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Confluent Cloud Pricing

Cloud-native data streaming with scalable pricing fit for any budget

Begin development in Confluent Cloud with scale-to-$0 Kafka pricing on
Basic clusters and move to Standard or Dedicated as use cases evolve.

Basic(Getting started)

For experimentation, early development, and basic use cases. Single click upgrade to Standard available at any time.

Starting at $0/hour
Try free
Single-click upgrade

Standard(99.99% uptime SLA available)

For production-ready use cases leveraging an extended feature set and elastic scaling up to 1 GBps.

Starting at $1.50/hour
Try free

Dedicated(99.99% uptime SLA available)

For massive-throughput use cases at GBps+ scale that require private networking.

Priced by capacity
Contact us

Looking to self-manage Confluent on-premises or across hybrid environments with Confluent Platform?

Get started quickly with on-demand cluster provisioning and consumption-based billing

New signups receive $400 to spend during their first 30 days—no credit card required

Access scaled discounts for production or high-volume workloads with committed usage

Sign up through marketplaces to unify billing and leverage existing commitments with cloud providers

Confluent Cloud Pricing Details

Kafka Clusters
  • Kafka Clusters
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Connectors
  • ksqlDB
  • Stream Governance
  • Cluster Linking
  • Audit Logs
  • Expert Support

Apache Kafka Clusters

Confluent Cloud offers three different cloud-native Apache Kafka cluster types: Basic, Standard, and Dedicated. Billing dimensions vary by cluster type and cloud provider. Visit cluster type documentation to learn more about specific features, capabilities, and limits by cluster type.

Cluster Type

Basic

For experimentation, early development, and basic use cases. Single click upgrade to Standard available at any time.

Standard

For production-ready use cases leveraging an extended feature set and elastic scaling up to 1 GBps.

Dedicated

For massive-throughput use cases at GBps+ scale that require private networking.

Throughput supported
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
GBps+ ingress and egress
Base Price
$/hour
$0.00/hour
$1.50/hour
n/a
CKU

CKUs are a unit of horizontal scalability in Confluent Cloud that provide a pre-allocated amount of resources. Learn more

$/CKU/hour
n/a
n/a
Partitions
$/partition/hour

First 10 included (Hard limit of 4096)

$0.004/partition/hour after

First 500 included (Hard limit of 4096)

$0.0015/partition/hour after

Hard limit of 4500 per CKU

$0/partition/hour

Basic

For experimentation, early development, and basic use cases. Single click upgrade to Standard available at any time.

Throughput supported
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
Base Price $/hour
$0.00/hour
CKU $/CKU/hour

CKUs are a unit of horizontal scalability in Confluent Cloud that provide a pre-allocated amount of resources. Learn more

n/a
Partitions $/partition/hour

First 10 included (Hard limit of 4096)

$0.004/partition/hour after

Standard

For production-ready use cases leveraging an extended feature set and elastic scaling up to 1 GBps.

Throughput supported
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
Base Price $/hour
$1.50/hour
CKU $/CKU/hour

CKUs are a unit of horizontal scalability in Confluent Cloud that provide a pre-allocated amount of resources. Learn more

n/a
Partitions $/partition/hour

First 500 included (Hard limit of 4096)

$0.0015/partition/hour after

Dedicated

For massive-throughput use cases at GBps+ scale that require private networking.

Throughput supported
GBps+ ingress and egress
Base Price $/hour
n/a
CKU $/CKU/hour

CKUs are a unit of horizontal scalability in Confluent Cloud that provide a pre-allocated amount of resources. Learn more

Partitions $/partition/hour

Hard limit of 4500 per CKU

$0/partition/hour

Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Networking

Confluent Cloud offers three different cloud-native Apache Kafka cluster types: Basic, Standard, and Dedicated. Networking billing dimensions vary by cluster type and cloud provider.

Cluster Type

Basic

For experimentation, early development, and basic use cases. Single click upgrade to Standard available at any time.

Standard

For production-ready use cases leveraging an extended feature set and elastic scaling up to 1 GBps.

Dedicated

For massive-throughput use cases at GBps+ scale that require private networking.

Throughput supported
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
GBps+ ingress and egress
Data in (Ingress)
$/GB
SZ
AWS$0.13
Azure$0.12
GCP$0.11
SZ MZ
AWS $0.06$0.13
Azure $0.05$0.12
GCP $0.04$0.11
MZ
AWS $0.13
Azure $0.12
GCP $0.11
Data out (Egress)
$/GB
AWS$0.13
Azure$0.12
GCP$0.11
AWS $0.06
Azure $0.05
GCP $0.04

Basic

For experimentation, early development, and basic use cases. Single click upgrade to Standard available at any time.

