Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Highly available, secure, and fully managed Kubernetes service

Updated on：2026/05/20

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a free container service that simplifies the deployment, management, and operations of Kubernetes as a fully managed Kubernetes container orchestrator service. Paying for only the virtual machines, and associated storage and networking resources consumed makes AKS the most efficient and cost-effective container service on the market.

Azure Kubernetes Service
Standard tier
Use cases
  • Production workloads
  • Workloads requiring 2 years of support
Node management You create and manage nodes in node pools
Cluster node limit Up to 5,000*
Service Level Agreement (SLA) options
  • No SLA (Free tier)
  • Financially backed API server uptime SLA (Standard tier)
Kubernetes versioning support
Control plane pricing
  • No SLA (Free tier): Free (only pay for underlying resources)
  • SLA (Standard tier): ￥0.636 per cluster per hour
  • SLA and LTS (Premium tier): ￥4.452 per cluster per month
Compute pricing Compute charges are based on the duration and type of virtual machines launched and managed by AKS.
*When running without an SLA in the Free tier, the node limit is 1,000 (but node scale greater than 10 is not recommended).
**AKS Long Term Support can be applied to an LTS-capable Kubernetes version to provide extended support from Microsoft for 2 years. LTS is only available for Standard clusters, and clusters running with LTS are charged at ￥4.452 per cluster per hour.

Free Cluster Management

There is no charge for cluster management.

Pricing for nodes - only pay for what you use

Only pay for the virtual machines instances, storage and networking resources consumed by your Kubernetes cluster.

Option to add Uptime SLA

Financially-backed service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees an uptime of 99.95% for the Kubernetes API server for clusters that use Azure Availability Zone and 99.9% for clusters that do not use Azure Availability Zone.

METER PRICE
Uptime SLA ￥0.636 per cluster per hour
Note：Billing for AKS uptime SLA will be effective start on May 1, 2021

IP address options

Every Azure Cloud service containing one or more Azure Virtual Machines is automatically assigned a free dynamic virtual IP (VIP) address. For an additional charge, you can also get:

  • Instance-level public IP addresses—A dynamic public IP address (PIP) that is assigned to a virtual machine for direct access.
  • Reserved IP addresses—A public IP address that can be reserved and used as a VIP address.
  • Load-balanced IP addresses—Additional load-balanced VIP addresses that can be assigned to an Azure Cloud Service containing one or more Azure Virtual Machines.

See IP address pricing

FAQ

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Support & SLA

As a free service, AKS does not offer a financially-backed service level agreement. We will strive to attain at least 99.5% availability for the Kubernetes API server. The availability of the agent nodes in your cluster is covered by the Virtual Machines SLA. Please see the Virtual Machines SLA for more details.