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A 2026 comparison of managed Kubernetes pricing: control-plane fees, worker-node costs and free tiers across AWS EKS, Google GKE, Azure AKS, DigitalOcean and more.

These managed Kubernetes providers charge nothing for the control plane: Azure AKS (free tier), DigitalOcean, Linode/Akamai, OVHcloud, Scaleway, Civo, Vultr and Oracle (basic).

EKS, GKE and AKS cost compared: the control-plane fee, worker-node pricing and the hidden extras (load balancers, egress) that decide your real Kubernetes bill.

The cheapest way to run Kubernetes for a small team: free-control-plane providers with low node prices, with a sample sub-$30/month cluster and the trade-offs.

The hidden costs of managed Kubernetes that aren't the control-plane fee: load balancers, data egress, NAT gateways, storage and cross-AZ traffic — and how to keep them down.

Self-managed vs managed Kubernetes on cost: self-hosting on cheap servers avoids control-plane fees but adds operational labour. When each option is actually cheaper.