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- Zesty Pricing (2026): Plans, Features, and Cost Breakdown
Zesty Pricing (2026): Plans, Features, and Cost Breakdown
Cloud cost optimization can deliver meaningful savings—but it’s easy to waste money when usage shifts and your resources and commitments don’t adjust with it. Zesty was built to automate optimization in Kubernetes environments and manage commitments so customers can keep costs aligned over time.
But what exactly does Zesty do, how does its pricing model work, and is it the right fit for your FinOps strategy?
This guide explores Zesty cost, features, and possible alternatives to help you decide whether the platform is right for your organization—or if there’s a better option.
What Does Zesty Do?
Zesty is a cloud cost optimization platform that focuses on reducing infrastructure waste through automation. Zesty originally focused on commitment management (Savings Plans and Reserved Instances), and in recent years its positioning has shifted more toward Kubernetes-focused optimization—automating resource allocation adjustments to better match real usage. Zesty continues to offer a Commitment Manager alongside its Kubernetes optimization products.
Compared to broader cloud cost management platforms that prioritize reporting, governance, and budgeting tools, Zesty is positioned more as an execution-focused platform — aimed at actively optimizing resources rather than primarily surfacing visibility and recommendations.
Zesty’s optimization capabilities are primarily focused on AWS services, with some support for Azure; public documentation does not clearly indicate broad Google Cloud support.
What Features Does Zesty Offer?
Zesty offers various features relating to its cost saving platform, including:
Automated Kubernetes Cost Optimization
Zesty’s Kubernetes optimization is delivered through its Kompass platform, which combines automation for areas like pod rightsizing, headroom reduction, persistent volume scaling, and (in some cases) spot instance management. In the Kubernetes cost tooling landscape, this is the “automation-first” approach (making ongoing adjustments) rather than a recommendations-only product. The upside, in theory, is less manual tuning and fewer stale recommendations as clusters change; the tradeoff is that results depend heavily on how well the automation fits your workloads and operational constraints (e.g., autoscaling behavior, workload sensitivity, and governance around what changes are allowed).
Spot Instance Automation
Zesty’s Spot automation is designed to increase the use of Spot capacity in Kubernetes clusters while reducing the operational burden of managing interruptions. It integrates with cluster scaling tools and uses mechanisms like pre-provisioned capacity to help workloads recover more quickly from Spot terminations. In the broader market, this fits the “Spot with automation” model rather than simple migration recommendations. As with any Spot strategy, the value depends on workload tolerance for interruption and how well the automation aligns with your cluster configuration.
Storage Optimization (EBS Volume Management)
This is mainly about automating EBS resizing (via Zesty Disk Machine Learning) and autoscaling persistent volumes for Kubernetes workloads. The potential upside to Zesty Disk is straightforward—less unused capacity over time—while the tradeoff is that this automation is relatively narrow in scope (vs broader cost platforms) and still requires fit-for-workload guardrails and operational comfort with automated changes to stateful storage.
Commitment Management & Savings Plan Optimization
Zesty’s Commitment Manager is designed to automate AWS commitment actions (primarily Savings Plans, and it has also referenced managing commitments more broadly) using billing/usage data and a “success-based” pricing model (a percentage of savings). While Zesty originally led with commitment management as a core/flagship offering, its newer product launches and messaging put more emphasis on Kubernetes optimization (Kompass) alongside commitments.
Cloud Cost Visibility & Reporting
Zesty’s visibility/reporting is mainly delivered through its Zesty Insights and Kompass dashboards, with cluster/node/workload cost and utilization views plus “potential savings” recommendations. In the broader market, this is closer to “operational visibility to support optimization” than a full FinOps reporting layer (e.g., deep allocation models, budgeting/forecasting, cost efficiency KPIs, or finance-grade chargeback across the org).
