Comprehensive GKE Cost Estimation
Our calculator accounts for all GKE pricing components to give you accurate cost estimates.
Cluster Configuration
Calculate costs for different cluster types: Standard, Autopilot, and zonal vs regional setups.
Node Pool Estimation
Estimate costs across multiple node pools with different machine types and sizes.
Storage Costs
Include persistent disk, SSD, and other storage costs in your calculations.
Network Pricing
Account for egress, load balancers, and Cloud NAT in your cost estimates.
Spot VM Savings
See potential savings with Spot VMs for fault-tolerant workloads.
Commitment Discounts
Calculate savings with Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) and Sustained Use Discounts.
GKE Pricing Examples
Sample cost estimates for common GKE configurations, plus optimized pricing.
Small Development Cluster
3x e2-medium nodes, Standard cluster, 100GB SSD
Medium Production Cluster
6x n2-standard-4 nodes, Regional, 500GB SSD
Large Enterprise Cluster
20x n2-standard-8 nodes, Multi-zone, 2TB SSD
GKE Pricing Components
Understanding what contributes to your GKE costs helps optimize spending.
Cluster Management Fee
GKE Standard: $0.10/hour per cluster. Autopilot: No management fee.
Node Compute Costs
Based on machine type, size, and region. Varies significantly by choice.
Persistent Disk
Standard PD: $0.04/GB, SSD PD: $0.17/GB, Extreme: $0.19/GB per month.
Network Egress
Egress to internet starts at $0.12/GB. Cross-region traffic adds up.
Load Balancers
Forwarding rules start at $0.025/hour plus data processing charges.
Cloud NAT
$0.045/hour per gateway plus $0.045/GB processed.
GKE Cost Optimization Tips
Strategies to reduce your Google Kubernetes Engine costs by up to 60%.
Use Autopilot for Variable Workloads
GKE Autopilot only charges for pods, not idle node capacity. Great for dev/test environments.
Enable Spot VMs
Use Spot VMs for batch jobs, CI/CD, and fault-tolerant workloads.
Right-size Node Pools
Don't over-provision. Use node auto-provisioning to match workload needs.
Committed Use Discounts
Commit to 1 or 3-year usage for significant discounts on compute.
Regional vs Zonal Clusters
Use zonal clusters for non-critical workloads to reduce costs.
Optimize Storage Classes
Use Standard PD instead of SSD for non-performance-critical data.
GKE Autopilot vs Standard Pricing
Choose the right cluster mode for your workload and budget.
GKE Standard
- $0.10/hour cluster management fee
- Pay for node capacity (used or not)
- Full control over node configuration
- Best for predictable, high-utilization workloads
Typical cost: $72/month cluster fee + node compute costs
GKE Autopilot
Recommended- No cluster management fee
- Pay only for pod resources used
- Google manages node infrastructure
- Best for variable or dev/test workloads
Up to 40% savings for variable workloads