Committed use discounts

Autopilot

This page describes how Compute Engine flexible committed use discounts (flexible CUDs) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot CUDs work with GKE Autopilot clusters. To learn about CUDs in GKE Standard clusters, see committed use discount pricing through Compute Engine.

Flexible CUDs and GKE Autopilot CUDs are spend-based CUDs that provide deeply discounted prices in exchange for committing to use workloads for a specified term.

Depending on your usage requirements, you can purchase commitments for GKE Autopilot clusters in any of the following ways:

Flexible CUDs	GKE Autopilot CUDs
Use for predictable spend on any of the following products that are eligible for flexible CUDs: GKE Standard GKE Autopilot Cloud Run Compute Engine	Use for predictable spend on Autopilot resources that aren't eligible for flexible CUDs, like Scale-Out Pods and GPU Pods that don't use the Accelerator class.
Applies to any region and any project in a Cloud Billing account.	Applies to all projects within a specific region in a Cloud Billing account.
28% off on-demand pricing for a one-year commitment. 46% off on-demand pricing for a three-year commitment.	20% off on-demand pricing for a one-year commitment. 45% off on-demand pricing for a three-year commitment.

For a list of applicable SKUs, see GKE CUD Eligible SKUs.

You can purchase flexible and Autopilot commitments from any Cloud Billing account, and the discount applies to any eligible usage in projects paid for by that Cloud Billing account.

Note the following considerations about commitment costs and fees:

Any usage overage after you exhaust all your commitments is charged at the on-demand rate.
When you purchase commitments, you pay the same commitment fee for the entirety of the commitment term, even if the price of applicable usage changes.
You still receive the same discount percentage on applicable usage in the event of a price change.
The commitment fee is billed monthly.

For more information about your bill, see Analyze the effectiveness of your spend-based committed use discounts.

Order of discount application

Google Cloud first applies and exhausts Autopilot discounts on your CUD commitments, and any eligible usage that isn't covered by the existing Autopilot commitments becomes eligible for new flexible CUDs. If you use any additional resources that take your hourly spend amount beyond your committed hourly spend amount, then the overage usage is not covered by flexible CUDs.

Compute Engine flexible CUDs

Compute Engine flexible CUDs are spend-based CUDs that provide deeply discounted prices in exchange for committing to use workloads for a specified term.

Flexible CUDs pricing

When you purchase flexible commitments for your Cloud Billing account, you commit to a minimum amount hourly spend on GKE Autopilot clusters for a 1-year or 3-year term. You do this by committing to spend on resources that are worth a specified minimum amount of the discount price, every hour, throughout the commitment term. In return for committing to an hourly spend amount, you receive the following discounts:

28% discount: You get this by committing to a 1-year term. For the duration of your term, you pay the GKE CUD 1-year price (consumption model ID D97B-0795-975B) as your committed hourly spend amount.
46% discount: You get this by committing to a 3-year term. For the duration of your term, you pay the GKE CUD 3-year price (consumption model ID 70D7-D1AB-12A4) as your committed hourly spend amount.

The commitment that you purchase becomes active within the first hour of its purchase. The discounted hourly spend amount becomes your commitment fee and you are billed this fee monthly. Your commitment fee remains your minimum hourly expenditure throughout the commitment term and you have to pay it even if you don't use resources.

Your commitment fee remains the same even if the on-demand prices for your resources change during your commitment term.

Applicable usage for flexible CUDs

Flexible CUDs don't apply to Scale-Out compute class or to GPU Pods that don't use Accelerator class. If you want to use Autopilot CUDs for these use cases, you can purchase the commitments until October 15, 2024.

In addition, flexible CUDs don't apply to the cluster management fee, Spot Pods, or to GKE Standard mode compute nodes. GKE Standard mode compute nodes can use committed use discount pricing through Compute Engine.

Purchasing flexible commitments

Flexible CUDs add flexibility to your spending capabilities. You can purchase commitments for GKE Autopilot clusters from any Cloud Billing account, and the discount applies to any eligible usage in projects paid for by that Cloud Billing account.

When you purchase a Compute Engine flexible CUD, the name that appears in the user interface is Compute Flexible Committed Use Discounts.