Continuous Cost Optimization
Zesty positions its Kubernetes, storage, spot, and commitment capabilities to work together as an always-on optimization layer rather than one-time recommendations. In theory, the benefit of an “all-in-one” approach is fewer handoffs between tools and a more unified optimization workflow. The tradeoff is that broader platforms—especially smaller vendors—may not go as deep in every area as best-of-breed tools that specialize in a single domain.
Zesty Cloud Optimization Pricing: How Much Does Zesty Cost in 2026?
Zesty’s pricing is modular, meaning you can adopt one product or several, and the costs stack based on what you enable.
While each component uses a different pricing model, costs generally scale with your infrastructure footprint:
Kompass (Kubernetes compute) is usage-based
Zesty Disk (storage) uses tiered pricing based on managed volume.
Commitment Manager uses a success-based model
How Zesty Pricing Works
Let’s break down each of the pricing models and overall factors impacting your final bill.
Base Fee
Zesty states that a minimal monthly base fee applies to provide access to Insights, which includes visibility into your cloud environment and recommendations. This base fee is separate from the usage-based charges for Kompass/Disk and the success-based fee for Commitment Manager.
Savings-Based Pricing Model
Zesty uses a savings-based pricing model for its Commitment Manager product. Rather than charging a flat subscription fee for commitment optimization, Zesty takes a percentage of the savings it generates from managing Savings Plans and Reserved Instances.
To make that concrete, if your contract’s Savings Share were 25% and Zesty generated $100,000 in monthly savings, you’d pay $25,000 for that month (this is for illustrative purposes only with the actual number depending on various factors).
Usage-Based Fees (Kubernetes, Storage)
For Kompass and Disk, Zesty uses usage-based pricing tied to the amount of infrastructure the platform manages—rather than a per-seat license.
On its pricing page, Zesty describes this as:
Kompass: a $500 monthly base fee plus $5 per managed vCPU per month
Zesty Disk: tiered pricing based on managed storage volume (with different rates at higher tiers)
Zesty also notes that billing is handled monthly, and that charges adjust if your managed resource footprint grows or shrinks during the billing cycle.
Contract Terms (Annual Agreements)
The specific contract you negotiate with Zesty will determine a few key commercial details—especially for Commitment Manager:
Savings Share rate (and how it changes with term length): Zesty describes Commitment Manager as success-based and notes that longer contracts can qualify for lower savings-share percentages. Its help docs also publish an “entry model” of 25% of savings, but the final rate is contract-dependent.
Whether you have to commit to a fixed term: Zesty states you do not need to commit upfront to a specific period of time for Commitment Manager, but it requires 30 days’ written notice prior to cancellation.
How billing is handled: Zesty states billing is monthly, and its documentation references a standard monthly bill and billing report definitions.
How “performance protection” is handled (guarantee): Zesty describes a savings guarantee for commitments it purchases on your behalf—if a commitment costs more than the equivalent On-Demand usage, the difference is credited on the following month’s bill (with exclusions, such as over-provisioning driven by user action).
Minimum Cloud Spend Requirements
In its help documentation, Zesty states that a minimum monthly cloud spend of $7,000 in On-Demand EC2 spend is required to use its services.
Practically, that requirement is a rough threshold for when commitment-based savings programs (RIs/Savings Plans/Reservations/CUDs) tend to be “worth it” to optimize.
Key Drawbacks of Zesty’s Pricing Model
There are a few tradeoffs to consider when it comes to how Zesty works:
Limited pricing transparency: Zesty publishes some unit pricing (e.g., per managed vCPU and storage tiers), but key variables—especially the Commitment Manager savings-share percentage and any negotiated discounts—aren’t fully standardized or publicly visible, so it’s hard to estimate total cost without a sales conversation.
AWS-centric optimization focus: Zesty’s clearest documentation and deepest integrations are oriented towards AWS compute and other AWS services; while there is some Azure support, public materials don’t clearly show the same breadth across clouds, which can be limiting for multi-cloud teams.
