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AWS
aws.amazon.com › databases › amazon rds › free tier
Amazon RDS Free Tier | Cloud Relational Database | Amazon Web Services
2 days ago - For example, you will receive 750 Micro DB Instance hours for free across all of the Regions, not 750 hours per Region. Note that free usage does not accumulate from one billing period to the next. The Amazon RDS free tier applies to Amazon RDS for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and SQL Server (running ...
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › unexpected charges on using rds my aws free tier account
r/aws on Reddit: Unexpected charges on using RDS my AWS Free Tier account
March 3, 2024 -

I was using my AWS Free Tier account for a college project that utilizes a single instance of AWS S3 and RDS services. I was conscious of the free tier limits and being charged for exceeding the limits so I read everything carefully related to free tier limits on RDS and S3.
For RDS it is:-

  • 750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro, db.t3.micro, and db.t4g.micro Instances usage running MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL databases each month. If running more than one instance, usage is aggregated across instance classes.

  • 750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro Instance usage running SQL Server (running SQL Server Express Edition) each month.

  • 20 GB of General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage per month.

  • Free backup storage up to 100% of the total provisioned storage size of your active DB instances for a region.*

Here is my service usage and the respective cost.

As we can see the usage quantity was only 617 hrs which is very much under the free tier limits and even for the Virtual Private Cloud. I don't understand why was I charged for the VPC?
Am I missing something

