'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

Date:
Fri, 17 Jul 2026 21:18:17 +0000

Description:
An Amazon AWS billing system accidentally told some customers they owed billions of dollars, but a fix is on the way.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Amazon's AWS cloud services billing system went wild on Friday Customers saw bills in the trillions AWS apologized and is working on a fix 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. Latest Videos From Watch full video here:

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/EgfQKJTHVl pic.twitter.com/L0gXYbDio7 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 charitys school grounds audit app." You may like Even Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is surprised at AWS cloud success Google Cloud accused of suspending major customer without any warning Your cloud vendors are shipping AI-generated code. More outages are coming.

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 . Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to
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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." What to read next Unplanned downtime is now costing businesses billions each year Not prepared for cloud outages? You should be Google Gemini was down for many here's what we know about the outage

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. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add
us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Check Amazon



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/cloud-computing/my-soul-left-my-body-custo mers-see-bills-in-the-billions-after-aws-billing-system-goes-haywire-but-dont- go-emptying-your-bank-accounts


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