What Is Kubecost? 

Kubecost provides cost visibility and insights for teams using Kubernetes. It provides detailed cost breakdowns across various Kubernetes entities such as namespaces, services, and labels, allowing organizations to manage and optimize their cloud expenses. 

Integrating with existing cloud infrastructure, Kubecost offers an overview of spend correlated with actual resource usage. It helps understand spending patterns, identifying potential overages or inefficiencies in resource allocation. Organizations can use these insights to fine-tune their Kubernetes usage and reduce costs.

How Does Kubecost Work? 

Cost Allocation

Kubecost uses resource consumption data to apportion costs accurately, ensuring there is a clear understanding of where and how funds are utilized. Users can view costs associated with compute, storage, and network resources through designated labels or annotations.

Cost allocation lets users identify the most resource-intensive applications, prompting informed decisions on scaling strategies or architectural changes, and exposing cost-driving factors.

Unified Cost Monitoring

Kubecost provides unified monitoring capabilities that encompass both multi-cloud and on-premises Kubernetes environments. Its dashboard offers a consolidated view of costs across different infrastructures, enabling management of cloud spend. This capability is particularly useful for organizations operating in hybrid or multi-cloud setups.

Visibility into cloud spend supports organizations in identifying trends and anomalies quickly. By tracking real-time usage metrics alongside cost data, teams can catch drifts in spending patterns early.

Optimization Insights

Kubecost delivers optimization insights, focusing on identifying underutilized resources and reclaiming wasted spend. It provides recommendations such as rightsizing instances or adjusting resource requests and limits.

Optimization insights also promote improved capacity planning by forecasting resource needs based on historical usage patterns. This enables more accurate budgeting.

Alerts and Governance

Kubecost supports alerting mechanisms that notify users of budget anomalies or performance deviations. These alerts help maintain cost governance by prompting timely interventions to address spending irregularities or resource misconfigurations.

Incorporating governance features, Kubecost integrates policies that guide resource usage in alignment with business strategies. This enables compliance with internal and external regulations while optimizing expenses.

Related content: Read our guide to Kubernetes cost optimization

Kubecost Pricing Model: Self-Hosted and Cloud 

Kubecost does not advertise pricing on its website. Below we provide details of the plans available, with exact pricing available upon request. In the following section we provide publicly available pricing for Kubecost on the AWS Marketplace.

Kubecost Self-Hosted Pricing

Kubecost offers two primary editions for self-hosted deployments: Free and Enterprise:

Free Edition

The Free edition is for individuals, small teams, or those seeking a quick snapshot of their Kubernetes cloud spend and cluster usage in a self-hosted setup.

Key features:

• Cost management: Offers cost allocation, cost reconciliation, and insights into potential savings.
• Unlimited clusters and users: Supports unlimited clusters and users.
• Kubernetes support: Compatible with public cloud providers (EKS, AKS, GKE), on-premises clusters, and some other platforms like OpenShift and Rancher.
• Basic metric retention: Retains metrics for up to 15 days.
• Community support: Includes community-driven support channels for troubleshooting and queries.
• Pricing: Free, with a usage cap of up to 250 cores.

Enterprise Edition

The Enterprise edition caters to larger teams or organizations requiring advanced cost optimization and governance features. It offers additional tools and integrations suited for complex, multi-cloud, or hybrid-cloud environments.

Key features (everything in Free, plus):

• Unlimited metric retention: No limits on the retention period for usage metrics.
• Custom pricing sheets: Support for defining tailored pricing configurations for unique organizational needs.
• Event auditing: Enables auditing to maintain compliance and operational oversight.
• Governance and access: Includes role-based access control (RBAC), native SAML/OIDC integration, and improved security options.
• Dedicated support: Provides access to technical support SLAs, onboarding, and a dedicated success team.
• Advanced Kubernetes visibility: Features such as saved reports and aggregated cluster views.
• Multi-cloud support: Extends cost monitoring across providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, and more.
• Pricing: Custom pricing based on organizational needs, available upon request.

