Price checkMonthly
AKS Edge Essentials$2.5/device/moAutomatic Hosted Component$116.8/device/moStandard tier (SLA)$73/device/mo
See all 11 plans

All Azure AKS Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
AKS Edge Essentials
Automatic Hosted Component
Standard tier (SLA)
SLA and LTS (Premium tier)
General Purpose vCPU
Compute Optimized vCPU
Memory Optimized vCPU
Storage Optimized vCPU
Confidential Compute vCPU
High Performance Compute vCPU
GPU accelerated compute vCPU
View all features by plan (compare side-by-side)

AKS Edge Essentials

Automatic Hosted Component

Standard tier (SLA)

SLA and LTS (Premium tier)

General Purpose vCPU

Compute Optimized vCPU

Memory Optimized vCPU

Storage Optimized vCPU

Confidential Compute vCPU

High Performance Compute vCPU

GPU accelerated compute vCPU

See Azure AKS Plans
Compare Azure AKS with alternativesAdjust seats, lock a tier, add up to 2 more products side-by-side. Shareable URL.
Cost calculator

What does Azure AKS actually cost you?

Drag the slider. Pick a tier. Your projected spend updates as you go.

Tier
Billing
Your projected cost$62.5per month · $2.5/unit × 25units
Year 1 license$75012 months at this rate
At a glance

List price by tier (annualized, per unit)

Per-unit list price across Azure AKS's plans, annualized. Custom-priced tiers show a hatched bar.

AKS Edge Essentials$30/yr
Automatic Hosted Component$1.4K/yr
Standard tier (SLA)$876/yr
SLA and LTS (Premium tier)$5.3K/yr
General Purpose vCPU$84.6/yr
Compute Optimized vCPU$131.52/yr
Memory Optimized vCPU$133.92/yr
Storage Optimized vCPU$156.12/yr
Confidential Compute vCPU$130.56/yr
High Performance Compute vCPU$78.84/yr
GPU accelerated compute vCPU$387.48/yr
Quick Answer
Last verified:
High confidence

Azure AKS costs $2.50 to $438 per device/month as of July 2026, with 11 plans available. Plans: AKS Edge Essentials at $2.5/device/month, Automatic Hosted Component at $116.8/device/month, Standard tier (SLA) at $73/device/month, SLA and LTS (Premium tier) at $438/device/month, General Purpose vCPU at $7.05/device/month, Compute Optimized vCPU at $10.96/device/month, Memory Optimized vCPU at $11.16/device/month, Storage Optimized vCPU at $13.01/device/month, Confidential Compute vCPU at $10.88/device/month, High Performance Compute vCPU at $6.57/device/month, and GPU accelerated compute vCPU at $32.29/device/month. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: No free tier available

Azure AKS offers 11 pricing tiers: AKS Edge Essentials, Automatic Hosted Component, Standard tier (SLA), SLA and LTS (Premium tier), General Purpose vCPU, Compute Optimized vCPU, Memory Optimized vCPU, Storage Optimized vCPU, Confidential Compute vCPU, High Performance Compute vCPU, GPU accelerated compute vCPU. Paid plans include AKS Edge Essentials at $2.5/device/month, Automatic Hosted Component at $116.8/cluster per month, Standard tier (SLA) at $73/cluster per month.

Compared to other container platforms & kubernetes software, Azure AKS is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • 9 documented hidden costs beyond list price
  • G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 from 116 reviews (as of Jul 2026)
Last verified: | Sources: 1 pricing pages and reviews

How much does Azure AKS cost?

Azure AKS pricing ranges from $2.50 to $438/device/month across 11 plans. Plans include AKS Edge Essentials at $2.50/device/month, Automatic Hosted Component at $116.80/device/month, Standard tier (SLA) at $73/device/month, SLA and LTS (Premium tier) at $438/device/month, General Purpose vCPU at $7.05/device/month, Compute Optimized vCPU at $10.96/device/month, Memory Optimized vCPU at $11.16/device/month, Storage Optimized vCPU at $13.01/device/month, Confidential Compute vCPU at $10.88/device/month, High Performance Compute vCPU at $6.57/device/month, GPU accelerated compute vCPU at $32.29/device/month.

Azure AKS Pricing Overview

Azure AKS has 11 pricing plans ranging from $2.50 to $438/device/month. The AKS Edge Essentials plan costs $2.50/device/month. The Automatic Hosted Component plan costs $116.80/device/month. The Standard tier (SLA) plan costs $73/device/month. The SLA and LTS (Premium tier) plan costs $438/device/month. The General Purpose vCPU plan costs $7.05/device/month. The Compute Optimized vCPU plan costs $10.96/device/month. The Memory Optimized vCPU plan costs $11.16/device/month. The Storage Optimized vCPU plan costs $13.01/device/month. The Confidential Compute vCPU plan costs $10.88/device/month. The High Performance Compute vCPU plan costs $6.57/device/month. The GPU accelerated compute vCPU plan costs $32.29/device/month.

Azure AKS with a $1 million per year minimum commitment.

There are at least 9 documented hidden costs beyond Azure AKS's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in June 14, 2026 from 1 independent source.

See Azure AKS Plans

Azure AKS offers various pricing tiers for its services. These include options for device management, cluster hosting, and vCPU compute resources.

Pricing is based on monthly charges per device, cluster, or vCPU, depending on the selected tier.

How Azure AKS Pricing Compares

Compare Azure AKS pricing against top alternatives in Container Platforms & Kubernetes.

