Estimate Kubernetes cluster costs including control plane, worker nodes, load balancers, and persistent storage. Budget your EKS, GKE, or AKS spend.
Kubernetes has become the standard for container orchestration, but the cost of running a production cluster goes well beyond just worker node compute. Managed Kubernetes services like AWS EKS, Google GKE, and Azure AKS charge for the control plane, while worker nodes, load balancers, persistent volumes, and data transfer add substantially to the total.
EKS charges $0.10/hour ($73/month) per cluster for the control plane alone. Worker nodes are billed as standard compute instances. Add-ons like ALB Ingress Controllers, EBS/EFS storage, and NAT Gateways can double the base compute cost if not planned for carefully.
This calculator helps you model the total cost of ownership for a Kubernetes cluster by summing control plane fees, worker node compute, load balancer costs, and persistent storage. Use it to compare managed versus self-hosted Kubernetes and to right-size your cluster for expected workloads.
Tracking this metric consistently enables technology teams to identify system performance trends and address potential issues before they impact end users or business operations.
Kubernetes costs are notoriously difficult to predict because they span multiple cloud services. Teams frequently underestimate total cluster cost by 40–60% by accounting only for worker nodes. This calculator captures all the major cost components, giving you a realistic budget for cluster operations. Data-driven tracking enables evidence-based infrastructure decisions, reducing the risk of over-provisioning costs or under-provisioning that leads to performance bottlenecks.
Control Plane = control_plane_monthly_fee Worker Nodes = nodes × node_hourly_rate × 730 Load Balancers = LB_count × LB_monthly_cost Storage = storage_GB × storage_rate Total = Control Plane + Workers + LBs + Storage + Additional
Result: $814.48/month
EKS control plane at $73/month plus six m5.large workers at $0.096/hr ($420.48/month), two ALBs at $25/month ($50), 500 GB EBS at $0.10/GB ($50), and $65 in additional costs (NAT Gateway, CloudWatch). Total: $658.48/month in core infrastructure.
A production Kubernetes cluster on AWS typically includes: EKS control plane ($73/mo), 3–10 worker nodes ($100–$500/mo each), 1–3 load balancers ($20–$50/mo each), persistent volumes ($0.10/GB/mo for gp3), NAT Gateways ($32.85/mo per AZ), and CloudWatch logging ($0.50/GB). The total easily reaches $500–$5,000/month for a modest production cluster.
EKS has a $73/mo control plane fee; GKE Standard is free. GKE Autopilot charges for pod resources only, which can be cheaper for small workloads. AKS has a free control plane with an optional paid uptime SLA. Worker node costs depend on the underlying compute pricing, where GCP often has a small edge due to sustained-use discounts.
The biggest savings come from pod right-sizing (use VPA recommendations), cluster autoscaling (scale to zero for dev/staging), spot instances for worker nodes (use multiple instance types for availability), and efficient bin-packing (request-based scheduling with proper resource requests and limits).
AWS EKS charges $0.10/hr ($73/month). GKE Standard is free; GKE Autopilot charges per pod. Azure AKS is free for the control plane. Self-managed Kubernetes requires you to run your own control plane instances.
For general workloads, m5.large (2 vCPU, 8 GB) or m5.xlarge (4 vCPU, 16 GB) are common starting points. Size based on your pod resource requests and leave 15–20% headroom for system pods and scheduling overhead.
Fargate eliminates node management and is ideal for sporadic workloads, but costs 20–40% more per vCPU-hour than EC2. Managed node groups are cheaper at scale and offer more control. Many clusters use both for different workloads.
Key strategies: use cluster autoscaler to scale down during low traffic, run spot instances for fault-tolerant workloads, right-size pod requests, consolidate small clusters, use namespace resource quotas, and implement pod disruption budgets for efficient scheduling. Consulting relevant industry guidelines or professional resources can provide additional context tailored to your specific circumstances and constraints.
Commonly overlooked: NAT Gateway ($32.85/mo + $0.045/GB), CloudWatch logging ($0.50/GB), EBS volumes for PVCs, cross-AZ data transfer for pod-to-pod communication, and ALB/NLB charges for each exposed service.
Self-managed Kubernetes eliminates the control plane fee ($73/mo for EKS) but adds significant operational overhead: patching, upgrades, etcd management, and monitoring. For most teams, the managed service fee is a bargain compared to engineering time.