Small AWS resources left running after a project ends can keep generating charges. Vlad Z.’s DEV Community post, “Small and easy fixes are worth more than they look”, makes that operational point with examples such as idle NAT Gateways and unused public IPv4 addresses. The post’s monthly totals of $400, $600, and $800 are illustrative amounts from the author—not typical AWS bills or independently verified savings.
Why small AWS charges deserve a look
A resource that costs little on its own can be easy to overlook, especially when it no longer serves an obvious purpose. But recurring charges continue until the resource is removed or its configuration changes. The practical question behind the post is simple: “is this still needed?” Treat that as a prompt to investigate, not an automatic instruction to delete.
The examples in the post include unused Elastic IPs, idle NAT Gateways, old AMIs stored across regions, CloudWatch dashboards with metric queries, and small Lambda functions. Their costs and operational consequences differ, so a quick review should begin with the account’s actual billing and inventory rather than assumptions based on resource names.
What AWS pricing shows about two common examples
| Resource or charge | Published pricing context | What to keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
| Public IPv4 address | AWS lists $0.005 per address-hour for both in-use and idle public IPv4 addresses on its Amazon VPC pricing page, accessed in 2026. | AWS says billing is calculated in one-second increments with a 60-second minimum. The listed rate does not establish the total for a particular account. |
| NAT Gateway | AWS charges for each hour a gateway is available and for each gigabyte it processes. The VPC pricing page’s US East (Ohio) example lists $0.045 per gateway-hour and $0.045 per GB processed. | These are regional example rates; traffic, region, data transfer, configuration, credits, and other terms affect the account total. See AWS’s VPC pricing and NAT Gateway pricing guidance. |
AWS announced the general $0.005-per-hour public IPv4 charge effective February 1, 2024. That announcement is useful historical context, while the current VPC pricing page is the source for the currently listed rate. AWS’s announcement also introduced Public IP Insights.
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How to prioritize a cleanup safely
There is no universally correct order for deleting resources. Use these checks to decide which candidate merits investigation first; they are a practical framework, not a validated scoring formula.
- Find recurring cost in billing. Identify charges actually visible in the account and the relevant billing period. Check region and usage before estimating what a change could save.
- Check whether the resource is genuinely unused. Review its activity, configuration, and role in the system. A quiet resource may still support a low-frequency job, recovery process, or dependency.
- Establish ownership and dependencies. Look for a documented owner and determine what workloads, networking paths, deployments, or monitoring depend on it.
- Assess deletion risk and recovery needs. Verify backups, retention obligations, and whether the resource can be recreated or restored. The fact that something costs money does not prove it is safe to remove.
- Compare likely impact with verification effort. A clear, recurring charge with a confirmed lack of use may be a better first task than a tiny or ambiguous item that takes substantial investigation.
- Make and verify a change deliberately. Follow your organization’s change process, then check that dependent services still work and that billing reflects the intended result.
Use the account, not an example total, to estimate impact
The $400, $600, and $800 monthly figures in Vlad Z.’s post are the author’s illustrative combined amounts. They are not a benchmark, a typical AWS bill, or proof of savings from any particular cleanup. For a useful estimate, use the current AWS billing information alongside a resource inventory, then confirm each candidate’s region, usage, and dependencies. Public prices explain how some charges accrue; they cannot determine the total for an individual account.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Make small reviews part of maintenance
The author’s advice is to treat recurring cleanup as maintenance rather than waiting for a large cost-reduction project. A lightweight review can ask whether each resource still has an owner, a purpose, and a known dependency. Keep the review proportionate: investigate charges and uncertainty first, and remove resources only when ownership, retention, backup, and recovery questions are answered.
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