Customers often delay upgrading Aurora clusters due to compatibility concerns or operational overhead. However, when older versions such as MySQL 5.7 or PostgreSQL 11 move into Extended Support, AWS applies automatic surcharges to ensure continued patching. These charges affect all clusters regardless of usage, creating unnecessary cost exposure across both production and non-production environments. For large Aurora fleets, the incremental expense can become significant if upgrades are not proactively managed.
Aurora Extended Support adds a per-vCPU, per-hour charge for clusters running outdated MySQL or PostgreSQL engine versions beyond their community lifecycle. The surcharge applies in addition to normal Aurora instance costs and is incurred even when clusters are idle.
