Vishal Singhal Smart businesses know that understanding amazon pinpoint pricing can save thousands on messaging campaigns. Take Coinbase as an example – they send 8 million push notifications every hour with this powerful AWS service.
The cost structure might seem complex at first glance. Amazon Pinpoint delivers great value at just $0.0001 per email and includes generous free tiers, such as your first 5,000 endpoints at no cost. The pricing changes based on channels, and SMS and voice costs vary by recipient location and message type.
Many businesses miss out on significant savings because they don’t account for endpoint growth or use the free allowances properly, like 100 million free events each month. This piece walks you through a simple process to calculate your aws pinpoint pricing accurately. You’ll learn to maximize value and avoid surprise bills as we take a closer look at pinpoint amazon costs and ways to optimize them for your needs.
How much does AWS pinpoint cost?
Amazon Pinpoint keeps pricing simple – you pay for what you use without any upfront setup costs or fixed monthly fees. This pricing structure helps you plan your customer engagement strategy and messaging budget better.
What is Amazon Pinpoint and how does pricing work?
Amazon Pinpoint is a multichannel communication tool for AWS, through which businesses can send target customers with relevant messages via email, SMS, push notifications, voice, and in-app messaging. It is a utility consumption model. Your usage would be charged on three primary bases, namely, the target audience, messages sent, and events collected.
Amazon Pinpoint stands apart from other enterprise messaging platforms with its pay-as-you-go approach. You can start small and grow as your application expands. The flexible pricing eliminates the need for contract negotiations and minimum charges that you typically see with similar communication tools.
The free tier plays a crucial role in Pinpoint pricing. Amazon Pinpoint gives you generous free allowances. These include the first 5,000 endpoints you target each month, the first 100 million application events collected monthly, and the first million push notifications.
Key pricing components: endpoints, messages, and events
Amazon Pinpoint pricing centers around three key components:
- Monthly Targeted Audience (MTA): You pay once per calendar month for each unique endpoint targeted by campaigns, journeys, or in-app messaging. The first 5,000 endpoints come free, with charges applying after that. This charge doesn’t apply to SendMessages API or Pinpoint SMS and Voice API usage.
- Messaging Costs: Each channel has its own pricing:
- Push notifications: The first 1 million monthly messages come free, then additional charges apply
- Email: $0.00 per email sent through Amazon Pinpoint
- SMS/MMS: Prices vary by country, region, and sometimes between carriers
- Voice messages: Costs differ between countries and carriers
- In-app messaging: The first 15,000 API requests are free, then $0.00 per request
- Events: Application events cover both campaign events and regular app usage data. The first 100 million events collected monthly cost nothing, with charges per event after that.
Your Pinpoint costs mainly depend on usage volume and chosen communication channels. The Deliverability Dashboard ($1,250 monthly) and dedicated IP addresses ($24.95 monthly per address) have separate charges.
Step-by-Step: How to Calculate Your Amazon Pinpoint Costs
Calculating your amazon pinpoint pricing needs a clear approach to track all costs. Here’s a practical way to figure out your monthly expenses.
Step 1: Estimate your monthly targeted audience
You need to identify the number of unique endpoints you’ll target each month. Note that an endpoint is a destination for contacting customers, such as an email address or phone number. The first 5,000 endpoints are completely free each month. You’ll pay for each additional endpoint beyond this threshold. This Monthly Targeted Audience (MTA) charge applies once per endpoint each month, whatever the number of times you contact them.
Step 2: Calculate messaging costs across channels
The next step is to work out your messaging volume for different channels:
- Email: Calculate cost at USD 0.00 per email sent
- Push notifications: First 1 million monthly notifications are free, with additional costs thereafter
- SMS: Prices vary by country, region, and between carriers
- Voice: Costs differ by country and between carriers in the same region
- In-app messaging: First 15,000 API requests are free, followed by USD 0.00 per request
Step 3: Factor in analytics and event tracking costs
Application events combine campaign events like link clicks and regular app usage data. Amazon Pinpoint gives you the first 100 million events each month at no cost. After this threshold, you’ll pay USD 0.00 per event collected. These analytics help track engagement metrics immediately and let you spot delivery problems while learning about message effectiveness.
Step 4: Include additional service integrations like SES
The final step is to add integration costs with other AWS services. Amazon Pinpoint works with Amazon SES for email delivery. Email billing has moved from Pinpoint to SES, so you’ll need to add these costs to your calculations. There’s another reason to think over: if you send emails through an EC2-hosted application, you should include compute usage and data transfer fees.
Your total monthly charges will add up MTA charges, events collected charges, and message sending costs.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Estimating Costs
Newcomers to amazon pinpoint pricing often make mistakes that can get pricey and substantially affect their messaging budgets. You can protect your business from surprise expenses and optimize communication costs by learning about these common pitfalls.
