Identity and Access Management (IAM)

IAM itself is free to use, but costs can arise from related AWS services like AWS Organizations and SSO. Properly configuring IAM Center requires setting up AWS Organizations correctly and ensuring that your IAM users and roles have the appropriate permissions.

For a single AWS account, basic IAM features like users, groups, and policies are sufficient for managing access and permissions. IAM Center and other advanced features like AWS Organizations and SSO are more beneficial when managing multiple AWS accounts, especially in larger organizations where centralized access management and compliance monitoring are critical.

If your use case is simple and doesn't involve managing multiple accounts or requiring advanced access controls, sticking with basic IAM features might be the most straightforward and cost-effective approach. I hope this information is helpful. If it is, please consider accepting the answer so that others can benefit from the clarity when searching for similar questions in the community. Thank you!

HI,

IAM Identity Center (IIC - formerly known as SSO) is offered at no extra charge.

See https://aws.amazon.com/iam/identity-center/faqs/

How much does IAM Identity Center cost?
IAM Identity Center is offered at no extra charge

IIC is not necessarily an overkill for a single account: for example, if you use an external identity provider (Okta, PingIdentity, etc.) IIC integrates with those to provide the authorization part while the id provider provides the authentication. See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/tutorials.html for the supported id providers.

You can also read https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/what-is.html#features to find all places where IIC can help.

Best,

Didier

In addition to the responses that have already being provided, I'll like to add that having an AWS organization from the onset may just be a good idea especially if you anticipate that your organization may grow in the near future.