Add a spending cap: a free website got a $104,500 bill for bandwidth.
A free Netlify site was billed $104,500 for bandwidth after a traffic spike; the bill was dropped only after the story hit Hacker News.
We didn’t run this. Hacker News did. ModelSignal read the published work and checked every number below against it — the sources and the dates we read them are at the end.
Netlify · February 2024
$104,500
sent to a free website.
For bandwidth.
Reddit → Hacker News front page, 27 Feb 2024.
Support vs the CEO
Support's offer
$5,225
5% of the bill
First offer$20,900
After HN blew up
$0
Not charged
Thread1,783 pts
Find the cap.
The bill vanished only after the story hit the front page. Check your host's rules first.
Hacker News 39520776 · 27 Feb 2024
The proof
The Hacker News thread of 27 Feb 2024 and the Netlify CEO's reply. Read 13 Oct 2026.
The full breakdown
Somebody else got this bill; we read the public record. Every number below is quoted, with the date we read it.
What happened (February 2024)
A developer posted on r/webdev that Netlify had billed their free (Starter-plan) static site $104,500 for bandwidth after a traffic spike on one audio file. The post reached the Hacker News front page on 27 February 2024 (1,783 points, 798 comments).
Support's offer, as quoted on Hacker News (user Hamuko)
"We normally discount these kinds of attacks to about 20% of the cost, which would make your new bill $20,900. I've currently reduced it to about 5%, which is $5,225."
The CEO's reply (bobfunk, Hacker News)
- "Netlify CEO here. Our support team has reached out to the user from the thread to let them know they're not getting charged for this."
- "It's currently our policy to not shut down free sites during traffic spikes that doesn't match attack patterns, but instead forgiving any bills from legitimate mistakes after the fact."
- "we are currently working on changing the default behavior to never let free sites incur overages"
Netlify's forum
- Staff (laura, 27 Feb 2024): "an invoice was issued to a Starter plan user".
- The site owner (3 Mar 2024) asked for the "full list of source IPs hitting that mp3 file" and later confirmed receiving the IP data.
Reported in the Reddit post, not verified by us
Secondary coverage (Gigazine, hamy.xyz) repeats the post's figures: a 3.44 MB audio file, roughly 55 million downloads, about 190 TB in four days, peak 60.7 TB on 16 February. We could not open the post itself, so these stay off the slides.
Sources
- Hacker News — "Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site" (item 39520776, 27 Feb 2024)
- Netlify Support Forums — "Netlify billing horror story" (staff reply, 27 Feb 2024)
- Netlify Support Forums — "I am the OP of that 104k bill post and I have some follow-up questions" (3 Mar 2024)
- Gigazine (28 Feb 2024) — coverage of the incident
The catches
- The original Reddit post could not be opened from our pipeline; its figures for the file (3.44 MB), downloads (~55 million) and bandwidth (~190 TB) come from secondary coverage and are kept off the slides.
- The 20% and 5% offers are support's email as quoted by a Hacker News commenter from the post's screenshots.
- Whether Netlify has since shipped a hard spend cap for free sites is not verified here; the CEO's statement was an intention.
Every number, and where it’s quoted from
- the bill was $104,500 (HN title says $104k; support's '20% … $20,900' implies $104,500)“Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site · about 20% of the cost, which would make your new bill $20,900”HN 39520776 title + Hamuko's quote of support
- support offered 20% ($20,900), then 5% ($5,225)“We normally discount these kinds of attacks to about 20% of the cost, which would make your new bill $20,900. I've currently reduced it to about 5%, which is $5,225.”HN 39520776, comment by Hamuko quoting Netlify support
- CEO: not getting charged; $0“Netlify CEO here. Our support team has reached out to the user from the thread to let them know they're not getting charged for this.”HN 39520776, bobfunk (Netlify CEO), 27 Feb 2024
- policy: keep free sites up during spikes, forgive bills after“It's currently our policy to not shut down free sites during traffic spikes that doesn't match attack patterns, but instead forgiving any bills from legitimate mistakes after the fact.”HN 39520776, bobfunk
- changing the default so free sites never incur overages“we are currently working on changing the default behavior to never let free sites incur overages”HN 39520776, bobfunk
- HN item 39520776: 1,783 points, 798 comments, 27 February 2024“1783 points … 798 comments”news.ycombinator.com
- the site was on the Starter plan (free)“an invoice was issued to a Starter plan user”answers.netlify.com 113392, staff reply by laura, 27 Feb 2024
- the file hit was an mp3“Full list of source IPs hitting that mp3 file”answers.netlify.com 113472, the site owner, 3 Mar 2024
