# K3s Cluster

Source: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/product/k3s-cluster/

## Indicative from-price range

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting K3s Cluster on 1 server: about $24 to $112 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Server nodes: 3; Agent nodes: 3; Planned pods per agent node: 30). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $24 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $49 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $63 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $64 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $66 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $66 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $262 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west).

Reference workload:
- Server nodes: 3
- Agent nodes: 3
- Planned pods per agent node: 30

Price snapshot: 2026-10-19. Currency: USD. FX snapshot: 2026-10-19.

Configuration: Low end: 1 x basic-2vcpu-4gb (DigitalOcean, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, about $24 per server per month). High end: 1 x rise-m (OVHcloud, 12 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, about $112 per server per month).

Methodology: This range is generated automatically from public provider price lists. It has not been reviewed by a person, it is not a quote, and it may differ from the total the calculator chooses for your own workload with its AI step. Method: the calculator's offer shortlist for the reference workload (the same ranking it builds before the AI step, up to 12 offers across providers; 12 here) is priced at its monthly list price in USD. The low end is the cheapest of the per-provider from-prices below and the high end is the median server of the combined shortlist, each multiplied by 1, the smallest baseline topology (single-server). The from-price for each provider applies the same method to that provider's own shortlist (the calculator's ranking restricted to that provider), so it is the cheapest server that ranking offers there, not a recommendation. Prices are taken from the price snapshot dated 2026-10-19; prices quoted in EUR are converted with the ECB reference rate dated 2026-10-19. Servers with fewer than 2 vCPU or less than 4 GB RAM are not priced. Only server rental list prices for the product's own servers are counted: dependencies, licences, support, traffic charges, taxes and setup fees are not included.

Price sources:
- [Amazon Web Services](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonEC2/current/us-east-1/index.json)
- [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- [Google Cloud](https://cloudbilling.googleapis.com/v1/services/6F81-5844-456A/skus)
- [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/_resources/app/data/app/live_data_en_EUR.json)
- [Microsoft Azure](https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices)
- [OVHcloud](https://eu.api.ovh.com/1.0/order/catalog/public/eco?ovhSubsidiary=FR)
- [Servers.com](https://www.servers.com/products/scalable-bare-metal)

k3s is a lightweight, CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution built by Rancher/SUSE that packages the control plane and its dependencies into a single small binary. It targets resource-constrained environments such as edge, IoT, and CI use cases where running full upstream Kubernetes is impractical.

## Baseline topologies

- single-server: 1 node minimum; roles: k3s-server
- ha-control-plane-plus-agents: 4 nodes minimum; roles: k3s-server, k3s-agent

## What drives the cost

- Server nodes: Number of K3s server nodes. Use an odd count for embedded etcd quorum; use 1 for very small or development clusters.
- Agent nodes: Number of K3s agent nodes dedicated to running workloads.
- Planned pods per agent node: Planned steady-state pod density on each agent node. Drives agent node memory and CPU sizing.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does it cost to self-host K3s Cluster?

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting K3s Cluster on 1 server: about $24 to $112 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Server nodes: 3; Agent nodes: 3; Planned pods per agent node: 30). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $24 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $49 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $63 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $64 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $66 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $66 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $262 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west). This is an automatically generated indicative figure from public price lists (price snapshot 2026-10-19), not a quote.

### What drives the cost of self-hosting K3s Cluster?

The sizing inputs the calculator uses for K3s Cluster are: Server nodes; Agent nodes; Planned pods per agent node. Cost also depends on the number of servers and the provider chosen.

### What is the minimum number of servers for K3s Cluster?

The smallest baseline topology in the calculator's profile for K3s Cluster is single-server (1 server). Other baseline topologies: ha-control-plane-plus-agents (4 servers minimum). The reference range above is computed for 1 server.

Size K3s Cluster for your own workload: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/?product=k3s-cluster

## Sources

- https://k3s.io/
- https://docs.k3s.io/
- https://github.com/k3s-io/k3s