To purchase or manage GKE committed use discounts for your Cloud Billing account, follow the instructions at Purchasing spend-based commitments.

The following sections cover pricing, calculating hourly discounted commitment and recommendations for the Compute Engine flexible CUDs.

Calculate hourly commitment for flexible CUDs

You calculate the baseline per hour cost of GKE Autopilot Pod vCPUs + Pod memory across all your GKE Autopilot clusters in each region that you want to benefit from an existing commitment, and sum these numbers to determine the hourly commitment amount. Any usage beyond that limit will be charged at the regular on-demand price.

For example:

Assume you are running a total of 97.5 Pod vCPUs and 121 GB Pod Memory in each of two different regions. The Autopilot clusters are located in regions us-central1 (Iowa) and asia-southeast1 (Singapore), and you're interested in buying a 1-year CUD.

From the pricing table, you can calculate the total hourly commitment cost per region using the Compute Flexible CUD - 1 Year column:

Iowa
- 97.5 * ($0.0445 per vCPU - 28% discount) per hour = ~$3.1239 per hour
- 121 * ($0.0049225 per GB - 28% discount) per hour = ~$0.4289 per hour
- For a total of $3.5528 per hour in committed use hourly pricing.
Singapore
- 97.5 * ($0.0549 per vCPU - 28% discount) per hour = ~$3.854 per hour
- 121 * ($0.0060729 per GB - 28% discount) per hour = ~$0.529 per hour
- For a total of $4.383 per hour in committed use hourly pricing.

Total hourly commitment across both regions: $7.94 per hour.

Calculating the monthly cost (730 hours in a month):

Iowa
- On-demand pricing = $4.935 per hour * 730 hours = ~$3,602.55 per month
- After 28% 1-year flexible CUD discount = ~$2,593.84 per month
- Total savings of $1,008.71 per month.
Singapore
- On-demand pricing = $6.088 per hour * 730 hours = ~$4,444.24 per month
- After 28% 1-year flexible CUD discount = ~$3,199.85 per month
- Total savings of $1,244.39 per month.

Total savings across both regions: $2,253.10 per month * 12 months = $27,037.20 per year.

After you purchase the commitment, you're charged that amount even if you decide to stop or scale down the actual number of vCPUs or RAM during the month.

GKE Autopilot CUDs

GKE Autopilot CUDs are spend-based CUDs that provide deeply discounted prices in exchange for committing to use workloads for a specified term.

Autopilot CUDs pricing

Autopilot CUDs provide the following discounts:

20% discount: you get this by committing to a 1-year term. For the duration of your term, you pay the GKE CUD 1-year price (consumption model ID 2F93-FEF4-BD6E) as your committed hourly spend amount.
45% discount: you get this by committing to a 3-year term. For the duration of your term, you pay the GKE CUD 3-year price (consumption model ID 6E88-5C17-F3E1) as your committed hourly spend amount.

See committed use discount pricing for pricing details.

Key points to keep in mind for the Autopilot CUDs:

Only apply to CPU, memory, and ephemeral storage of Autopilot pods.
Do not apply to cluster management fee, or to GKE Standard mode compute nodes.
Apply to all Autopilot workloads in a given region.
Measured in dollars per hourly discounted commitment.

Applicable usage for Autopilot CUDs

Autopilot CUDs apply to the following:

All Autopilot Pod workload CPU, memory, and ephemeral storage usage in the region in which you have committed.
For Performance compute class Pods, Autopilot CUDs apply only to the Autopilot premium. You can separately purchase Compute Engine committed use discounts to cover Compute Engine VMs that run the Performance compute class Pods. Flexible CUDs always apply to Autopilot premium, and also apply to its underlying resources if the resources are eligible to receive flexible CUDs.
For Accelerator compute class Pods, CUDs apply only to the Autopilot premium. You can separately purchase Compute Engine resource-based commitments for the Compute Engine virtual machines that run the Accelerator compute class Pods.

Autopilot CUDs don't apply to the cluster management fee, Spot Pods, or to GKE Standard mode compute nodes. GKE Standard mode compute nodes can use committed use discount pricing through Compute Engine.

Purchasing GKE Autopilot commitments

When you purchase an Autopilot CUD, the name that appears in the user interface is Kubernetes Engine (Autopilot mode).