AWS Outposts Pricing: The Real Cost of Hybrid Kubernetes

AWS Outposts allows you to run AWS infrastructure (EC2, EKS, RDS) in your own data center. It is the ultimate “Hybrid Cloud” solution, ideal for low-latency manufacturing, telecom, or healthcare use cases.

However, the pricing model is a radical departure from the “Pay-as-you-go” cloud model.

Rack vs. Server: Choosing Your Form Factor

AWS offers Outposts in two physical form factors, and they serve very different markets.

1. Outposts Rack: The Data Center Replacement

This is a standard 42U rack that rolls into your data center.

• Target: Large enterprises replacing entire rows of servers.
• Cost: Starts around $200,000 / year.
• Commitment: Most configurations require a 3-year term. There is no “hourly” billing for the rack itself.
• Inclusions: White-glove installation, hardware replacement, and physical security features.

2. Outposts Server: The Edge Solution

This is a 1U or 2U pizza-box server designed for constrained spaces (retail stores, branch offices).

• Target: Retail, Restaurants, Hospitals.
• Cost:
  • 1U Server (c6gd.16xlarge): ~$1,500 / month (approximate).
  • 2U Server (g4dn.16xlarge): ~$4,500 / month (GPU enabled).
• Commitment: Also typically 3 years.

The Hidden Costs of Hybrid

The sticker price is just the beginning.

1. The “EKS Tax”

If you run EKS on Outposts:

1. Hardware: You pay for the Outposts capacity (e.g., $200k/yr).
2. Control Plane: You pay $0.10/hour ($73/month) per cluster.
3. Location: The Control Plane lives in the Parent AWS Region, not on the rack.

This “Split Brain” architecture creates a dependency. If your internet connection to the region goes down, your Control Plane is unreachable (kubectl commands fail), even though your pods might keep running.

2. Data Transfer

• Outbound Internet: Traffic leaving your Outpost to the internet is billed at standard AWS Data Transfer rates (expensive!), unless you configure “Local Gateway” (LGW) to route traffic out your local ISP connection.
• Region - Outpost: Traffic between your Outpost and the parent region is often not free.

3. Power and Cooling

AWS ships the rack, but you pay the electric bill. A fully loaded 42U rack can draw 10-15kVA. Ensure your facility can handle the heat rejection.

Alternatives to Outposts

Before signing a 3-year contract, look at these alternatives:

AWS Local Zones

AWS is building mini-datacenters in metro areas (e.g., Los Angeles, Houston, Miami).

• Pros: Single-digit millisecond latency to end-users. No hardware for you to manage. Pay-as-you-go billing.
• Cons: Limited instance types. Still expensive compared to core regions.

EKS Anywhere

Run EKS on your own Dell/HPE/Lenovo hardware.

• Pros: You own the hardware (CapEx). No monthly rental fees from AWS.
• Cons: You manage the hypervisor (VMware/Nutanix) or bare metal.

Final Verdict: Who is Outposts For?

Outposts is not a cost-saving play. It is almost always more expensive than running pure cloud or pure on-prem.

Buy Outposts if:

1. Latency: You need < 2ms latency to on-prem machinery (e.g., robotic arms).
2. Residency: Data strictness requires physical storage within your walls, but you want the AWS API experience.
3. Standardization: You want one API (CloudFormation/Terraform) to rule both cloud and edge.

For everyone else, Local Zones or VPN-connected core regions are usually 10x cheaper.

[!TIP] Compare with Pure Cloud: Calculate what that same capacity would cost in us-east-1 using our EKS Pricing Calculator.