Amazon EKS — Cost Optimization
EKS costs come from the control plane, compute (EC2/Fargate), networking (NAT Gateway, data transfer), and storage. Understanding where money goes is the first step to cutting costs.
Topics Covered
| # | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Understanding EKS Costs | Cost breakdown and hidden costs |
| 2 | Spot Instances Strategy | Using Spot for cost savings |
| 3 | Right-Sizing & Resource Management | Optimizing resource requests |
| 4 | Karpenter for Cost Savings | Consolidation and bin-packing |
| 5 | Kubecost & OpenCost | Cost visibility and allocation |
| 6 | Practice Questions | Test your cost knowledge |
EKS Cost Levers
| Area | Typical Share | Optimization |
|---|---|---|
| Compute (EC2) | 50-70% | Spot, right-sizing, Karpenter |
| Networking | 10-25% | VPC endpoints, minimize cross-AZ |
| Storage | 5-15% | Right-size EBS, use gp3 |
| Control plane | 5-10% | $0.10/hr fixed (unavoidable) |
| Data transfer | 5-15% | Keep traffic in same AZ when possible |
The biggest win is almost always compute — right-sizing resource requests and using Spot instances.
