Confluent Cloud pricing
Confluent Cloud uses consumption-based billing. Public rates vary by tier, region, and applicable terms; storage prices shown are pre-replication. Published monthly starting costs are estimates, not workload quotes.
Scroll sideways to see all columns. With a keyboard, focus this table and use the arrow keys.
| Tier | Compute, USD/eCKU-hour | Data in/out, USD/GB | Storage, USD/GB-month |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic | First eCKU free; then USD 0.14/eCKU-hour | 0.050 | 0.08 |
Standard | 0.75 | 0.035–0.050 | 0.08 |
Enterprise | 1.75–2.25 | 0.020–0.050 | 0.08 |
Freight | USD 2.25/eCKU-hour; minimum two eCKUs | 0.014–0.030 | 0.03 |
Published starting estimates are USD 0/month for Basic, USD 385/month for Standard, USD 895/month for Enterprise, and USD 2,300/month for Freight. Basic's free compute allowance does not remove data or storage charges.
Choose a tier by workload requirements
Start with networking, retention, availability, latency, and throughput requirements, then apply the relevant rates. Published throughput figures are limits, not promised workload performance.
Scroll sideways to see all columns. With a keyboard, focus this table and use the arrow keys.
| Tier | Conditional take | Published condition |
|---|---|---|
Basic | Consider it when its limits meet the workload. | Autoscaling; 250 / 750 MBps ingress / egress; 1,500 partitions; 5 TB storage; 99.5% SLA |
Standard | Consider it when infinite storage and its SLA conditions meet the workload. | Autoscaling; 250 / 750 MBps ingress / egress; 2,500 partitions; infinite storage; 99.9% SLA at one eCKU and 99.99% at two or more |
Enterprise | Consider it when private networking is required. | Private networking only; autoscaling; 1,920 / 5,760 MBps ingress / egress; 96,000 partitions; infinite storage; 99.9% SLA at one eCKU and 99.99% at two or more |
Freight | Consider it for logging or observability workloads that accept relaxed latency. | Private networking only; autoscaling; relaxed latency; 9,120 / 27,360 MBps ingress / egress; 50,000 partitions; infinite storage; 99.99% SLA |
Billing mechanics and costs to watch
An eCKU is an Elastic Confluent Unit. Serverless clusters autoscale eCKU capacity with workload demand. Charges can include compute, transferred data, storage, and add-on services; billing accrues hourly, partial hours are billed as full hours, and invoices are monthly in arrears. Annual commitments are minimum-spend agreements, not bill caps.
For a budget, confirm region, autoscaling history, replication, add-on consumption, support, and contract terms. If using marketplace billing, data-plane resources must run in the same cloud provider as that marketplace billing relationship.
Transparent partial examples
Standard compute only: hypothetical constant 2 eCKUs × 24 hours/day × 30 days × USD 0.75/eCKU-hour = USD 1,080. Excludes data, storage, services, networking, support, and tax.
Basic data only: hypothetical (100 GB ingress + 200 GB egress) × USD 0.05/GB = USD 15. Excludes compute, storage, services, networking, support, and tax.
Modern DataTools take
Price Confluent Cloud from workload telemetry rather than a tier's starting estimate. If capacity, data movement, retention, or add-on use changes, the published compute rate is only one component of the bill.
Alternative buying models
Amazon MSK Provisioned Standard bills broker instances and provisioned storage, with possible data-transfer, private-connectivity, and provisioned-storage-throughput charges. MSK Serverless bills cluster-hours, partition-hours, data written and read, and consumed storage. These are different billing models, not equivalent total-price comparisons.