Kubecost Cloud Pricing

Kubecost offers two main editions for fully managed, cloud-hosted deployments: Free and Advanced.

Free Edition

The Free edition is suitable for small teams or individuals looking for basic Kubernetes and cloud cost monitoring in a fully managed solution.

Key features:

• Kubernetes and cloud cost monitoring: Includes cost allocation, budgets, alerts, and cost-saving insights and actions.
• Node monitoring: Monitors up to 50 nodes.
• Active users: Supports up to 5 active users.
• Basic metric retention: Retains metrics for 15 days.
• Kubernetes compatibility: Works with EKS, AKS, GKE, on-premises clusters, and more.
• Pricing: Always free, with no per-node fee for up to 50 nodes.

Advanced Edition

The Advanced edition is for larger organizations with more complex Kubernetes environments. It provides extended features to manage costs, improve visibility, and improve governance.

Key features (everything in Free, plus):

• Unlimited node monitoring: No cap on the number of monitored nodes.
• Unlimited metric retention: Stores metrics indefinitely for deeper insights and long-term analysis.
• Unlimited active users: No limit on the number of users accessing the platform.
• Multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud support: Extends monitoring across multiple cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud.
• Custom pricing sheets: Allows for custom cost configurations tailored to organizational needs.
• Governance features: Includes advanced role-based access control (RBAC) and SAML integration for improved security.
• Dedicated support: Offers technical support SLAs, onboarding assistance, and access to a dedicated success team for smoother adoption and implementation.
• Pricing: Custom pricing based on organizational needs, available upon request.

Kubecost Cloud Pricing

Kubecost offers two main editions for fully managed, cloud-hosted deployments: Free and Advanced.

Free Edition

The Free edition is suitable for small teams or individuals looking for basic Kubernetes and cloud cost monitoring in a fully managed solution.

Key features:

• Kubernetes and cloud cost monitoring: Includes cost allocation, budgets, alerts, and cost-saving insights and actions.
• Node monitoring: Monitors up to 50 nodes.
• Active users: Supports up to 5 active users.
• Basic metric retention: Retains metrics for 15 days.
• Kubernetes compatibility: Works with EKS, AKS, GKE, on-premises clusters, and more.
• Pricing: Always free, with no per-node fee for up to 50 nodes.

Advanced Edition

The Advanced edition is for larger organizations with more complex Kubernetes environments. It provides extended features to manage costs, improve visibility, and improve governance.

Key features (everything in Free, plus):

• Unlimited node monitoring: No cap on the number of monitored nodes.
• Unlimited metric retention: Stores metrics indefinitely for deeper insights and long-term analysis.
• Unlimited active users: No limit on the number of users accessing the platform.
• Multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud support: Extends monitoring across multiple cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud.
• Custom pricing sheets: Allows for custom cost configurations tailored to organizational needs.
• Governance features: Includes advanced role-based access control (RBAC) and SAML integration for improved security.
• Dedicated support: Offers technical support SLAs, onboarding assistance, and access to a dedicated success team for smoother adoption and implementation.
• Pricing: Custom pricing based on the number of nodes and organizational requirements.

Kubecost Pricing on AWS Marketplace 

Kubecost is also available via the AWS Marketplace. AWS makes prices publicly available, so this provides a concrete idea of the cost of the solution. Below is an overview of the features, pricing details, and subscription options.

Key features available on AWS Marketplace

• Real-time visibility: Monitor Kubernetes costs in real-time to reduce unnecessary spend.
• Optimization opportunities: Identify right-sizing opportunities, abandoned workloads, and orphaned resources to cut down on waste.
• Customizable allocation: Group costs under business logic, such as by team, department, or application, for better reporting.
• Reporting and integration: Generate allocation reports directly from the UI or export data to existing tools via Kubecost’s API.
• Enterprise edition improvements: Includes support for unlimited clusters, unlimited data retention, multi-cluster views, SAML integration, notifications for cost/infrastructure concerns, and dedicated enterprise support.

