Beware of the Amazon Free Tier Offer

Last month I applied for the Amazon Free Tier offer. Basically you get a free server in the Amazon cloud for one full year. This is to try it out and they hope you'll like it so much you'll stay with it after you pay. Sounds like a good deal, right? Not for me.

After having the server for over a month I got an email this morning saying I've been charge $140! I immediately sent an email to the support email and got this response:

I'm sorry for misunderstanding in regards to your usage and the Free Tier offer. I've researched your account and confirmed that the charges incurred on your account are correct. Although your account is eligible for the AWS Free Usage Tier, your usage charges were based on activity that was outside the specifications of the offer. You have created a Large SUSE Linux Instance (m1.large) and only a Micro Linux Instance (t1.micro) qualifies for the offer. Therefor your Large SUSE Linux Instance is subject to standard pay as you go rates of $.44 per hour.

When I signed up for the free offer I had no idea about this difference. I feel like I've been misled. What if I was a student in India or Romania? I'd quite possibly be out a large sum of money, as if $140 is not a large sum of money to me!

Too bad, I was hoping this would be a good place to host my Ruby-on-Rails server to learn Ruby-on-Rails programming. I'll have to find another service. I wish there was a service I could pay $30 or less a month and know exactly what I am getting charged. If you know of any let me know.

Update 2 Days Later

I got an email from Amazon saying they will refund my money. Pretty nice of them, so no hard feelings! I canceled my account anyway. I think I'll try Rackspace, they have a computer in the cloud for $12/month, with Ruby-on-Rails. That seems like a good deal, and I'll be charged a simple rate.