The "AWS Lego Kit" Reality (100 Devices, 30s reporting, 12 months)
AWS IoT Core itself looks cheap at ~$13/month. But AWS IoT Core has no dashboard, no user auth, no tenant isolation, and no alert state management. To make it work, you must architect, deploy, and maintain:
- AWS IoT Core Message Broker~$13 / mo
- AWS DynamoDB (Telemetry Storage & Partition Keys)~$35 / mo
- AWS Lambda (Message transformation & rule routing)~$18 / mo
- Amazon Managed Grafana (Visual Dashboards for 5 users)~$45 / mo
- AWS CloudWatch Logs & Metrics~$14 / mo
- AWS Cognito / IAM (User auth & permissions)~$10 / mo
- NAT Gateway & Data Egress Charges~$32 / mo
- Dedicated Cloud DevOps Engineer (Maintenance & Security)₹8,00,000 – ₹15,00,000 / year
- Total AWS Annual Cost₹10,00,000 – ₹18,00,000 / year
| Capability | ThingsInterConnected (TIC) Turnkey | AWS IoT Core (DIY Cloud Kit) |
|---|---|---|
| Time to First Dashboard | < 15 Minutes: Register device, get API key, publish MQTT message, see live line graph. | 4–8 Months: Stitch 7+ AWS services, write CloudFormation/Terraform, build custom UI in React. |
| Multi-Tenancy & Portals | Native Out-of-the-Box: Logical tenant isolation, custom branding, user roles (Admin, Viewer, Operator). | Zero: DIY implementation using IAM policy variables, DynamoDB partition prefixes, and custom Cognito groups. |
| Rules with Hysteresis | Built-in: Scheduled evaluators with hysteresis deadbands prevent noisy alert flapping automatically. | Requires custom Lambda code with DynamoDB state tracking or IoT Events detector models (\$15+/mo). |
| Predictable Billing | Flat Subscription: ₹1,999/mo for 100 devices. Zero penalty for high-frequency 5-second reporting. | Metered 5 KB chunks: High-frequency vibration or solar sensors spike costs rapidly. |
| Annual Total Cost | ₹23,988 / year (All software & hosting included) | ₹10–18 Lakhs / year (Cloud bills + human engineer salary) |