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Simon Willison argues that pay-by-usage services should enforce hard budget caps by default—stopping service when spending hits a limit rather than just sending warnings—because coding agents make it too easy to accidentally rack up massive bills. AWS and Google Cloud recently launched these features, but they need to become standard across the industry.
- Soft budget caps (warning emails) fail in practice because automated agents and unattended services can incur thousands in charges overnight before anyone notices the alert.
- AWS and Google Cloud both launched hard spending limits recently (September and July 2026), pausing projects when monthly budgets are exceeded, but adoption and availability remain limited.
- The feature should be mandatory by default with an explicit opt-in checkbox to remove caps, shifting the burden of risk from users who fear bankruptcy to those willing to accept it.
- Many developers avoid AWS for personal projects specifically because of runaway cost fears, so hard caps would unlock adoption from risk-averse users.