AWS EKS Pricing Calculator
Estimate AWS EKS cluster costs with EC2, Fargate, or Auto Mode.
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
EKS Auto Mode Estimate
Auto Mode pricing includes a ~12% premium over standard EC2 for automated node management. Actual costs vary based on instance selection by Auto Mode.
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.
- Amazon EKS Pricing — Control plane at $0.10/hr, Auto Mode per-instance fees
- AWS Fargate Pricing — vCPU at $0.04048/hr, memory at $0.004445/GB-hr, Fargate Spot up to 70% off
- EC2 On-Demand Pricing — Instance prices for t3, m5, c5, r5 families
- Amazon EBS Pricing — gp3 at $0.08/GB-month, gp2 at $0.10/GB-month
- Elastic Load Balancing Pricing — ALB/NLB base rates
Last verified: February 2025. Pricing is for us-east-1 unless otherwise noted.
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