'My soul left my body': customers see bills in the billions after AWS billing system goes haywire — but don't go emptying your bank accounts | Tech Radar
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'My soul left my body': customers see bills in the billions after AWS billing system goes haywire — but don't go emptying your bank accounts
Amazon's AWS acknowledged the error and spent most of Friday on a fix
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Amazon's AWS cloud services billing system went wild on Friday
AWS, the cloud platform that serves millions who use Amazon's servers to run websites and businesses you use every day, just freaked out many of its customers with usage bills that literally went into the trillions.
"I just saw $1.5 trillion on my AWS bill and my soul left my body," wrote Bharath_uwu on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, and he wasn't alone.
The Guardian originally spotted the Tweet and multiple social posts relating to the seemingly widespread glitch.
AWS doesn't mail out invoices. Instead, customers logging into the Billing and Cost Management console spotted the billion- and trillion-dollar bills and expressed emotions ranging from concern to panic.
I just saw $1.5 trillion on my AWS bill and my soul left my body https://t.co/Egf QKJTHVl pic.twitter.com/L0g XYb Dio 7 July 17, 2026
I just saw $1.5 trillion on my AWS bill and my soul left my body https://t.co/Egf QKJTHVl pic.twitter.com/L0g XYb Dio 7 July 17, 2026
As Dan Harvey, who heads marketing at Learning Through Landscapes, told the Guardian, "I almost had a heart attack when I received an email alert from Amazon Web Services with the billing for our charity’s school grounds audit app."
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Some tried to take the billing error in stride. Chinmay on X encouraged others to post their highest AWS bills. As of 10 hours ago, he was at $333B.
Others called out AWS for the error with something less than good humor. "I bet someone must have had a real heart attack. This shouldn't be legal...," wrote Mr Doob on X.
Amazon, to its credit, has been delivering multiple updates starting at around 1:30AM PDT on Friday, July 17, when they first spotted the error: "We are investigating issues with Cost Explorer reflecting inaccurate estimated billing data."
A few hours later, AWS reported it had found the culprit: "We have identified the root cause as an issue with unit pricing within the estimated billing computation subsystem, and we are working on a mitigation," they wrote on the AWS Status page.
However, hours later, AWS admitted, "Our efforts to backfill corrected estimated cost and usage data are still underway. We are progressing slower than anticipated."
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The good news is that AWS is not asking anyone to pay these incorrect fees and that, while this has been a big frustration for services that run their websites and businesses on AWS, the cloud system has been working flawlessly, and there have been no reports of outages or performance issues on Friday (if you don't count the years shaved off freaked-out customers' lives).
AWS has even tried to make light of the mistake, posting this on X:
"Typo alert: Some customers saw quadrillion-dollar AWS billing estimates today. Slight miscalculation on our end (very slight ). We're fixing it now. No action needed on your end. Sorry for the confusion. Real question: what will you do with those trillions instead?"
Yes, everyone can all laugh now, though I'm not certain customers like Harvey, Bharath, and others are chuckling along with them.
Was your business affected? How big was your AWS Billing mistake? Let us know the "damage" in the comments below.
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A 38-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases and “on line” meant “waiting.” He’s a former Lifewire Editor-in-Chief, Mashable Editor-in-Chief, and, before that, Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis, Inc. He also wrote a popular, weekly tech column for Medium called The Upgrade.
Lance Ulanoff makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Live with Kelly and Mark, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC.
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