Kubernetes Cost Calculator

Kubernetes cost has three parts: worker nodes (compute instances), managed control plane (EKS/GKE/AKS fee), and additional services (load balancers, ingress, monitoring, logging). Typical cluster: 50-300/month for small workload (3-5 nodes), 2,000-10,000/month for mid-scale production (20-50 nodes), 50k+ for large enterprise.

10 nodes × 100/month + 75 managed control plane + 200 add-on services = 1,275/month. 15,300 annually. Mid-sized production setup. Most teams underestimate add-on services (load balancers, monitoring stack, storage) which often match node cost in large clusters.

Cost optimization: right-size nodes (stop using 16GB instances for 4GB workloads), use spot instances for non-critical (50-90% cheaper), cluster autoscaling, deprovision dev/test clusters outside working hours, consolidate workloads per node. Combined FinOps programmes typically cut cluster costs 30-50%.

Quick example

With worker nodes of 10 and cost per node monthly of 100 (plus managed control plane of 75 and additional services of 200), the result is 1,275.00.

Which inputs matter most

You enter Worker Nodes, Cost per Node Monthly, Managed Control Plane, and Additional Services.

What's happening under the hood

Total monthly = (nodes × per-node) + control plane + additional services.

What scales and what does not

Cluster costs separate into a part that scales with capacity and a part that does not. At the defaults, ten worker nodes at 100 each account for 1,000 of the 1,275 monthly total, with the managed control plane and additional services making up the rest. Halving the node count halves the largest component while leaving the other 275 untouched.

Why node cost is usually understated

Node cost is the figure most likely to be understated, because the headline instance price rarely includes everything the cluster consumes. Persistent volumes, load balancers, egress traffic, image registry storage, and log retention are billed separately on most providers and can be a substantial share of the bill. Reserved or committed-use pricing pulls in the other direction. Entering a blended per-node figure taken from an actual invoice gives a closer result than a list price.