Does KubeOn support GKE Autopilot?

Yes. Autopilot bills per pod, so KubeOn uses the billed pod resources and adds the agent's usage measurements for efficiency and rightsizing.

Do we need GKE cost allocation enabled?

No. It adds detail that KubeOn uses as a cross-check, but allocation works from the agent's measurements and the billed node cost.

Which BigQuery export do we need?

The detailed usage cost export. The standard export lacks resource-level detail.

Google GKE

GKE costs from your BigQuery billing export

KubeOn queries your detailed billing export in BigQuery, uses GKE cost allocation labels where they are enabled, and splits each node pool across the workloads that ran on it.

Book a demo See the setup

Clusters

Data readyUpdated 12 min ago

Last 7 days▾

Clusters

GCPgke-prod-usc1prod active

us-central1 · v1.30.5-gke · agent read-only

Compute / mo: $25,898.60
At optimal: $24,650.97
Score: 59

OverviewSavingsNodesWorkloadsCostAutomation

Cluster

Region: us-central1
Project: acme-prod
Kubernetes: v1.30.5-gke
Connected: 2026-05-19
Last snapshot: 0.4h ago

Nodes 18

18 ready

On-demand 12Spot 6

12 × n2-standard-166 × n2-standard-16 · spot

GKE autoscaler

Pods 402

402 scheduled · 0 waiting for capacity

Commitments: 36.5%
Spot nodes: 33.3%
Below list: 31.0%

CPU288 vCPU

Requested: 176; 61.1%
Used: 98.0; 34.0%
Allocatable: 288
Reclaimable: 78.0

Memory1,152 GiB

Requested: 590; 51.2%
Used: 410; 35.6%
Allocatable: 1,152
Reclaimable: 180

Storage5,200 GiB

Requested: 4,300; 82.7%
Used: 2,960; 56.9%
Allocatable: 5,200
Reclaimable: 1,340

What KubeOn reads

What KubeOn needs on Google Cloud

Your Google Cloud account

BigQuery billing exportWith GKE cost allocation
KubeOn service accountRead-only
GKE and other clustersThe agent sends a snapshot every hour

KubeOn hub

Fully managed by UnitVane

1Read the billing data
2Join it with each snapshot
3Allocate every node's cost
4Reconcile to the bill

What you get

Cost per team and labelPods, namespaces and teams
Each cluster reconciledTo its own bill
Savings to act onAs pull requests, or applied by KubeOn

Billing

Cloud Billing detailed usage cost export to BigQuery, net of committed use discounts and credits.

Access

A service account with BigQuery Data Viewer on the export dataset and Job User in the billing project.

Agent identity

A cluster token from KubeOn. No service account or bucket: snapshots go to your organization in KubeOn and nowhere else.

Runs onGoogle Kubernetes Engine StandardGKE AutopilotGKE EnterpriseSelf-managed Kubernetes on Compute Engine

Setup

Three steps to the first allocation

Cluster inventory appears within the first hour. Allocated costs follow as soon as billing data is in.

01

Grant read access to the export

Create a service account and give it read access to the billing dataset.

gcloud and bq

# Prerequisite: Cloud Billing > Billing export > Detailed usage cost to BigQuery# dataset: acme-billing:billing_export. GKE cost allocation is optional.gcloud iam service-accounts create kubeon-billing \  --project acme-billing --display-name "KubeOn billing reader"# Read the billing export datasetbq add-iam-policy-binding \  --member="serviceAccount:kubeon-billing@acme-billing.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \  --role="roles/bigquery.dataViewer" \  acme-billing:billing_export# Run queries in the billing projectgcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding acme-billing \  --member="serviceAccount:kubeon-billing@acme-billing.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \  --role="roles/bigquery.jobUser"

02

Enable GKE cost allocation

Optional: adds namespace and label detail to the billing export.

gcloud

gcloud container clusters update gke-prod-usc1 \  --region us-central1 \  --enable-cost-allocation

03

Install the agent

One Helm release per cluster, with the cluster's token from KubeOn in a Secret.

kubeon-agent.yaml

# kubeon-agent.yaml (GKE)clusterName: gke-prod-usc1kubeon:  existingSecret: kubeon-agent-tokenprometheusUrl: http://prometheus-server.monitoring.svc:9090   # optional

Integrations

Data readyUpdated 12 min ago

Last 7 days▾

Back to integrations

Connect cloud billing

Detailed usage cost export to BigQuery

Choose cloud
2Prepare export
3Grant access
4Connection details
5Test & save

Turn on the detailed billing export

In the billing account, export detailed usage cost to a BigQuery dataset, then let KubeOn's service account read it.

BigQuery dataset

acme-billing.billing_export

Billing console Copy

# Billing > Billing export > BigQuery export
#   Detailed usage cost: on
#   Project: acme-billing, dataset: billing_export
# Grant the KubeOn service account read access to the dataset

BackContinue

Connecting

GCP Google Cloud

On save, KubeOn backfills 180 days of billing, then re-reads the last 3 days every morning.

Read-only access

KubeOn reads the billing export and nothing else in your account.

bigquery.jobs.create
bigquery.tables.getData on billing_export
billing.accounts.get

Connecting the bill in KubeOn: each step shows the console steps and the read-only access it needs.

Highlights

Built for how Google Cloud bills

Committed use discounts

Net cost with CUDs and credits applied, plus list cost for comparison.

Autopilot pricing

Autopilot pods priced from their billed vCPU, memory and storage.

Cost allocation labels

GKE's namespace and label detail cross-checks KubeOn's allocation.

Machine family changes

Proposals for smaller machine types or a better-fitting family.

One token per cluster

Revocable in KubeOn; no Google Cloud credentials in the cluster.

Spot and committed use

A Spot planner for your workloads, plus what you bought, when it ends and where coverage has gaps.

FAQ

Google Cloud questions

Other platforms

Amazon EKS and AWS

CUR 2.0 with split cost allocation data, read in place with Amazon Athena. Agents send to KubeOn with a cluster token, with no IAM role.

Learn more

Azure AKS

Cost Management exports read with a managed identity. Agents send to KubeOn with a cluster token.

Learn more

On-premises and data centers

Rate cards or amortized hardware cost for OpenShift, Rancher, Tanzu and bare metal clusters.

Learn more

Let's get started

A 30-minute walkthrough on your own billing data, for your clouds, your clusters and your model providers.

Book a demo Plan an evaluation