Kubernetes Cost Calculator: How to Calculate K8s Costs Per Pod in 2026
Stop guessing what your Kubernetes infrastructure costs. Here's how to calculate the exact cost per pod, per node, and per cluster—with pricing formulas that work on AWS, GCP, and Azure.
If you've ever asked "how much does Kubernetes cost?" and gotten a vague answer about "it depends," this guide is for you. We're breaking down the actual math behind Kubernetes pricing so you can calculate costs to the dollar.
Quick Kubernetes Cost Calculator
Formula: (Memory_GB × $7/GB/mo) + (CPU_cores × $21/core/mo)
The Kubernetes Cost Formula (2026 Pricing)
Kubernetes costs break down into four main components:
| Resource | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 GB Memory (RAM) | $7 | $84 |
| 1 vCPU Core | $21 | $252 |
| 1 GB Storage (SSD) | $0.10 | $1.20 |
| 1 Load Balancer | $18 | $216 |
Note: These are industry averages across AWS EKS, Google GKE, and Azure AKS. Exact pricing varies by region and instance type, but this gives you 95% accuracy for planning.
Real Kubernetes Cost Examples
Example 1: Small API Service
Memory: 0.5 GB × $7 × 3 pods = $10.50/mo CPU: 0.25 cores × $21 × 3 = $15.75/mo Storage: 10 GB × $0.10 = $1.00/mo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Total: $27.25/mo Annual: $327/year
Example 2: Production Database
Memory: 16 GB × $7 = $112/mo CPU: 4 cores × $21 = $84/mo Storage: 500 GB × $0.10 = $50/mo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Total: $246/mo Annual: $2,952/year
Example 3: Microservices Architecture
Per pod: 2 GB × $7 + 0.5 cores × $21 = $24.50/mo All pods: $24.50 × 3 replicas × 15 svcs = $1,102.50/mo LBs: 2 × $18 = $36/mo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Total: $1,138.50/mo Annual: $13,662/year
Kubernetes Cost by Cloud Provider (2026)
Here's how costs break down across the big three cloud providers:
| Provider | Memory (GB/mo) | CPU (core/mo) | Control Plane |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS EKS | $6.50 | $22 | $73/cluster |
| Google GKE | $7 | $21 | $74/cluster |
| Azure AKS | $7.50 | $20 | Free |
| Industry Avg | $7 | $21 | $73 |
Hidden cost: AWS and GCP charge ~$73/month per cluster for the control plane. Azure AKS doesn't charge for this, making it slightly cheaper for multi-cluster setups.
The Waste Factor: What You're Actually Paying For
Here's the problem with these calculations: they assume you're using 100% of requested resources. In reality, most pods use 20-40% of what they request.
Real-World Waste Multiplier
To get your true cost, multiply by utilization:
True Cost = Calculated Cost × Actual Utilization Example: Calculated: $2,000/mo Utilization: 35% True Cost: $2,000 × 0.35 = $700/mo Waste: $1,300/mo ($15,600/year)
How to Reduce Kubernetes Costs
Right-size resource requests
Run kubectl top pods and compare to requests. If you're using <50%, cut requests in half. Typical savings: 40-60%.
Use Spot/Preemptible instances
For non-critical workloads, spot instances cost 60-80% less. AWS Fargate Spot, GKE Preemptible, AKS Spot. Typical savings: 60-70% on eligible workloads.
Enable cluster autoscaling
Scale nodes down during off-peak hours. Don't pay for capacity you're not using. Typical savings: 20-30%.
Delete orphaned resources
Unused load balancers ($18/mo each), unbound PVCs ($0.10/GB/mo), old deployments. Quick audit with Wozz finds these instantly.
Catch cost increases at PR time
Don't let expensive changes sneak into production. Add Wozz to your CI/CD to block PRs that increase costs above your threshold.
Quick Reference: Calculate Your Costs
Use these commands to get the data you need for cost calculations:
Get total resource allocation:
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces -o custom-columns=\
"NAME:.metadata.name,\
CPU:.spec.containers[*].resources.requests.cpu,\
MEM:.spec.containers[*].resources.requests.memory" | \
awk 'NR>1{cpu+=$2; mem+=$3} END{print "Total: "cpu" CPU, "mem" memory"}'Get actual usage:
kubectl top pods --all-namespaces --sum=true
Or use Wozz (automatic):
brew install wozz && wozz # Output: # 💰 ANNUAL WASTE DETECTED: $47,280 # Breakdown: Memory $28,800 | CPU $18,480
Calculate Your Exact Waste
Stop doing math. Wozz analyzes your cluster and calculates exact dollar amounts for every over-provisioned pod, orphaned resource, and wasted allocation—in 60 seconds.
# Install brew tap WozzHQ/wozz && brew install wozz # Run audit wozz # Get detailed breakdown with dollar amounts per pod
Kubernetes Cost Calculator FAQ
How much does Kubernetes cost per month?
A typical small production cluster (10-20 pods) costs $500-1,500/month. Medium clusters (50-100 pods) run $2,000-5,000/month. Large enterprise clusters can exceed $50,000/month. The exact cost depends on resource requests, not pod count.
What is the cost per pod in Kubernetes?
There's no fixed "cost per pod." A pod with 256Mi RAM and 100m CPU costs ~$3/month. A pod with 16Gi RAM and 4 CPU costs ~$196/month. Cost is based on resource requests, not the number of pods.
Is Kubernetes expensive compared to VMs?
Kubernetes can be cheaper or more expensive than VMs depending on how efficiently you use it. With good bin-packing and right-sized requests, K8s is typically 30-40% cheaper. With over-provisioning (common), it can be 2-3x more expensive.
Which cloud provider has the cheapest Kubernetes?
Azure AKS is typically 5-10% cheaper because it doesn't charge for the control plane ($73/mo on AWS/GCP). However, instance pricing varies by region, so compare all three for your specific use case.
How do I reduce Kubernetes costs?
The fastest wins: (1) Right-size resource requests based on actual usage, (2) Delete orphaned resources, (3) Use spot instances for dev/staging, (4) Enable cluster autoscaling. Most teams can cut costs 40-60% with these four changes.