Pricing Sources Matrix

Overview

There are multiple ways that Kubecost can be configured to pull in pricing data. This document outlines the different options and how to configure them.

Pricing sources matrix

With the exception of integrated cloud service provider (CSP) billing, all pricing sources are configured per-cluster.

Kubecost supports the following pricing sources:

Source	Detail	Pros	Cons	License
Cloud provider on-demand API	On by default. Kubecost looks up public pricing APIs.	No configuration or maintenance.	For users with significant discounts, Kubecost costs will be significantly higher than actual billing.	Free
Integrated CSP billing	Kubecost pulls CSP billing every 6 hours. When billing becomes available Kubecost reconciles the previously-estimated costs	Extremely accurate with little maintenance needed. All cloud billing can be imported. Out-of-cluster (OOC) costs can be combined with Kubernetes resources.	Kubecost requires access to the billing account. This setup can take time, especially if the team deploying Kubecost does not have access to the billing account.	Free
Custom Pricing	Manually set monthly costs for: CPU, RAM, storage, GPU, network, spot CPU, spot RAM	Simple configuration. Does not require CSP access. Works for on-prem clusters. Completely air-gapped for highly-secure environments	Accuracy dependent on value provided. Single rate per resource- no flexibility per node/storage types.	Free
Azure Rate Card	Kubecost pulls Azure Rate Card API.	More accurate Azure costs in the short-term (48 hours).	Limited value if billing-integration is configured. Requires additional setup with Azure.	Free
Alibaba	Kubecost pulls Alibaba Rate Card API.	Currently the only method to retrieve Alibaba resource pricing.	More accurate costs. Requires additional setup with Alibaba.	Free
AWS Spot Data Feed	Kubecost pulls spot prices from a custom feed.	More accurate costs in the short-term (48 hours) for Spot nodes.	Limited value if billing-integration is configured. Requires additional setup with AWS.	Free
CSV Pricing	Reads a user-provided CSV to generater granular resource prices.	Does not require CSP access. Works for on-prem clusters. Completely air-gapped for highly-secure environments.	Mapping labels in the CSV can be tedious.	Enterprise

Diagram

Cloud Provider Billing Integrated

Cloud provider on-demand API

Kubecost will attempt to identify the provider of the cluster and pull pricing data from their public pricing APIs. Alibaba and Azure have their own specific pricing sources.

• Alibaba

• Azure Rate Card

On-demand pricing references

The below files/resources are the onDemand prices used by Kubecost:

• AWS EC2 pricing

• Azure retail prices

• GCP cloud billing for on-demand VMs

Cloud provider billing integration

See the following Kubecost documentation for assistance with configuring your cloud provider services:

• Cloud Billing Integrations

  • AWS Cost and Usage Report

  • Azure Cost Export

  • Google BigQuery Export

Reconciliation

After Kubecost has ingested the initial billing data from your CSP, it will take approximately 36-48 hours to determine whether costs are accurately accounted as on-demand, and will account for any differences between standard retail pricing and actual spend. You can learn more about how reconciliation works in Kubecost's Cloud Billing Integrations doc.

Short-term cost estimation

After Kubecost has performed reconciliation, it can further deduct accurate node pricing through short-term cost estimation, in which Kubecost uses historical spend data to determine daily and hourly node costs. Learn more in Kubecost's Cloud Billing Integrations doc.

Custom pricing

For users with air-gapped environments, custom pricing values can be configured for CPU, GPU, and RAM, with spot pricing distinctions. Set the following Helm values via your values-kubecost.yaml, or in the Kubecost UI by going to Settings, then under 'Pricing', toggling on 'Enable Custom Pricing', then making adjustments per group:

UI Custom Pricing Screenshot

Prices are monthly. storage and miscellaneous network metrics are all per GB.

kubecostProductConfigs:
  customPricesEnabled: true
  defaultModelPricing:
    enabled: true
    CPU: 28.0 # Single core per month cost
    spotCPU: 4.86 # Single core per month cost
    RAM: 3.09 # GB per month cost
    spotRAM: 0.65 # GB per month cost
    GPU: 693.50 # per month cost
    spotGPU: 225.0 # per month cost
    storage: 0.04 # per GB per month cost
    zoneNetworkEgress: 0.01 # per GB per month cost
    regionNetworkEgress: 0.01 # per GB per month cost
    internetNetworkEgress: 0.12 # per GB per month cost

For advanced customization of individual resources, see CSV pricing.