Elite Cloud

Managing EKS cost can spiral out of control without a proper plan. To manage Kubernetes expenses effectively, you need a strategic approach. It’s not just about selecting cheaper instances. You must plan carefully.

Understanding Your EKS Cost Structure

Managing EKS costs starts with understanding the four primary expense categories. Each component impacts your AWS bill differently.

Control Plane Costs

EKS control plane pricing is straightforward: $0.10 per hour per cluster. This equates to about $72 a month per cluster, regardless of how many apps or pods you run. This fixed rate makes it wise to consolidate clusters to save costs. Maintaining clusters on outdated Kubernetes versions costs more; you’re charged $0.60 per hour per cluster instead of the usual rate. This is a 600% increase, which can significantly increase your monthly bill.

Worker Node Infrastructure Expenses

Your EC2 worker nodes form the largest part of your EKS costs. These expenses include the compute instances, EBS storage, and additional features. A basic setup with two m5.large instances costs approximately $138.24 per month just for the compute. Selecting the appropriate instance family influences your costs, as different families prioritise various price-performance ratios.

Data Transfer and Storage Fees

Data transfer costs accumulate in your EKS environment. They include cross-availability zone traffic, internet egress, and load balancer data processing. These costs often surprise teams that only consider compute expenses. 

Storage costs extend beyond basic EBS volumes. They include snapshot storage, provisioned IOPS, and throughput optimisations. Each storage class has its own pricing, which influences the overall cost.

Hidden Cost Components

Some costs remain hidden until they appear on your bill. NAT gateway fees, Application Load Balancer charges, and CloudWatch logging costs can significantly increase your bill. These may account for 20-30% of your EKS expenditure.

1. Rightsizing Your EKS Worker Nodes

Matching your EKS setup to your workload needs saves money and maintains high performance. Rightsizing worker nodes involves analysing your usage and adjusting your cluster accordingly. This can reduce costs by up to 20% by eliminating unused resources.

To rightsize, you need to assess how your apps utilise resources relative to what you’ve allocated. The gap between allocation and actual usage is where you can achieve the greatest savings.

Selecting Optimal Instance Types

Choosing the right EC2 instance types involves pairing your applications with suitable options. For programs that require high CPU power, opt for compute-optimized instances. Memory-optimized types are ideal for databases and caching. General-purpose instances are suitable for a variety of mixed workloads.

Implementing Resource Requests and Limits

Kubernetes resource requests and limits determine how much CPU and memory each pod can utilise. Requests guarantee a minimum, while limits prevent excess use. Correct configuration avoids resource contention and maintains predictable performance.

Set requests according to your apps’ actual usage. If a container typically uses 0.5 CPU cores, set the request at that level. This allows more pods to run and saves money.

2. Implementing Cluster Autoscaling Strategies

Autoscaling enhances your EKS infrastructure’s efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It adjusts to fluctuations in workload demands. This results in an elastic environment that avoids waste and handles peak traffic needs effectively.

These automated scaling solutions enhance your cluster’s performance. The cluster autoscaler manages node capacity, while pod-level autoscalers address application scaling requirements.

3. Leveraging AWS Spot Instances for Cost Savings

The main advantage of AWS spot instances is their significant cost savings. For example, m5.large instances can reduce costs by 55-60% compared to standard prices, leading to substantial savings for your entire cluster.

Spot instances are ideal for specific types of workloads. They work well for applications that can tolerate short pauses, such as development environments or batch jobs.

Configuring Mixed Instance Types

Using both spot and on-demand instances in a single group is wise. It ensures that important tasks always have sufficient resources, while also saving money on less critical tasks. Having different types of instances across various zones adds flexibility and reduces the risk of your entire cluster being affected by spot issues at once.

4. Optimizing Storage Costs in EKS

Managing storage in EKS involves understanding how different types and methods impact costs. Storage expenses arise from various parts of your EKS configuration. EBS volumes incur additional charges, even after pods are removed. Being aware of this helps you plan storage more effectively.

Choosing the Right Storage Classes

Choosing the right EKS storage classes impacts your monthly expenses. Gp3 volumes provide a good balance for most applications, offering solid performance at a lower price than gp2. For applications requiring high IOPS, io2 volumes are preferable but more costly.

