This page explains pricing for compute resources, cluster operation mode, cluster management fees, and applicable ingress fees in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

GKE includes fully automated cluster lifecycle management, pod and cluster autoscaling, cost visibility, automated infrastructure cost optimization, and multi-cluster management features, like Fleets, Teams, Config Management, Policy Controller, and Fleet dashboard, at no extra cost.

GKE also includes a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that's financially backed providing the following availability:

• 99.95% for the control plane of Autopilot clusters and regional Standard clusters. 
• 99.5% for the control plane of zonal Standard clusters.
• 99.9% for Autopilot Pods in multiple zones.

A flat cluster management fee of $0.10 per cluster per hour (charged in 1 second increments) applies to all GKE clusters irrespective of the mode of operation, cluster size, or topology. Whether it is a single-zone cluster, multi-zonal cluster, regional or Autopilot cluster, they all accrue the same flat fee per cluster.

For clusters in the Extended release channel, an additional cluster management fee applies if the minor version of the cluster is in the extended support period.

The following example demonstrates how the cluster management fee and free tier credit is applied for an organization’s billing accounts. In this example, the organization’s regional and zonal cluster hours are listed and the total billable amount is calculated per month, with the monthly free tier credit applied.

For Standard node pools and compute classes that don't use the Autopilot setting, you're billed for the nodes' underlying Compute Engine instances according to Compute Engine's pricing, until the nodes are deleted. Compute Engine resources are billed on a per-second basis with a one-minute minimum usage cost. 

Compute Engine offers committed use discounts that apply to the Compute Engine instances in the cluster. To learn more, see committed use discounts in Compute Engine.

Workloads running in Autopilot mode have capacity provisioned based on the requirements in the workload specifications. For pricing purposes, GKE considers the following workloads to be Autopilot workloads:

• All workloads in Autopilot clusters 
• Workloads in Standard clusters that request a compute class that has Autopilot enabled

The pricing for Autopilot workloads depends on the type of compute resources that the workloads request, as follows:

• General-purpose Autopilot workloads: Pods that target the Autopilot container-optimized compute platform (which is the default for Autopilot clusters) or the Balanced and Scale-Out built-in compute classes. These workloads use a Pod-based billing model, in which you're charged based on Pod resource requests. For more information, see the General-purpose Autopilot workloads section on this page.
• Autopilot workloads that select specific hardware: Pods that select specific hardware, such as accelerators or machine series, by using selectors or compute classes. These workloads use a node-based billing model, in which you're charged based on Compute Engine pricing plus an Autopilot management premium. For more information, see the Autopilot workloads that select specific hardware section on this page.

Some features are available via individual SKUs. These include Managed Service Mesh, Binary Authorization, Multicluster Gateway and Multicluster Ingress, Backup for GKE, GKE Extended Support and Hybrid and Multi-Cloud.

Multi Cluster Gateway only charges Pods which are direct backends of Gateway resources based on a multi-cluster gateway class. Multi Cluster Ingress only charges Pods which are direct backends of MultiClusterIngress resources. Pods which are not Multi Cluster Gateway or Multi Cluster Ingress backends are not charged. In this example, there are three MultiClusterService resources across two clusters with Pod backends. Pods that are members of Service A, B, and C are not direct backends and are not billed against the standalone pricing.

Any Pod that is a member of multiple MultiClusterService resources is billed for each MultiClusterService that they are a member of. Two Pods are members of both the D and E MultiClusterService.

The following table summarizes the monthly cost total for standalone billing for the two clusters in the example:

As an example, a customer with a single backup plan in Iowa (us-central1) that backs up an average of 20 pods during a month, storing 200GiB of backup storage data in Iowa, would be charged $25.60 in fees. This $25.60 would include $20 for the month for GKE backup management (20 x $1.00 / pod-month) and $5.60 for backup storage (200 * $0.028 / GiB-month).

Starting June 26 2023, new network outbound data transfer charges will be introduced for backups that are stored in a different region from their source GKE cluster. These charges will be based on the source and destination region and the number of bytes transferred for each such "cross-region" backup operation:

GKE cluster location