Canonical Kubernetes (Charmed) $25-$9470/per machine per year View pricing → DigitalOcean Kubernetes $3.39-$163/month/node View pricing → Portainer $99-$99/mo View pricing →

Compare Azure AKS vs Alternatives

Before committing to Azure AKS, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSCanonical Kubernetes (Charmed)
From $25/per machine per year

Compare pricing
VSDigitalOcean Kubernetes
From $3.39/month/node

Compare pricing
VSPortainer
From $99/mo

Compare pricing

All Azure AKS alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for Azure AKS

Review scores
TrustRadius 8.2out of 10 (79)
G2 4.4out of 5 (116)
Third-party review aggregates, as of Jul 2026
Top pricing complaints
Complexity for beginners, especially when troubleshooting networking or scaling issues.Cost management and cluster configuration require experience, making it easy to overprovision resources.Lack of support for custom Docker images, leading to longer pod pull times.Manual policy updates for clusters can be time-consuming.

How Azure AKS Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
Azure AKS $2.5/device/month $438/device/month
Canonical Kubernetes (Charmed) $25/per machine per year $9470/per machine per year
DigitalOcean Kubernetes $3.39/month/node $163/month/node
Portainer $99/mo $99/mo
VMware Tanzu Custom Custom
D2iQ (formerly Mesosphere) Custom Custom

Browse all Container Platforms & Kubernetes pricing →

9 Azure AKS Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, Azure AKS has at least 9 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 9 hidden costs
  • AKS Control Plane Tiers $0.10 per cluster per hour (Standard) or $0.60 per cluster per hour (Premium)
    high 1 source
    industry "AKS Control Plane Tiers: While a "Free tier" exists for the AKS control plane with no SLA, production workloads typically use the "Standard tier" at $0.10 per cluster per hour (approximately $73 per cluster per month) for a 99."
  • Compute Expenses (Worker Nodes) $0.096 per hour (example Standard_D2s_v3 Linux VM)
    critical 1 source
    industry "For example, a Standard\_D2s\_v3 Linux VM in East US can cost around $0.096 per hour (approximately $70 per month) on a pay-as-you-go basis."
  • Storage
    medium 1 source
    industry "Ephemeral OS Disks can offer optimization by running the OS from the local VM cache instead of a managed disk."
  • Networking $0.0036–$0.005 per hour (for a Standard Public IP)
    medium 1 source
    industry "Outbound data transfer (egress) from Azure is charged per GB, while inbound data is free."
  • Resource Overprovisioning
    high 1 source
    industry "Node pools can also scale up faster than they scale down, resulting in paying for excess capacity."
  • System Pods and DaemonSets
    medium 1 source
    industry "System Pods and DaemonSets: Components like Azure CNI, kube-proxy, and Azure Monitor reserve CPU and memory on every node, consuming hidden capacity."
  • Unattached Disks and Snapshots
    low 1 source
    industry "Unattached Disks and Snapshots: These can continue to incur storage charges if not properly cleaned up."
  • Incorrectly Stopped VMs
    low 1 source
    industry "Incorrectly Stopped VMs: VMs that are stopped but still allocated resources will continue to be billable."
  • Licensing Fees
    medium 1 source
    industry "Licensing Fees: For Windows-based node pools, existing Windows Server or SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance can be applied using Azure Hybrid Benefit to reduce compute costs."
Tip

Ask your Azure AKS sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Intelligence sourced from 3 independent sources
industry TrustRadius Enterprise reviews G2 B2B reviews
Key claims include inline source attribution. Data verified against multiple independent sources. 12 source citations total.

Azure AKS Contract Terms

Azure AKS contracts do not auto-renew. Changes require advance notice. These terms are sourced from verified buyer experiences.

Contract Terms
Minimum Commitment $1 million per year

How to Negotiate Azure AKS Pricing

Azure AKS contracts are negotiable. These 3 tactics are sourced from real buyer experiences and procurement specialists.

Negotiation Playbook 3 tactics
Leverage MACC high success

Buyers should closely examine consumption estimates to ensure optimization efforts are realistic and use MACC amendments to avoid wasting unused prepayments.

https://uscloud.com
Seek Discounts and Incentives high success

Buyers should pursue all possible discounts, including Azure Consumption Discount (ACD), Azure Credit Offer (ACO), service-specific discounts, and ask Microsoft for additional Azure incentives to mitigate price increases, Unified enterprise support, renewals, and migration funding.

https://uscloud.com
Commit More Workloads medium success

Enterprises can increase negotiation leverage by committing to a certain amount of money to consume.

industry analysis
High success Medium Low / difficult

Full negotiation guide →

Azure AKS Pricing FAQ

01 What is the cheapest paid plan?

The AKS Edge Essentials plan is priced at $2.5 per device per month.

02 What are the cluster pricing options?

Cluster pricing includes the Automatic Hosted Component at $116.8 per cluster per month, the Standard tier (SLA) at $73.0 per cluster per month, and the SLA and LTS (Premium tier) at $438.0 per cluster per month.

03 What are the vCPU pricing options?

vCPU pricing varies by type: General Purpose vCPU is $7.05 per vCPU per month, Compute Optimized vCPU is $10.96 per vCPU per month, Memory Optimized vCPU is $11.16 per vCPU per month, Storage Optimized vCPU is $13.01 per vCPU per month, Confidential Compute vCPU is $10.88 per vCPU per month, High Performance Compute vCPU is $6.57 per vCPU per month, and GPU accelerated compute vCPU is $32.29 per vCPU per month.

Is this pricing incorrect? — we'll verify and update it.