Implementing Dynamic Volume Provisioning

Dynamic volume provisioning automates storage setup, saving time. Configure storage classes with appropriate settings to prevent excess storage. Choose suitable default sizes in your storage class configurations. Allow volumes to expand naturally without needing to be remade. This approach saves money and guarantees that applications have sufficient space.

Managing Persistent Volume Lifecycle

Managing the persistent volume lifecycle helps prevent extra costs. Set up auto-cleanup for volumes remaining after pods are deleted. Select the appropriate reclaim policies for your needs. Use “Delete” for temporary data and “Retain” for important information. Regularly check for volumes that are still costing money but are no longer in use.

5. Network Cost Optimisation Techniques

Your EKS network setup affects your AWS bills. Data transfer and connectivity costs can be high. They often make up 15-25% of your EKS expenses, so we have a big saving option here.

Minimising Cross-AZ Data Transfer

Charges for data transfer between availability zones can add up quickly. You pay $0.01 per GB, which can become costly for large applications. Use pod affinity rules to keep related workloads in the same zone. Set up topology spread constraints to distribute pods intelligently and reduce cross-zone expenses. 

Control pod placement with node selectors and zone-aware scheduling, potentially cutting cross-AZ data transfer costs by up to 60% for applications that handle large amounts of data.

Optimising Load Balancer Usage

Optimising load balancers involves combining services and choosing the appropriate types. Each Application Load Balancer costs $16.20 per month, plus additional charges for usage. Use path-based routing to serve more than one app with a single load balancer. 

Host-based routing is suitable for different domains, reducing the need for multiple load balancers. For basic TCP traffic, consider Network Load Balancers. They are more cost-effective per connection and suitable for simple requirements.

VPC Endpoint Configuration

VPC endpoints eliminate NAT gateway charges for AWS service access. This saves $32.40 monthly per NAT gateway (plus $0.045/GB of data processing) and enhances security and performance. Create VPC endpoints for frequently used services like S3, ECR, and CloudWatch. Your pods can communicate directly with these services without incurring additional internet gateway costs.

Source: Pricing based on AWS (accessed September 2025)

6. Reserved Capacity and Savings Plans

Planning your capacity with reserved pricing can reduce your EKS compute costs by up to 72%. These models convert predictable workloads into significant savings over time.

Reserved Instances for Worker Nodes

EC2 reserved instances offer the greatest savings on worker nodes. You can choose from three payment options to suit your budget.

• All Upfront – Get the biggest discounts with a full payment upfront
• Partial Upfront – A good middle ground with some upfront costs
• No Upfront – Better cash flow with monthly payments

Reserved instances provide flexibility. You can switch instance types within the same family as your needs change. The Reserved Instance Marketplace also allows you to sell unused capacity.

Savings Plans Implementation

Compute savings plans offer more flexibility than traditional reserved instances. They offer discounts across various instance types, regions, and services such as Fargate and Lambda. 

You commit to a specific dollar amount of compute usage per hour. Savings plans then deliver discounts of up to 66% compared to on-demand rates. This allows you to benefit from cost savings even as your workload fluctuates.

7. Monitoring and Observability for Cost Control

Managing EKS costs is all about tracking where your money goes. Without proper monitoring and observability, managing costs is like flying blind. 

Setting Up Cost Allocation Tags

Cost allocation tags are crucial for monitoring EKS expenses. Start by implementing a consistent tagging system across all AWS resources. Use tags such as project name, environment, team, and cost center. Apply these tags to EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and other EKS resources.

Using AWS Cost Explorer with EKS

AWS Cost Explorer provides excellent tools for analysing EKS costs. It assists in creating detailed reports on costs by service, resource, and time. This uncovers trends and irregularities in your container expenses.

Budget Alerts and Notifications

AWS Budgets provides detailed budget alerts when spending approaches limits. You can set alerts at 50%, 75%, and 90% of your budget. These alerts automatically notify different groups. Configure alerts to inform teams about daily expenditure and send weekly updates to managers. Use alerts for actual and forecasted costs to take early action. Ensure your alerts can reach via email, SNS, and Slack.

Take Control of Your Cloud Costs

Kubernetes costs shouldn’t feel overwhelming or be inflated by underused nodes and hidden fees. Reach out to Elite Cloud, your certified AWS Partner, for a free cost assessment that identifies waste across compute, storage, networking, and observability. 

We will outline quick wins and a right-sized plan tailored to your workloads. Contact Elite Cloud today to transform cost chaos into predictable, optimized spending.

Golam Rabbany

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