes founder Rishav Singh on X, faced with a bill of $125,476,749,827.
Do children’s children have to pay off?
“I just saw $1.5 trillion on my AWS bill and my heart almost stopped,” writes another developer, while another fears that even his children’s children will still have to pay it off.
The warning emails from AWS also caused panic in German companies – various IT managers feared a security incident or an account takeover.
AWS customer service itself is currently doing its best to contain the panic, responding to the reports on
Incorrect update
The billions in consumption shown in the cloud are displayed due to a faulty update in the AWS billing system; a correction is being worked on. “Bill estimates shown do not reflect actual usage and charges.”
In the AWS status board, the service explains that it now wants to “revert to the last known correct bill calculation.” As quickly as possible, customers should only see cost and usage data up to July 15th. “The inflated charges will be removed. Customers do not need to take any action at this time.” However, it will still take a few hours until the correct consumption values are displayed again.
