Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a pay-as-you-go model, which basically means you’re only charged for the resources you need and for how much you use. But there’s a downside to it. Charges continue as long as resources are running—even if you're not actively using them. This is why, if you're done experimenting or no longer need your AWS services, it's crucial to take the right steps to stop AWS billing.
This guide walks you through all the steps to safely stop billing on your AWS account.
Step-by-step guide to stop AWS billing
Step 1. Identify active resources
Go to the Billing Dashboard and select Bills to view the services you're currently being charged for. You can expand each service to see which regions and resources are active.
Step 2. Delete unused resources
Once you’ve identified the active resources, you’ll need to manually delete the resources in each region. For this, open the AWS Console, switch to a region from the top-right dropdown, check services individually and terminate or delete resources accordingly.
You’ll need to repeat this for all regions.
Step 3. Disable AWS Services
For the services that you don’t want to keep running, you can go to the respective service dashboard (e.g., EC2, RDS) and ensure all instances, databases, or applications are stopped or deleted.
Step 4. Close the AWS account (if you’re done completely)
If you’re on a paid plan, you might incur charges for keeping the AWS account active. However, if you’re not going to be using AWS anymore, you might as well close the account. For this, go to the AWS Management Console, scroll down to the Close Account section, acknowledge the warnings and click Close Account.
Your account will be closed permanently, and billing will stop after pending charges are cleared.