Ignoring sandbox limitations and production access fees
New Amazon Pinpoint accounts start in a sandbox environment – a fact many developers miss. You get access to all features in this environment, but with strict limits. The sandbox restricts email sending to 200 messages every 24 hours at one message per second. SMS sandbox accounts also have a fixed monthly spending limit of USD 1.00.
These sandbox limitations can lead to misleading projections when you estimate production costs. Moving beyond these restrictions requires a production access request through AWS Support. You’ll need to provide detailed information about your use case and how you gather consent. Any missing details could delay or even result in a denied request.
The time and costs linked to this transition should be part of your calculations, especially when you have large-scale messaging campaigns planned.
Underestimating endpoint growth over time
Much of your pinpoint amazon costs come from endpoint management rather than sending messages. Once you go over the 5,000 free endpoints each month, each additional unique endpoint adds to your bill.
Most organizations base their cost estimates on their current audience size without considering growth. This becomes a real problem for apps with fast user growth or seasonal spikes. Your endpoint count might look fine during testing but can multiply quickly in production.
Looking at your past growth patterns helps project future endpoint increases. Applications with predictable workloads might benefit from reserved capacity options with lower rates, but these need 1-3 year commitments.
Note that endpoints also have attribute limits – each can have up to 250 attributes maxing out at 15 KB. Going over these limits means architectural changes that could affect your costs.
Using the Amazon Pinpoint Pricing Calculator Effectively
The AWS Pricing Calculator helps you forecast your amazon pinpoint pricing before you commit to any services. You don’t need an AWS account to use this calculator, which makes it available to anyone who wants to plan their communication budget.
How to access and use the pricing calculator
Anyone can access the AWS Pricing Calculator through a web-based console at https://calculator.aws/#/. The calculator doesn’t offer APIs yet. Your estimation process flows through four main console pages:
- Landing page – Shows how the tool works and provides links to key resources
- Add Service page – Opens after you click “Create estimate” and lets you pick services like Amazon Pinpoint
- Configure service page – Helps you select your AWS Region and add service-specific details that match your needs
- My estimate page – Shows your costs upfront, monthly, and over 12 months
The calculator gives you immediate cost estimates after you set up your desired pinpoint services. You can save these estimates as links to check later or export them as CSV or PDF files to share with your team.
Tips for accurate cost projections
Your project requirements should be crystal clear before you begin. The estimate’s accuracy depends on your inputs, so you need exact data about your expected audience size, message volumes, and event tracking needs.
Pick the right AWS Region because aws pinpoint pricing differs between regions. The best pricing comes from choosing the region nearest to your target audience.
Remember to include all costs. This means endpoints, messages across channels (SMS, email, push, etc.), events, and extra services. The Deliverability Dashboard costs $1,250 monthly, while dedicated IP addresses run $24.95 monthly per address.
Group your AWS cost estimates based on your architecture. This approach makes it easier to analyze service costs.
Your estimates need regular updates. Usage patterns change and amazon pinpoint pricing evolves, so check the calculator often to keep your messaging cost projections accurate.
Conclusion
A good grasp of amazon pinpoint pricing gives businesses the ability to make economical messaging decisions without surprise costs. This piece has shown you the pay-as-you-go model that makes Pinpoint available to organizations of all sizes.
The three-pronged pricing structure works on endpoints, messages, and events. This creates a clear system where you only pay for what you use. The generous free tier allowances help you plan your budget better. The calculation process we’ve shown gives you a solid way to project costs for all your communication channels.
Many business owners don’t think about future endpoint growth or sandbox limits when they calculate costs. These mistakes lead to budget surprises you can easily avoid. The AWS Pricing Calculator becomes your best friend to forecast costs accurately before you commit to any implementation.
Your messaging needs will change as your business grows. The best approach is to check your communication strategy often.
Smart businesses team up with experts like those at CampaignHQ to get the most from their Amazon Pinpoint setup while keeping costs low.
FAQs
Q1. How does Amazon Pinpoint pricing work?
Amazon Pinpoint is flat-rate billed pay-per-use to three main bases for audiences targeted (or endpoints), messages sent, and events collected. There are no prepay charges or monthly flat fees; you will pay for what you consume.
Q2. Are there any free allowances in Amazon Pinpoint?
Yes, Amazon Pinpoint offers generous free tiers, including the first 5,000 endpoints targeted each month, the first 100 million application events collected monthly, and the first million push notifications sent.
Q3. How can I estimate my Amazon Pinpoint costs accurately?
To estimate costs accurately, use the AWS Pricing Calculator, define your project requirements clearly, select the appropriate AWS Region, account for all potential costs including endpoints and messages across different channels, and regularly update your estimates as your usage patterns evolve.
