AWS EKS Pricing Calculator 2026: EC2 + Fargate Cost

Estimate AWS EKS cluster costs with EC2, Fargate, or Auto Mode. Updated with 2026 pricing.

Monthly Cost Breakdown

Control Plane
$73.00
clusters × $0.10/hr × 730h
Compute Cost
$91.10
nodes × instance price × 730h
Total Monthly
$164.10
control plane + compute
Cost per Unit
$0.04
per node-hour

EC2 vs Fargate Comparison

Aspect EC2 Nodes Fargate
Pricing Model Per-instance-hour Per-pod (vCPU + memory)
Best For Steady workloads, cost control Spiky workloads, small teams
Node Management You manage (or use managed node groups) Fully managed by AWS
Scaling Cluster Autoscaler / Karpenter Automatic per-pod
Spot Support Yes (60-90% savings) Fargate Spot (~70% savings)

EKS Component Pricing (2025)

Component Rate
EKS Control Plane $0.10/hr per cluster
Fargate vCPU $0.04048/vCPU-hr
Fargate Memory $0.004445/GB-hr
t3.medium $0.0416/hr
t3.large $0.0832/hr
m5.large $0.096/hr
m5.xlarge $0.192/hr
m5.2xlarge $0.384/hr

How to Use This Calculator

1
Choose compute mode
EC2, Fargate, or Auto Mode
2
Configure workload
Set nodes/pods and instance sizes
3
Review cost breakdown
Control plane + compute = total
EKS Cost Is Mostly Compute
The $73/mo control plane fee is typically less than 10% of a production cluster's cost. A 3-node m5.xlarge cluster costs ~$420/mo in compute alone. Focus on right-sizing instances and using spot nodes for non-critical workloads to optimize costs.

The Essentials

$73/mo Control Plane
$0.10/hr per cluster, always on
3 Compute Modes
EC2, Fargate, or Auto Mode
Spot Savings
60-90% off with EC2 Spot or Fargate Spot
Hidden Costs
NAT Gateway, LBs, and data transfer add up
Managed K8s
AWS handles control plane HA and upgrades
Karpenter
Smart autoscaler picks optimal instances

Frequently Asked Questions

Pricing Sources

All pricing data is based on AWS published rates for us-east-1 (on-demand, Linux). Prices may vary and should be verified against official sources.

Last verified: February 2025. Pricing is for us-east-1 unless otherwise noted.

AWS EKS Pricing in 2026: The Direct Answer

EKS control plane = $0.10 per hour per cluster = ~$73/month per cluster. That fee is fixed regardless of workload size and applies to every active EKS cluster, including idle ones. Your total bill on top of that depends on whether you run EC2 nodes, Fargate, or EKS Auto Mode.

EKS Compute Options

  • EC2 nodes (managed node groups) — you pick the instance type, pay normal EC2 prices. Cheapest at scale. Example: 3× m5.large = ~$210/mo on-demand on top of the $73 control plane.
  • Fargate — no nodes to manage, pay per pod vCPU + memory. Higher unit cost (~20% premium) but no waste from over-provisioned nodes. Good for spiky / small / short-lived workloads.
  • EKS Auto Mode — AWS manages compute, networking, and storage with a built-in markup. Simpler ops, higher per-resource cost.

What's Missing From This Estimate

This calculator covers control plane + compute (and EBS for EC2 mode). It does not include: data egress, NAT Gateway charges (often a surprise — see the NAT Gateway Calculator), ELB/ALB, observability tooling, or Load Balancer Controller add-ons. For real production budgets, add 20–35% on top of this number.

How to Cut Your EKS Bill 30–60%

  1. Buy Compute Savings Plans for 1–3 years on the steady portion of compute — 30–60% off on-demand, applies to both EC2 and Fargate
  2. Run Spot instances for stateless workloads — 60–90% off. Mix Spot + On-Demand via Karpenter or managed node groups for resilience
  3. Right-size pod requests — use actual P95 CPU/memory usage instead of guesses. The Container Size Calculator gives starting points by runtime
  4. Add VPC endpoints for S3 + ECR — skips NAT Gateway per-GB charges for those services. Often saves $50–500/mo for container-heavy workloads
  5. Consolidate clusters — each EKS cluster costs $73/mo just to exist. Use namespaces + RBAC for multi-tenancy when org policy allows

Compare EKS to GKE and AKS

AKS has a free control plane (no $73/mo fee). GKE Autopilot has no cluster fee but charges a premium per pod. For a cross-cloud cost comparison see the Kubernetes Cost Calculator.

Related Tools

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NAT Gateway Cost Calculator

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Container Size Calculator

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Your EKS bill higher than expected?

Recon gives you namespace-level cost breakdowns, idle resource detection, and right-sizing recommendations — so you know exactly where every dollar goes in your EKS clusters.

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