> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rafftechnologies.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Kubernetes billing model

> What bills, when — pay-as-you-go vs subscription, autoscaling overage, HA and storage fees

<sub>Updated August 24, 2026</sub>

**The single-master control plane is free.** You pay for worker nodes, storage nodes, and \$30/month if you enable the HA control plane.

## Two billing modes

* **Pay-as-you-go** — every worker/storage node bills per hour at its plan's hourly rate while it exists.
* **Subscription** — the cluster's node set is a monthly commitment. Create it from the dashboard (checkout) or the API (the saved payment method is charged automatically). Growing the cluster (scale-up, new pool, HA upgrade) costs the pro-rated difference — collected at checkout from the dashboard, or charged automatically via the API — and raises the monthly price; shrinking credits the remainder back to your balance. Deleting the cluster converts the unused subscription value to account balance automatically.

## Autoscaling and billing

Autoscaling never changes your subscription price. It only adds temporary hourly charges while extra nodes exist.

**Subscription cluster.** Your monthly price covers the node count you committed to at checkout (the *base*). When the autoscaler adds nodes above the base, each extra node bills **per hour, at the node plan's hourly rate**, only while it exists. When the autoscaler removes it, the charge stops. Your monthly subscription price stays the same in both directions.

Example: you committed a pool of 2 nodes on the \$9.99/month Starter plan (subscription: \$19.98/month).

| Event                                                 | What bills                                                                              |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Normal operation, 2 nodes                             | \$19.98/month — nothing else                                                            |
| Traffic spike: autoscaler adds a 3rd node for 6 hours | \$19.98/month + 6 hours of the Starter hourly rate (shown as *overage* on your invoice) |
| Autoscaler removes the 3rd node                       | back to \$19.98/month — overage stops                                                   |

Only a **manual** scale (dashboard or API) changes the base, and your monthly price moves with it.

**Pay-as-you-go cluster.** There is no base. Every node bills per hour while it exists, so autoscaling from 2 to 3 nodes means 3 nodes' hourly rates until it scales back to 2.

## What else bills

| Item                               | Price                                          |
| ---------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| HA control plane                   | \$30/month flat                                |
| Storage nodes                      | node price + \$0.08/GB/month for the data disk |
| Reserved public IP (the cluster's) | included                                       |

Full rates: [Pricing](/products/build/kubernetes/details/pricing).