Sr. Technical Consultant (Cloud/DevOps/SRE) at ATB Techsoft Solutions
User
Top 10
Jun 3, 2025
Could you please share your impression on the pricing, setup cost and licensing of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)? The costs could be optimized in some way.
Principal Cloud Architect at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Sep 12, 2024
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is not cheap but is just about affordable. It is okay in terms of pricing but doesn't stand out as exceptionally reasonable.
I have worked with Azure and AWS solutions, but comparatively, the price of Azure products is much greater. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is an expensive solution, and our organization's clients have complained about it.
Learn what your peers think about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
From a licensing perspective, moving from a traditional model to a new one won't make much difference because the same virtual machine is being used in the backend. We are just adding a layer that gives the organization more flexibility and manageability. The solution does not cost much. The customers have to pay an extra $100 or $150 based on their number of clusters. It won't make much of a difference for any environment. If an organization pays $100 for a normal infrastructure, it will hardly cost 10% extra with added manageability and scalability. It would hardly make a dent in the pocket.
Director, Digital Strategy and Architecture at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 14, 2023
Running workloads on Amazon or Google are more expensive than Azure Kubernetes Service. I rate the solution’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is high and ten is low.
We are facing a significant challenge regarding OEM licensing. The issue arises from the fact that certain licenses required for our own purposes are not provided by Microsoft's licensing. Consequently, we are unsure about the most suitable mobile license provisioning model offered by third-party providers. The software necessitates licensing, and it becomes a complex issue when we provision multiple virtual machines with that software installed. Managing the licensing model becomes challenging as we face uncertainties regarding payment to the vendor. For instance, if we initially create three virtual machines with high demand but later require a hundred, the payment structure becomes unclear. I rate the price of AKS a six out of ten. The price is expensive but a lower price can be found. There are various different types of licenses.
Associate Principal at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Real User
Jan 4, 2023
There are multiple options for how to pay for this product, including a pay as you go option, and there is also one year or three year reserved pricing available.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a fully managed container orchestration service provided by Microsoft Azure. It simplifies the deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications using Kubernetes. With AKS, developers can focus on building applications while Azure takes care of the underlying infrastructure. It offers features like automatic scaling, monitoring, and security, ensuring high availability and reliability. AKS integrates seamlessly with other Azure services,...
The solution is very expensive in my opinion. The built-in monitoring can be expensive as well.
Could you please share your impression on the pricing, setup cost and licensing of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)? The costs could be optimized in some way.
The pricing for Azure Kubernetes Service seems to be around the average, which I would rate as a five out of ten.
The pricing for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) could be better; it is relatively expensive.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is not cheap but is just about affordable. It is okay in terms of pricing but doesn't stand out as exceptionally reasonable.
I have worked with Azure and AWS solutions, but comparatively, the price of Azure products is much greater. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is an expensive solution, and our organization's clients have complained about it.
From a licensing perspective, moving from a traditional model to a new one won't make much difference because the same virtual machine is being used in the backend. We are just adding a layer that gives the organization more flexibility and manageability. The solution does not cost much. The customers have to pay an extra $100 or $150 based on their number of clusters. It won't make much of a difference for any environment. If an organization pays $100 for a normal infrastructure, it will hardly cost 10% extra with added manageability and scalability. It would hardly make a dent in the pocket.
Azure Kubernetes Service offers a pay-as-you-go licensing model.
The pricing of the solution is same as Azure Stack.
The product is expensive in terms of scalability.
You pay for what you use.
Running workloads on Amazon or Google are more expensive than Azure Kubernetes Service. I rate the solution’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is high and ten is low.
We are facing a significant challenge regarding OEM licensing. The issue arises from the fact that certain licenses required for our own purposes are not provided by Microsoft's licensing. Consequently, we are unsure about the most suitable mobile license provisioning model offered by third-party providers. The software necessitates licensing, and it becomes a complex issue when we provision multiple virtual machines with that software installed. Managing the licensing model becomes challenging as we face uncertainties regarding payment to the vendor. For instance, if we initially create three virtual machines with high demand but later require a hundred, the payment structure becomes unclear. I rate the price of AKS a six out of ten. The price is expensive but a lower price can be found. There are various different types of licenses.
The solution is expensive compared to other vendors. I rate its pricing as a five.
It is an expensive solution.
AKS provides a good level of elasticity allowing them to scale horizontally the platform based on demand.
We could spend as little as $25 or $30 a month on Kubernetes Services, compared to the typical $100 a month expenditure for a virtual machine.
There are multiple options for how to pay for this product, including a pay as you go option, and there is also one year or three year reserved pricing available.
Licensing costs are reasonable, I believe somewhere around 30% cheaper than AWS.