Introduction

On October 4, 2023, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) announced the public preview of extended support for Kubernetes versions, which gives you an additional 12 months of support for Kubernetes minor versions. Today, we are announcing the pricing for extended support. Amazon EKS clusters running on a Kubernetes version in the extended support window will be charged a total of $0.60 per cluster per hour, effective from the April 2024 billing cycle (starting April 1, 2024). Pricing for clusters running Kubernetes versions in standard support is unchanged — you will continue to pay $0.10 per cluster per hour.

This pricing covers the cost to run the Kubernetes control plane. You pay for the AWS resources (e.g., Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud [Amazon EC2] instances, AWS Fargate pods, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS] volumes, or AWS Outposts capacity) that you create to run your Kubernetes worker nodes or support other cluster functions. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no upfront commitments

Extended version support in Amazon EKS is available for Kubernetes versions 1.23 and higher. You can refer to the Amazon EKS version release calendar to see the standard support and extended support windows for each version.

What is Amazon EKS extended support for Kubernetes versions?

Amazon EKS extended support for Kubernetes versions lets you use a Kubernetes minor version for up to 26 months from the time the version is generally available from Amazon EKS. Amazon EKS versions in extended support receive ongoing security patches for the Kubernetes control plane managed by EKS. Additionally, EKS will release critical patches for the Amazon VPC CNI, kube-proxy, and CoreDNS add-ons, AWS-published EKS Optimized Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for Amazon Linux, Bottlerocket, Windows, and EKS Fargate nodes. (Note: support for AWS-published EKS Optimized AMIs for Windows will be available for Kubernetes versions 1.24 and higher.) AWS backs all EKS versions in both standard and extended support with full technical support. Extended support for Kubernetes versions is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon EKS is available, including AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

When is an Amazon EKS version in standard or extended support?

Standard support begins when a version becomes available in Amazon EKS, and continues for 14 months — the same as upstream Kubernetes support window for minor versions. Extended support in Amazon EKS begins immediately at the end of standard support and continues for 12 months. Kubernetes versions 1.23 and higher are eligible for extended support from Amazon EKS.

How much does extended support cost?

The cost to run an Amazon EKS cluster is based on the Kubernetes minor version of the cluster control plane. When your Amazon EKS cluster runs a Kubernetes version that is in standard support, you pay $0.10 per cluster per hour. When your Amazon EKS cluster runs a Kubernetes version in extended support, you pay $0.60 per cluster per hour.

Here are a few scenarios to better explain how extended support works:

• If you have a large fleet of Amazon EKS clusters running on different Kubernetes versions, then clusters that are running a version in standard support will be billed at $0.10 per cluster per hour, and clusters running a version in extended support will be billed at $0.60 per cluster per hour.
• If you create a new Amazon EKS cluster using a Kubernetes version that is in extended support, then you will pay $0.60 per hour.
• If you are running an Amazon EKS cluster using a Kubernetes version in extended support, and you upgrade the control plane for that cluster to a Kubernetes version in standard support, then you will pay $0.60 per hour for the time the cluster was running an extended support version prior to the upgrade, and you will pay $0.10 per hour after the upgrade.

Here are some examples to explain billing for Amazon EKS with the standard and extended support windows:

Example 1: Let’s assume that you create an Amazon EKS cluster on a Kubernetes version the day Amazon EKS releases it, and that you run the cluster for the next 26 months without upgrading the control plane version. You will pay $0.10 per hour during the first 14 months when the version is in standard support. After 14 months, the Kubernetes version transitions to extended support. You will now pay $0.60 per hour for the remaining 12 months. During the 26-month period, on average, you will pay $0.33 per hour to run this cluster.

Example 2: Let’s assume that you create an Amazon EKS cluster using a Kubernetes version that is 4 months into the standard support window (i.e., there are 10 months left in the version’s standard support window). At the end of standard support for this version, you decide to use extended support for 6 months before upgrading your cluster to the next version which is in standard support. During the 16 months for which you’ve run this cluster, you pay $0.10 per hour for the first 10 months, and $0.60 per hour for the remaining 6 months. On average, you’re paying $0.29 per hour to run this cluster for 16 months. (Note: When you upgrade your cluster to a Kubernetes version in standard support, your billing will return to $0.10 per cluster per hour).

Example 3: Let’s assume you quickly adopt new versions and follow a regular upgrade cadence for your Amazon EKS clusters, so you don’t use a Kubernetes version beyond its 14-month standard support window. In this case, there are no changes from Amazon EKS billing today. You will continue to pay $0.10 per hour for your cluster.

The following table and figure summarize the end of support dates and pricing for Kubernetes versions available today on Amazon EKS:

* See Amazon EKS Kubernetes calendar for exact dates. This calendar is regularly updated and should be considered the source of truth for exact and final version support dates.

Next Steps

Extended support for Kubernetes versions is available to all Amazon EKS customers today as a preview and for no additional cost. Effective from the April 2024 billing cycle (starting April 1, 2024), your Amazon EKS clusters that are running on a Kubernetes version in extended support will be charged at $0.60 per cluster hour. Remember that you can upgrade your cluster at any time to a version in standard support. Pricing for standard support is unchanged, and will remain $0.10 per cluster per hour. Please use the Amazon EKS version calendar to see the latest dates for version support.