Kubernetes cost allocation platform that breaks cloud spend down to namespace, pod, and label level with real-time monitoring. ML-driven rightsizing recommendations analyze historical usage patterns to suggest optimal resource requests and limits, while anomaly detection catches cost spikes before the bill arrives. Available as open-core self-hosted and fully managed SaaS.
No compliance attestations on file. Confirm directly with the vendor before procurement.
| Tier | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
Free | Free | Up to 250 CPU cores or 50 nodes (SaaS), 15-day metric retention, community support |
Enterprise | Contact sales | — |
Kubecost breaks Kubernetes spend down to namespace, pod, and label level in real time.
Kubecost reads kube-state-metrics, cAdvisor, and cloud billing to attribute Kubernetes spend at namespace, pod, and label granularity, then runs ML rightsizing on 30-day P95 usage to recommend smaller requests and limits. Anomaly detection flags cost spikes in real time. The open-core distribution makes the free self-hosted version actually useful for single-cluster cost visibility.
Who it's for. Any team running Kubernetes that needs to answer how much a namespace costs without waiting for a monthly cloud bill. The case: a staging namespace consumes 40 percent of cluster compute because someone provisioned production-sized replicas, Kubecost recommends a 60 percent CPU request cut based on 30-day P95, and the platform team applies it for $2K monthly savings.
Tradeoffs. Kubernetes only; non-K8s spend (RDS, S3, CloudFront) needs CloudZero or Vantage. Acquired by IBM via Apptio, so the long-term open-source posture is worth watching. Multi-cluster, SSO, and long-term retention require Enterprise (sales-only).
Compare: CloudZero, Vantage, OpenCost, Apptio Cloudability