Savings-share pricing can increase effective cost over time: Success-based pricing aligns fees to outcomes, but as savings grow (often alongside scale), total fees can rise materially—so it’s worth modeling the effective “take rate” versus a flat-fee alternative at your expected savings level.
Dependency on specific optimization modules: Because pricing and value are modular, you may need multiple products (Kompass + Disk + Commitment Manager) to cover the optimization areas you care about—and the combined cost can look different than evaluating each module in isolation.
Enterprise contract requirements: Items like contract length, renewal terms, cancellation notice windows, support/onboarding expectations, and any savings guarantees or exclusions can meaningfully affect the real-world economics, especially for larger environments.
Is There a Better Zesty Alternative?
Zesty positions itself as an automation-focused cloud cost optimization platform, combining Kubernetes efficiency, storage optimization, and commitment management under one umbrella. For teams that want a single vendor handling multiple optimization layers, that breadth can be appealing.
But if your primary goal is maximizing total realized cloud savings—especially for AWS Savings Plans and Reserved Instances—the optimization model matters more than feature breadth.
nOps’ differentiator in commitment management is its hourly optimization approach—designed to capture more incremental savings (often ~20% additional over competitors) with more flexibility and lower risk. Instead of taking larger, long-term bets, small hourly buys keep commitments continuously matched to actual usage — for cost savings without the lock-in.
nOps offers a Free Savings analysis to evaluate your commitments at no cost. Customers have uncovered tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of dollars in additional savings by switching to nOps. Either you’ll validate you’re already perfectly optimized, or you’ll find savings still on the table—free to find out.
nOps vs Zesty: Key Differences
| Category | Zesty | nOps |
|---|---|---|
| Commitment Automation Depth | Automated commitment optimization with savings-share pricing | Hourly autonomous commitment optimization for higher effective savings rates |
| Kubernetes Automation | Kompass: rightsizing, headroom, storage, Spot | Rightsizing, autoscaling, Spot all available |
| Pricing Model | Modular: usage-based (K8s/storage) + savings-share (commitments) | Savings-share or flat-fee options |
| Cloud Coverage | Primarily AWS | Multi-cloud: AWS, Azure, and GCP commitment management |
| Implementation Complexity | Multiple infrastructure modules and agents | Lightweight deployment with minimal setup |
| Continuous Optimization | Automation across modules at regular intervals | Hourly optimization for more incremental savings |
| Time-to-Value | Depends on modules | Free Savings Analysis + 30 minute time-to-value |
The bottom line is that Zesty may be the right fit if you want a Kubernetes-focused cost management suite — but if your priority is faster savings through continuous, automated optimization, it’s worth seeing what an automation-first platform can deliver.
Book a free savings analysis to find out if nOps can help you get more value out of your cloud investments. nOps manages $3B+ in cloud spend and was recently rated #1 in G2’s Cloud Cost Management category.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s dive into a few FAQ about the Zesty team and solutions.
How much does Zesty cost?
Zesty doesn’t publish a single all-in price. What you pay depends on how much infrastructure is in scope and how much savings are achieved. In practice, costs tend to scale as your environment scales, especially in Kubernetes-heavy setups.
What pricing model does Zesty use?
The pricing model depends on the product. Different products are usage based, tiered, or percentage of savings. There is typically a base charge on all bills, but no additional fees for support team.
Is Zesty suitable for small or mid-size companies?
Zesty can work for a mid-sized or small business customer running Kubernetes or managing significant AWS infrastructure. However, Commitment Manager requires at least $7,000 in monthly On-Demand EC2 spend, which may limit suitability for very small engineering teams with minimal cloud commitment activity.
Does Zesty support multi-cloud pricing optimization?
Zesty primarily focuses on AWS, with some documented Azure support. Public documentation does not clearly indicate broad Google Cloud support. Potential customers operating heavily in GCP or across multiple clouds might need a GCP-enabled commitment management platform.