Throughput supported
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
Data in (Ingress) $/GB
SZ
AWS$0.13
Azure$0.12
GCP$0.11
Data out (Egress) $/GB
AWS$0.13
Azure$0.12
GCP$0.11

Standard

For production-ready use cases leveraging an extended feature set and elastic scaling up to 1 GBps.

Throughput supported
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress (1 GBps total)
Data in (Ingress) $/GB
SZ MZ
AWS $0.06$0.13
Azure $0.05$0.12
GCP $0.04$0.11
MZ
AWS $0.13
Azure $0.12
GCP $0.11
Data out (Egress) $/GB
AWS $0.06
Azure $0.05
GCP $0.04

Dedicated

For massive-throughput use cases at GBps+ scale that require private networking.

Throughput supported
GBps+ ingress and egress
Data in (Ingress) $/GB
Data out (Egress) $/GB
Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Storage

Storage billing is consistent across clusters and cloud providers.

Infinite storage, available for Standard and Dedicated clusters on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, allows you to elastically retain infinite volumes of data while only paying for what you actually use.

Price

Data Stored
$/GB-month*
Billing occurs by hour. Prices displayed based on 720 hours per month.

$0.10

*Storage is billed at an hourly interval at $0.00013889/GB-hr

Price

Data Stored $/GB-month*
Billing occurs by hour. Prices displayed based on 720 hours per month.

$0.10

*Storage is billed at an hourly interval at $0.00013889/GB-hr

Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Connectors

Source & sink integrations with 60+ fully managed connectors are available for Basic, Standard, and Dedicated clusters. Use of fully managed connectors is billed based on task price ($/task/hour) and throughput ($/GB).

A task is the capacity unit for fully managed connectors. Learn more within managed connectors documentation.

Connector

Type

Task

$/task/hour

Data Transfer

$/GB

Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Datagen
(development & testing)
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.2083
$0.03
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.2083
$0.03
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.0347
$0.03
Source
$0.2083
$0.03
Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.2083
$0.03
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Source
$0.1000
$0.05
Source
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.2083
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.0347
$0.03
Sink
$0.0347
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.0347
$0.03
Sink
$0.2083
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.2083
$0.03
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.0347
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Sink
$0.1000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1000
$0.05
Sink
$0.3000
$0.05
Sink
$0.1041
$0.03
Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

ksqlDB

Stream processing with ksqlDB is available for use with Basic, Standard, and Dedicated clusters.

A CSU (Confluent Streaming Unit) is the compute unit for fully managed ksqlDB. Clusters can be configured with 1, 2, 4, 8, or 12 CSUs based upon the workload.

ksqlDB CSU
$/CSU-hour
$0.23
Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Stream Governance

Confluent’s Stream Governance suite is available through two packages: Essentials and Advanced. Features and billing dimensions vary by package. Individual environments are billed separately and may be configured with different packages.

Visit Stream Governance documentation to learn more about specific features, capabilities, and limits.

Package

Essentials

The fundamentals for getting started.

Advanced

Enterprise-ready controls for data in motion.

Price
per environment

$/hour

$/schema/hour

$0.00

$0.002 after 1,000 schemas included free

$1.00

$0.00 with a hard limit of 20,000 schemas

Stream Quality Features
schema registry & validation

99.5% uptime SLA

1,000 schemas included free

9 cloud regions supported

99.95% uptime SLA

20,000 schemas limit

30 cloud regions supported

Stream Catalog Features
data organization & discoverability

Auto-technical metadata ingestion

Tags metadata

Cloud UI & REST API

All Essentials features plus:

Business metadata

GraphQL API

Stream Lineage Features
data origin & tracking

Real-time lineage

All in Essentials features plus:

Point-in-time lineage

Lineage search

Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Cluster Linking

Cluster linking sends data from a “source cluster” to a “destination cluster” with billing based on the total number of active links and the volume of data passing between them. Link billing is calculated at the individual cluster level with source and destination clusters counted separately. If a source cluster or destination cluster is not on Confluent Cloud, then that cluster will not accrue any charges.

Destination clusters on Confluent Cloud must be a Dedicated cluster type.

Link
$/link/hour

$0.25/link/hour

For source or destination clusters with public networking.

$0.50/link/hour

For source or destination clusters with private networking.

Data in (Ingress)
$/GB
Same price as Data in (Ingress) rate for the cluster; no additional charge.
Data Out (Egress)
$/GB

$0.25/GB

In place of Data out (Egress) rate for the cluster.

Volume discounts are available. Contact us or your Confluent Cloud account team to find out more.

Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Audit Logs

Alongside default security features built into Confluent Cloud, audit logs are available for Standard and Dedicated clusters to assist with the identification of anomalies or detection of bad actors. Billing is based upon data read from audit log topics.

Audit logs consumption
$/GB
$0.13
Prices vary by cloud region. Learn more about Confluent Cloud Billing.

