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Unexpected Charges on AWS Free Tier for S3 and DynamoDB — Need Clarification Before Upgrading

0

We’re building an app using AWS Free Tier and trying to understand how the costing works. We plan to move to a paid tier soon but want to clarify a few things first.

For S3, are the free tier limits around 20,000 reads and 2,000 writes per month? Are these based on request count or data size? For DynamoDB, we see 25 read/write capacity units + 25GB storage are free, but we’re still seeing small charges (~$0.01). Why might this be happening? Any best practices to avoid early charges if we’re only storing static questions in S3 and user data/scores in DynamoDB?

Appreciate any insight — thank you!

  • Leeroy Hannigan EXPERT
    10 months ago

    Check your bill for each service, and share the line item that you're being charged for?

Topics
DatabaseStorage
Tags
Amazon S3 Storage LensAmazon DynamoDBAmazon S3 Express One Zone Storage Class
Language
English
asked 10 months ago184 views
2 Answers
4
Accepted Answer

Yes it do have limitations, refer the link at the bottom to prevent unexpected charges:

For Amazon S3 Free Tier Limits • 5 GB of Standard Storage • 20,000 GET requests and 2,000 PUT, COPY, POST, or LIST requests per month • 15GB of data transfer out to the internet

These limits are based on request count, not data size (except for storage and transfer). So even small files can rack up charges if accessed frequently.

For Amazon DynamoDB Free Tier • 25 GB of storage • 25 Write Capacity Units (WCU) and 25 Read Capacity Units (RCU) • This supports roughly 200 million requests per month if you use on-demand mode efficiently

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/avoid-charges-after-free-tier.html

EXPERT
answered 10 months ago
  • Trutalk
    10 months ago

    Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciate it, I will read more into this topic! Have a fantastic week ahead!

0

Hey,

Hope you're keeping well.

For S3, the Free Tier gives you 5 GB of standard storage, 20,000 GET requests, and 2,000 PUT/COPY/POST/LIST requests per month, plus 15 GB of data transfer out. These request limits are purely based on the number of API calls, not the size of the objects, so even tiny files can exceed limits if accessed frequently.

For DynamoDB, the Free Tier includes 25 RCU, 25 WCU, and 25 GB storage per month. Small charges often come from exceeding provisioned capacity, using features not covered by the Free Tier (like streams or global tables), or data transfer out to other regions.

To avoid early charges, monitor usage in Billing > Cost Explorer and set up AWS Budgets with alerts.

Thanks and regards,
Taz

answered 4 months ago

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