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AWS Lightsail Won't Cancel

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AWS Lightsail is a set of services within Amazon Web Services that provides virtual-servers with popular pre-configured software options - such as a Wordpress server. It is notable for more-or-less instant setup speed and low cost operation.

The Lightsail service also includes external IP addresses, to make servers publicly accessible over the internet, as well as snapshots and backups.

AWS Lightsail charging for deleted servers[edit | edit source]

Lightsail offers a clear "Remove" button. Upon pressing it, the system asks multiple times if the user wishes to delete the server, noting that the server and its contents will be lost. Although the server disappears from the Lightsail page, the client continues to be charged for it.

This is explained by AWS Customer Service, revealing that deleting servers does not automatically delete screenshots and backups within that server.[1]

In AWS, if a backup, snapshot, or resource (such as an IP address) associated with a server still exists, it remains billable even after the server or service has been terminated.

For more information on these resources and how to delete them, this guide is available.

References[edit | edit source]