Support

Confluent is the industry leading expert when it comes to working with Apache Kafka, offering 24/7 expert support directly from the team driving 80% of OSS commits. Free support is always available to all customers alongside our Developer, Business, and Premier packages.

Learn more about our Support packages.

Support Tiers

Free

Developer

Business

Premier

Availability
Available for all customers: Open a request
Recommended for experimenting & non-prod
Recommended for production applications
Recommended for mission critical applications
Pricing
-
Greater of $29 per month
OR

5% of monthly usage

Greater of $1,000 per month
OR

10% of first $50,000 of usage +
8% of next $50,000 of usage +
6% of next $900,000 of usage +
3% of usage over $1M per month

Free

Availability
Available for all customers: Open a request
Pricing
-

Developer

Availability
Recommended for experimenting & non-prod
Pricing
Greater of $29 per month
OR

5% of monthly usage

Business

Availability
Recommended for production applications
Pricing
Greater of $1,000 per month
OR

10% of first $50,000 of usage +
8% of next $50,000 of usage +
6% of next $900,000 of usage +
3% of usage over $1M per month

Premier

Availability
Recommended for mission critical applications
Pricing

Lower the cost of Apache Kafka for your business by up to 60%

Why Confluent?

Cloud-Native
Apache Kafka, fully managed and re-architected to harness the power of the cloud
Complete
Go beyond Kafka with all the essential tools for a complete data streaming platform
Everywhere
Connect your data in real time with a platform that spans from on-prem to cloud and across clouds
Learn more about our cloud-native data streaming platform, Confluent Cloud

Features

Basic

Try Free

Standard

Try Free

Dedicated

Contact Us
Service

3x replication across a single availability zone (AZ)

3x replication across three unique availability zones (AZ). Service not available in cloud regions with less than 3 AZs

SLAs covers both infrastructure and software including Apache Kafka bug fixes on-demand

Single AZ clusters
Multi AZ clusters
Uptime SLA
 
-
99.5%
99.95% Single AZ
99.99% Multi AZ
99.95% Single AZ
99.99% Multi AZ
Scale

Optimize resource utilization through a rack-aware algorithm that rebalances partitions across a Kafka cluster.

Throughput limit
Storage limit
Partition limit
Auto data balancing
 
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress
(1 GBps total)
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress
(1 GBps total)
From 1 to 24 CKUs; each CKU is capable of 50MBps ingress/150MBps egress
5 TBInfinite StorageInfinite Storage
40964096100,000 across all CKUs
Managed Components

Including Schema Registry, Stream Catalog, and Stream Lineage

Build event streaming applications that use stream processing with a lightweight SQL syntax.

Enable easy import and export of data from some of the most commonly used data systems View List of fully managed connectors

Stream Governance
ksqlDB
Connectors
 
1 task limit per connector
Private Network Connectivity

Connect up to 5 VPCs/VNets to Confluent Cloud

VPC/Vnet Peering
AWS PrivateLink
Azure Private Link
AWS Transit Gateway
GCP Private Service Connect
 
--
--
--
--
--
Cloud Providers
AWS
Azure
GCP
 
Monitoring & Visibility

Automated, end-to-end, graphical event stream maps with real-time throughput metrics and one-click downloads View docs

Consume pre-aggregated Kafka cluster and topic level metrics through an API interface

Stream lineage
Metrics API
 
Security

TLS v1.2 for in-transit data & native cloud provider disk encryption for data at-rest

Enforce granular controls over Kafka topic access

Leverage existing Identity Provider (e.g. Okta, OneLogin, AD, Ping) for managing user authentication

Authorization activity stored as Kafka topics using CloudEvents

Bring your own key (BYOK) for an additional layer of security for at-rest data with support for cloud provider’s native key management service

Establish granular user and admin permissions for access and management of environments and clusters

Data encryption
Kafka ACLs
SAML/SSO
Audit Logs
Customer managed keys (BYOK)
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
 
-
--AWS, Google Cloud
Compliance
SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3
ISO 27001
PCI
GDPR readiness
HIPAA readiness
 

Basic

Try Free
Service
Single AZ clusters
Multi AZ clusters
-
Uptime SLA
99.5%
Scale
Throughput limit
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress
(1 GBps total)
Storage limit
5 TB
Partition limit
4096
Auto data balancing
Managed Components
Stream Governance
ksqlDB
Connectors
1 task limit per connector
Private Network Connectivity
VPC/Vnet Peering
-
AWS PrivateLink
-
Azure Private Link
-
AWS Transit Gateway
-
GCP Private Service Connect
-
Cloud Providers
AWS
Azure
GCP
Monitoring & Visibility
Stream lineage
Metrics API
Security
Data encryption
Kafka ACLs
SAML/SSO
Audit Logs
-
Customer managed keys (BYOK)
-
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Compliance
SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3
ISO 27001
PCI
GDPR readiness
HIPAA readiness