Pricing model

Kubecost pricing on AWS Marketplace is consumption-based, with charges determined by actual usage. Subscriptions are flexible and can be canceled at any time, while contract options offer the ability to prepay for anticipated usage.

Consumption-based pricing:

• Cost: $3.42 per container hour.
• Billing: Usage is tracked hourly, and customers pay only for what they use.
• Flexibility: No end date on the subscription, allowing cancellation at any time.

365-day contract pricing:

• Cost: $30,000.00 for 365 days.
• Inclusions: Covers a set amount of usage for the duration of the contract.
• Overages: Any usage beyond the contracted amount will incur additional usage-based charges.

Kubecost Limitations 

When evaluating Kubecost, it’s important for users to be aware of the following important limitations:

• Limited scope for non-Kubernetes costs: Kubecost is focused exclusively on Kubernetes-related expenses, making it unsuitable for managing or forecasting the costs of other cloud assets outside Kubernetes. This limitation requires the use of additional tools to track broader cloud expenditures.
• Daily cost granularity: Cost data in Kubecost is displayed on a daily basis, which can obscure short-term spikes or fluctuations. This lack of finer granularity may hinder the ability to optimize costs for workloads that have dynamic or rapidly changing resource usage patterns.
• Documentation and usability challenges: Some users find Kubecost's documentation insufficient, making it harder to resolve issues independently. Alerting capabilities could be more robust, and self-hosting the tool may present challenges, especially for teams without extensive Kubernetes expertise.
• Accuracy in free tier: The free version of Kubecost relies on estimated AWS list prices for cost calculations. While this is useful for general insights, it may not meet the accuracy needs of users requiring precise billing data, particularly in environments where exact cost tracking is critical.
• Scalability constraints: Managing costs in large-scale, multi-cluster environments can be difficult even with Kubecost's paid tiers. This scalability issue may affect organizations operating expansive Kubernetes deployments, requiring additional effort to maintain cost visibility and control.
• Limited multi-cloud integration: While Kubecost can handle Kubernetes cost management, it has limited integration with broader multi-cloud environments. This can restrict its effectiveness for organizations leveraging a diverse set of cloud services across multiple providers.
• Manual optimization: Kubecost’s optimization recommendations often require manual intervention, increasing workloads for DevOps teams. Automating these recommendations would make cost management more efficient and reduce operational overhead.

Finout: Ultimate Kubecost Alternative

When evaluating Kubecost alternatives, Finout emerges as the ultimate choice by not only encompassing the essential features that make Kubecost valuable but also extending its reach to meet broader enterprise demands. Kubecost is renowned for delivering real-time cost visibility, detailed cost allocation (by namespace, pod, or cluster), unified monitoring across Kubernetes environments, and actionable optimization recommendations—capabilities that Finout fully supports with equal precision. For organizations seeking a Kubecost alternative that maintains these Kubernetes-specific strengths, Finout provides seamless integration with existing monitoring tools like Prometheus, agentless deployment, and granular insights into K8s resource usage. This ensures a smooth transition for Kubecost users while preserving the detailed cost transparency and efficiency insights they rely on, positioning Finout as a top-tier replacement.

What sets Finout apart as a standout Kubecost alternative is its robust suite of enterprise-grade features that transcend Kubernetes, addressing the full spectrum of cloud cost management. Unlike Kubecost’s narrow focus on K8s environments, Finout introduces Instant Virtual Tagging to allocate untagged resources across multi-cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and SaaS tools (Snowflake, Datadog), ensuring 100% cost attribution. Additionally, its financial planning and forecasting tools enable enterprises to ditch static budgeting for dynamic, data-driven predictions and scenario analysis. With capabilities like MegaBill for consolidating multi-cloud and SaaS billing into a unified dashboard, Finout transforms the Kubecost alternative conversation by offering a comprehensive FinOps solution that scales beyond Kubernetes to empower organizations with end-to-end financial governance and optimization.