Discussions

RDS Free Tier Charge
I set up my account this week, and after setting up a VPC I created an RDS instance using free tier specifications. Despite being in free tier it's still saying I will be charged "$0.115 per GB-mo... More on repost.aws
🌐 repost.aws
2
0
November 7, 2024
Free Tier RDS has been charged
Hi, Over the past three months, I have been using an AZSingle Micro T3 RDS Postgres instance. Today, I discovered a charge on my bill for 643 hours @0.26$ per hour and 17GB for storage. It's impo... More on repost.aws
🌐 repost.aws
7
3
May 28, 2023
Newbie question: My free tier RDS keeps exceeding the limit when it's barely used.
The free tier provides 20GB of storage for 750 hours for the month. How you use that is up to you. Using a 200 GB RDS instance effectively cuts that free tier usage down to being free for only about 3 days of the month and any usage beyond that will be charged at the normal rates ($.11 cents or so per GB for the month). The short answer is that you need to delete that RDS instance and rebuild it with only 20 GB of storage. I’m not in front of the console at the moment, but make sure you’re not using provisioned IOPS or magnetic storage, as they may have minimums on storage. Which engine and version are you using, I can have a look later on to see what options I have available to me when creating it to get it created as 20GB. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/aws
7
5
April 16, 2023
Amazon RDS free-tier charging
You've exceeded the free tier allowance, either by instance type, number of instances (cumulative hours), storage size, or db engine type. Without seeing the billing details it's impossible for us to identify which one(s) are the cause. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/aws
20
8
February 28, 2023
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DEV Community
dev.to › chrisgreening › deploying-a-free-tier-relational-database-with-amazon-rds-3jd2
Deploying a free tier relational database with Amazon RDS - DEV Community
August 21, 2024 - This frees up our valuable time so we can focus on app development and not on expensive database administration. ... Amazon Free Tier is a collection of AWS' products offered under varying types of limited usage for free.
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Amazon Web Services
aws.amazon.com › aws free tier › database
Free Databases - AWS
3 days ago - Everything in this tutorial is free-tier eligible. ... In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Microsoft SQL Server database instance (we call this a 'DB instance'), connect to the database, and delete the DB instance. We will do this using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) and everything in this tutorial is free tier eligible.
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AWS
calculator.aws
AWS Pricing Calculator
AWS Pricing Calculator lets you explore AWS services, and create an estimate for the cost of your use cases on AWS.
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DEV Community
dev.to › bradleymatera › how-to-launch-aws-stacks-for-free-and-what-happens-when-the-free-tier-ends-41of
How to Launch AWS Stacks for Free — And What Happens When the Free Tier Ends - DEV Community
November 14, 2025 - According to AWS: “Gain free, ... EC2 micro instances, RDS micro DBs, S3 storage) are free for up to 12 months from account creation, within certain usage limits....
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SourceFuse
sourcefuse.com › home › blogs › aws free tier limits – everything you need to know
AWS Free Tier Limits - Everything You Need To Know | SourceFuse
October 4, 2023 - More importantly, the AWS free usage tier is available to new AWS accounts created on or after October 21, 2010. 750 hours of Amazon EC2 Linux or RHEL or SLES t2.micro instance usage (1 GiB of memory and 32-bit and 64-bit platform support) – ...
Find elsewhere
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Udemy
udemy.com › it & software › other it & software › aws databases
AWS Database Services - Hands-On Lab Demos | Udemy
November 7, 2025 - Deploy, connect to, and manage a fully-featured relational database using Amazon RDS. Create, query, and manage a high-performance NoSQL database table in Amazon DynamoDB. Launch and interact with a high-performance, cloud-native database using Amazon Aurora. Deploy an in-memory cache using Amazon ElastiCache to boost application performance. An active AWS account (Free Tier recommended) is essential to follow along with the hands-on demos.
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Google
docs.cloud.google.com › documentation › google cloud free program › free google cloud features and trial offer
Free Google Cloud features and trial offer | Google Cloud Free Program | Google Cloud Documentation
2 weeks ago - During the Free Trial, you also get access to the Google Cloud Free Tier, which gives you free usage of select products up to specified monthly limits, and to product-specific free trials.
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AWS
learnaws.org › 2022 › 03 › 04 › rds-free-tier
How to use the AWS RDS free tier?
March 4, 2022 - AWS provides the RDS Free Tier as part of the AWS Free Tier to help new customers get started with a managed database service for free.
Top answer
1 of 2
1
You've identified it correctly, only gp2 volumes are in-scope of Free Tier for RDS https://aws.amazon.com/rds/free/ > - 20 GB of General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage per month. You should be able to convert youir gp3 to gp2 on-the-fly, I can't find an AWS page that explicitly says this but it was discussed at length in the answers to this question https://repost.aws/questions/QUDPKCzJclQbCwOt47lf7lFQ/changing-rds-storage-from-gp2-to-gp3 I agree that it's annoying that the setting defaults to gp3. The AWS re:Post community does not have visibility of your account, nor any billing information associated with it. To query any charges, including asking for your charges for gp3 to be waived, it is best to log a billing support call with AWS https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/billing-get-answers.html#billing-support
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The charge you're seeing is likely due to using GP3 storage instead of GP2 for your RDS instance. The AWS RDS Free Tier specifically includes 20 GB of General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage per month. GP3 storage is not part of the free tier offering. When setting up an RDS instance, even if you select the free tier option, it's possible that GP3 was selected as the default storage type. This could be because GP3 is a newer and more flexible storage option that AWS may be promoting. However, to stay within the free tier, you should manually select GP2 storage during the RDS instance creation process. To resolve this issue and ensure you're using the free tier benefits: 1. Verify that your instance is using a supported free tier instance class (db.t3.micro or db.t4g.micro for PostgreSQL). 2. Check if you're within the 750 hours per month limit for the free tier. 3. Modify your RDS instance to use GP2 storage instead of GP3. 4. Ensure you're not exceeding the 20 GB storage limit for the free tier. If you've made these adjustments and still see unexpected charges, it would be advisable to open a support ticket with AWS to clarify the situation. They can provide specific guidance based on your account and usage details. Remember that the free tier is designed to help you get started, but it's always important to carefully review the settings when creating resources to ensure they align with the free tier specifications. **Sources** Can some one confirm why RDS free tier is charged a small amount? | AWS re:Post Do I currently have free tier / will this be covered by free tier | AWS re:Post Hosted PostgreSQL - Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL - AWS
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Amazon Web Services
aws.amazon.com › aws free tier
Free Cloud Computing Services - AWS Free Tier
1 week ago - New AWS customers can get started at no cost with the AWS Free Tier. Gain $100 USD credits at sign-up and up to $100 USD more to earn as you explore key AWS services. Test drive AWS services with the Free Plan for up to 6 months.
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › devops › aws-rds-launching-rds-database-instance-for-free
AWS RDS - Launching RDS Database Instance for Free - GeeksforGeeks
March 28, 2023 - Amazon RDS free tier is available to you only in the first 12 months of your AWS account creation.
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CloudySave
cloudysave.com › aws › rds › aws-rds-free-tier
AWS RDS Free Tier - CloudySave
Also, you have the Management Console for free to help you with building and managing your DB Instances on RDS. ... – It’s going to be available for twelve months from the beginning of the date of creating your AWS account. Upon the expiry of the free usage and when the usage of your app goes over the limit of the free usage tiers, you will have to pay the cost of the standard pay-as-you-go service rates inflicted, and there will be restrictions that are going to be applied.
Published   January 25, 2023
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Quora
quora.com › Is-AWS-database-PostgreSQL-or-any-other-RDS-free-under-the-AWS-free-trial-If-so-what-are-the-limitations-Can-someone-with-experience-explain-how-it-works-and-if-there-are-any-hidden-charges-after-the-trial-period
Is AWS database (PostgreSQL or any other RDS) free under the AWS free trial? If so, what are the limitations? Can someone with experience explain how it works and if there are any hidden charges after the trial period? - Quora
Answer: So, the free trial period isn’t “Hey, EVERYTHING is free”. Instead, it’s a free bucket of money of a fixed size. You can spend your money any way you want. Let’s say it’s $250 (that’s one of the more common ones I’ve seen). Go to the cost calculator for AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/rds/po...
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DevOpsculture
devopsculture.hashnode.dev › how-to-set-up-a-free-tier-rds-instance-of-mysql-and-connect-with-ec2
How to Set Up a Free Tier RDS Instance of MySQL and Connect with EC2
July 22, 2023 - Learn how to easily set up a Free Tier RDS (Relational Database Service) instance of MySQL and establish seamless connectivity with an EC2.
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Quora
quora.com › Is-there-a-way-to-actually-have-a-free-database-on-Amazon-RDS-without-being-charged-for-compute-time-I-signed-up-for-RDS-but-see-compute-time-charges
Is there a way to actually have a free database on Amazon RDS without being charged for 'compute time'? I signed up for RDS but see 'compute time' charges. - Quora
Answer (1 of 2): If you’re still in the first twelve months of your account, then on the free tier you get RDS for free, so long as: * It’s on a single db.t2.micro instance, and; * You’re using either MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle BYOL, or SQL Server.
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aldora
aldoraweb.com › aws-free-tier-rds-database-setup
AWS Free Tier RDS Database Setup
December 28, 2022 - As part of the AWS Free Tier, the Amazon RDS Free Tier helps us get started with a managed database service in the cloud for free. There are two important things while setting up it: keep database storage and time usage under the free tier limit, ...