Standard

Try Free
Service
Single AZ clusters
Multi AZ clusters
Uptime SLA
99.95% Single AZ
99.99% Multi AZ
Scale
Throughput limit
Up to 250 MBps ingress and 750 MBps egress
(1 GBps total)
Storage limit
Infinite Storage
Partition limit
4096
Auto data balancing
Managed Components
Stream Governance
ksqlDB
Connectors
Private Network Connectivity
VPC/Vnet Peering
-
AWS PrivateLink
-
Azure Private Link
-
AWS Transit Gateway
-
GCP Private Service Connect
-
Cloud Providers
AWS
Azure
GCP
Monitoring & Visibility
Stream lineage
Metrics API
Security
Data encryption
Kafka ACLs
SAML/SSO
Audit Logs
Customer managed keys (BYOK)
-
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Compliance
SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3
ISO 27001
PCI
GDPR readiness
HIPAA readiness

Dedicated

Contact Us
Service
Single AZ clusters
Multi AZ clusters
Uptime SLA
99.95% Single AZ
99.99% Multi AZ
Scale
Throughput limit
From 1 to 24 CKUs; each CKU is capable of 50MBps ingress/150MBps egress
Storage limit
Infinite Storage
Partition limit
100,000 across all CKUs
Auto data balancing
Managed Components
Stream Governance
ksqlDB
Connectors
Private Network Connectivity
VPC/Vnet Peering
AWS PrivateLink
Azure Private Link
AWS Transit Gateway
GCP Private Service Connect
Cloud Providers
AWS
Azure
GCP
Monitoring & Visibility
Stream lineage
Metrics API
Security
Data encryption
Kafka ACLs
SAML/SSO
Audit Logs
Customer managed keys (BYOK)
AWS, Google Cloud
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Compliance
SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3
ISO 27001
PCI
GDPR readiness
HIPAA readiness
Learn more about our cloud-native data streaming platform, Confluent Cloud

Estimate your monthly bill

Simple, transparent, usage-based pricing for use cases large and small.
New signups receive $400 to spend during their first 30 days. No credit card required.
Step 1 - Select Usage Estimate
  • +

Already running Kafka at higher throughput?

Learn how to lower your total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 60%.

Contact Us
  • +

Already running Kafka at higher throughput?

Learn how to lower your total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 60%.

Contact Us
Step 2 - Select Provider and Region
Select a region...
  • Select a region...
  • Select a region...

Step 3 - Monthly Bill Estimate

 Unit PricesMonthly Estimate
Base Cost-.-- USD/hour$-.--
Write
USD/GB
-.-- USD/GB$-.--
Read
USD/GB
-.-- USD/GB$-.--
Data Stored
USD/GB-hour
-.-- USD/GB-hour$-.--
Partitions
USD/hour
-.-- USD/hour$-.--
Subtotal$-.--
Free Trial Offer-$400.00
Total Monthly Estimate$-.--
Try Free

New signups receive $400 to spend during their first 60 days. No credit card required.

Already running Kafka at higher throughput?

Learn how to lower your total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 60%.

Contact Us
*Monthly estimates based on 720 hours per month. Storage charges based on default topic replication factor of 3. Contact sales for more information.

FAQs

How is my monthly bill calculated?

Billing for each Confluent Cloud component accrues at hourly intervals. All billing computations are conducted in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Confluent monthly bills are based upon resource consumption:

  • Kafka clusters are billed for Networking ($/GB), Storage ($/hour), and fixed costs including Partitions ($/hour).
  • Add-on use of Connectors is billed based upon throughput ($/GB) and a task base price for Dedicated clusters ($/task/hour).
  • Add-on use of stream processing with ksqlDB is billed based upon Confluent streaming units ($/unit/hour).
  • Add-on use of Cluster Linking is billed at an hourly rate per link ($/Hour/Link) and by the data sent/received over all links ($/GB).
  • Add-on use of Audit Logs is billed based upon data read ($/GB).

Confluent storage and throughput is calculated in binary gigabytes (GB), where 1 GB is 2^30 bytes. This unit of measurement is also known as a gibibyte (GiB).

How can I get Confluent discounts?

When you commit to an annual plan, you can get discounts based on your usage.

What are annual commitments?

Confluent Cloud offers the ability to make a commitment to a minimum amount of spend. This commitment gives you access to discounts and provides the flexibility to use this commitment across the entire Confluent Cloud stack, including any Kafka cluster type, ksqlDB, Connect and Support. With self-serve provisioning and expansion, you have the freedom to consume only what you need from a commitment at any point in time. For more information about annual commitments, contact us.

Learn more about our cloud-native data streaming platform, Confluent Cloud