I think the author is confused. The previous "basic tier" is actually the "lite" tier. The prices are the same, but the number of "free" MAUs is reduced. The "advanced" and "essentials" tier include what seems to be new or expanded features like fully customizable logins and passwordless login options, so you have to pay more to access these features, but it looks like everything Cognito previously provided is in the "lite" tier.

Disclosure: I work for a competitor of Cognito, FusionAuth.

I agree, the author is totally confused.

Lite is equivalent was available before, and there's been a lot of improvements to essentials and plus (passkeys, more customization options). It is a bit weird that you have to be in the Plus plan to export user activity logs, but pricing is difficult. Depending on the number of users you had, lite can cost quite a bit more (5x for 60k users).

The simple pricing, which was one of the key benefits of Cognito, has become more complex. I put together a spreadsheet to show the price changes here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nm5BUOjFlqqvaeDTERJm...

It's pretty clear that while there are increased features, if all you need is login, the pricing has increased significantly if you are above 10k MAU. If you are under 10k users, it's a wash, of course.

This spreadsheet ignores quota increase, SAML users, and M2M tokens, which are all charged separately.

However, you can see the plus tier, which includes what was previously "Advanced security features" has gotten significantly cheaper (pricing for that feature sourced from https://medium.com/@demandapi/aws-cognito-advantages-pricing... ). So bravo to them for lowering that.

There's also complexity in switching tiers, since if you switch from Plus to Lite in the middle of the month, you'll be charged Plus for all users who logged in before the switch and Lite for all after. That's incidental, but still added complexity.

And, as a sibling comment notes, there's legacy pricing for anyone who has a user pool with at least 1 MAU in the last 12 months. This legacy pricing lasts until Nov 30, 2025, which gives folks a chance to migrate or adjust business models.

Post also doesn’t mention this from the pricing that means existing customers in free tier aren’t being suddenly charged:

Note:

1. Customers with existing user pools created on or before 10:00am Pacific Time, November 22, 2024 will continue having a free tier of first 50,000 MAUs. Advanced Security Features (ASF) will continue to be priced separately and will not have a free tier, just like it has been priced previously.

2. Additionally, customers are eligible to create new user pools with Lite tier in their existing accounts and count those MAUs against the free tier of first 50,000 MAUs. To be eligible, customers' accounts must have had at least 1 MAU in the last 12 months on or before 10:00am Pacific Time, November 22, 2024.

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