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Free handbook · Kubernetes

The Kubernetes Cost Optimization Handbook

The practical reference our practitioners use to cut Kubernetes bills: the rightsizing workflow, the Spot adoption pattern, the autoscaler decision, and the showback model, in one document.

Kubernetes hides waste better than any other platform, because the bill says nodes while the waste lives in pods. This handbook closes that gap. It shows how to attribute cost to teams, rightsize requests with real data, pack nodes tightly, and move the right work to Spot, all without risking reliability.

It is the companion to our complete guide to Kubernetes cost optimization and goes deeper on the parts that need a repeatable playbook: the request-to-usage analysis, the pod disruption budget pattern for safe Spot adoption, and a fair model for splitting shared cluster costs.

What is inside

  1. Why Kubernetes bills run two to three times higher than they should
  2. Cost allocation across namespaces, labels and pods
  3. A fair split for shared and idle cluster costs
  4. The rightsizing workflow for requests and limits
  5. Bin packing and node pool selection
  6. The Spot adoption pattern with disruption budgets and fallbacks
  7. Cluster Autoscaler versus Karpenter for cost
  8. Commitments sized against an autoscaling fleet
  9. The showback model that brings engineers into the loop
  10. Guardrails: resource quotas and deploy-time cost checks
Who it is for

Platform engineers, SREs and FinOps practitioners who run production Kubernetes and want to cut cost without trading away reliability.

Prefer it done for you? Our rightsizing and waste elimination service applies this handbook to your clusters, on a fixed fee or pay-from-savings basis.

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