VNodes connect a self-managed Kubernetes cluster — running in an on-premises data center or on Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances — to Elastic Container Instance (ECI). This page describes how VNodes are billed.
VNodes based on Virtual Kubelet and created by the ack-virtual-node component in Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) are free of charge.
How billing works
Each VNode you create has one resident node and is billed as a single elastic container instance with 2 vCPUs and 8 GiB memory. Billing starts when the resident node reaches the Ready state.
The resident node status is separate from node status in your Kubernetes cluster. Check the resident node status on the Virtual Node page in the Elastic Container Instance console.
Delete VNodes you are no longer using to stop billing immediately.
Pricing
The price of one VNode per second is calculated as follows:
Price = (2 × vCPU unit price + 8 × memory unit price) × run duration| Resource | Per second | Per hour |
|---|---|---|
| vCPU | USD 0.0000077 | USD 0.02772 |
| Memory | USD 0.00000096 | USD 0.003456 |
Example: One VNode running for 1 hour costs:
(2 × 0.02772) + (8 × 0.003456) = 0.05544 + 0.027648 = USD 0.083088Your bill shows the actual price charged. For pricing details, see ECI instance billing.
Cost allocation with tags
VNodes support tags. Attach tags to individual VNodes to track and split costs between VNodes and other elastic container instances on your bill.