Things I Wish I Knew Before Using AWS Free Tier: VPC

Ran into a surprising AWS billing issue while learning to build my first custom VPC setup.

This week, I took my first steps into building a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on AWS.
I was following tutorials, reading docs, and was super excited to see things coming together…
Until I opened my billing dashboard and saw unexpected charges — even though I was on the Free Tier!

Here's my journey, the mistakes I made, and how I solved the problem — so you don't have to learn the hard way.

I wanted to set up a basic Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in AWS.
Here’s what I created step-by-step:

1. Created a custom VPC (instead of using the default one)

2. Added two subnets — one public and one private

3. Set up a NAT gateways to In 1 AZ.

4. Set up a VPC Endpoint to None.

5. Kept both DNS hostnames and DNS resolution enabled.

Everything looked clean, and my instance was running fine. I was proud.

I Deleted the VPC, But the Charges Stayed

After building the VPC and experimenting with the setup, I decided to delete it completely.
I thought that would remove everything — and stop all charges.
But when I checked my billing page later, I noticed I was still being charged.

That’s when I learned the hard truth…

The Unexpected Charges

Despite deleting the VPC, AWS still charged me for:

• NAT Gateway usage (charged per hour + per GB of data)

• In-use Public IPv4 Address

• Idle Public IPv4 Address (Elastic IP that wasn’t attached to anything)

How I Solved It

To stop the charges, I:

• Manually deleted the NAT Gateway

• Released the unused Elastic IP

My Key Takeaways

• Deleting a VPC doesn’t always delete everything (like NAT Gateways or Elastic IPs)

• NAT Gateways cost money by the hour — even with no EC2 instance

• AWS charges for idle Elastic IPs

• Always monitor the Billing Dashboard and double-check what’s still running

• If it’s your first time and an honest mistake, AWS might waive your charges — just ask!