Cluster cost
Kubernetes cost calculator
A Kubernetes price starts with the minimum safe topology, not the cheapest node. The cluster can be managed while workload, policy, upgrade, and node economics remain yours.
Answer for the inputs set below
Civo Medium is the only provider with a complete known total at $65.18 per month. Its control-plane fee is $0.00.
Set to: 3 workers · 2 vCPU and 4 GB each · the provider's own published control-plane fee · 0 load balancers · no persistent volume · 0 GB egress
Managed Kubernetes cost model
Price the cluster, not one node
Rank every managed Kubernetes plan with worker sizing, control plane, networking, persistent volume, and egress included. Unknown prices stay visible and cannot win, and the providers this cluster shape rules out are named below the table rather than dropped.
These controls are switched off, not merely dimmed. Nothing on this page can recompute without JavaScript, so every slider and menu above is disabled in the HTML and cannot be moved by a pointer or by a keyboard. The ranking, the receipt and the excluded providers below are the complete result for 3 workers · 2 vCPU and 4 GB each · the provider's own published control-plane fee · 0 load balancers · no persistent volume · 0 GB egress, already in this page. A copied cluster link cannot be restored here either.
| Rank | Provider | Workers | Control plane | Load balancers | Volume | Egress | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CivoMedium | $65.18 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $65.18 |
0 providers this cluster shape rules out
These vendors have managed Kubernetes plans in the comparison but none fits the shape above, so they carry no row rather than a misleading one. The reason is the exact check each one failed.
Receipt
- Workers
- Medium x 3 = $65.18
- Control plane
- Provider states the control plane is free = $0.00
- Load balancers
- No load balancer selected = $0.00
- Persistent volume
- Inside provider-included storage = $0.00
- Egress
- No egress charge in this scenario = $0.00
- Total
- workers + control plane + load balancers + volume + egress = $65.18
There is no receipt to show, because no provider carries a complete total at these inputs. A receipt here always adds up to a number a vendor publishes, so an empty ranking produces an empty receipt rather than six lines of "Unknown" pretending to be one.
Every ranked charge uses the cited price for that provider and plan. A missing control-plane, load-balancer, volume, or egress rate makes the total Unknown; requiring a paid control plane excludes providers without a verified provider-specific paid fee.
Working comparison
Compare the options that fit this decision
| Layer | Starting input | Production question |
|---|---|---|
| Control plane | The provider's own published control-plane fee, zero only where the provider states it | Is a high-availability control plane required? |
| Worker | Worker nodes at the size you set, priced from each provider's own page | How many nodes and zones survive a failure? |
| Operations | No operations labor line item | Who owns upgrades, policy, capacity, and incidents? |
Decision test
What changes the answer
- 01Set the failure boundary before node count.
- 02Separate control-plane price from worker price.
- 03Add persistent volumes, load balancers, logs, and transfer.
- 04Compare cluster labor with the managed application platform it replaces.
Shareable result receipt
Every line below is computed from the controls above, so the address bar, this receipt and the ranking always state one result.
Civo Medium is the only provider with a complete known total at $65.18 per month. Its control-plane fee is $0.00.
Formula
Monthly cluster bill = control plane + worker nodes + volumes + load balancers + transfer. Optional and separate, never ranked: observability spend and cluster operations time at your own team rate.
Assumptions
- Set to: 3 workers · 2 vCPU and 4 GB each · the provider's own published control-plane fee · 0 load balancers · no persistent volume · 0 GB egress
- The control-plane fee each provider publishes
- Worker nodes at the count and size the controls above are set to
- Cluster operations time excluded from every figure shown
Explicit unknowns
- Required availability topology
- Log volume
- On-call and upgrade labor
Sources and freshness
- DigitalOcean Kubernetes pricing retrieved 2026-07-25