3
votes

I took a micro free tier from Amazon a month and a half back. But towards the end of last month I received a bill of ~$13 for Amazon services usage.

The webpage quotes

750 hours of Amazon EC2 Linux Micro Instance usage (613 MB of memory and 32-bit and 64-bit platform support) – enough hours to run continuously each month*

enter image description here

Can someone help me figure out if this is a billing mistake or if it's an issue with my understanding of “free”?

5
  • 1
    Seems like this is something Amazon Customer Support would be able to take care of quite easily.
    – EEAA
    Jun 7, 2011 at 5:49
  • I've been using EC2 micro instances for several months without problem. I average 35 cents a month due to storing a couple of images. How many instances are you running, are they all micro, and how many images are you storing? I have found the billing explanations clear have you doubled checked the details?
    – zedman9991
    Jun 7, 2011 at 15:23
  • What's the red asterisk beside the 'rate' denoting, and where are you getting this extract - it doesn't look like anything AWS provides.
    – ceejayoz
    Jun 7, 2011 at 16:17
  • 1
    The details around Amazon's "free tier" are intentionally misleading. If you do not quality for the free tier, you will still see instances marked as "free tier eligible" and you won't know you will be charged until you see the charges applied to your account. Amazon even has a FAQ, "Why am I getting a bill? I thought my new account was covered by the AWS Free Usage Tier offer." The answer is useless and just as misleading as everything else. They know people are expecting free and not getting it, but haven't done much to address this very common misconception.
    – user65237
    Nov 24, 2014 at 0:58
  • This question is off-topic under current topicality rules.
    – HopelessN00b
    Jan 21, 2015 at 20:56

1 Answer 1

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5
votes

I have had same issue because my Amazon account was created way before I had signed up for free usage tier. Excerpt from their AWS Free Usage Tier Offer Terms:

Only accounts created after October 20, 2010 are eligible for the Offer. The Offer does not apply to any use of the AWS services prior to November 1, 2010.

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