The Google Kubernetes service effectively runs a cluster of nodes (cloud VM instances) that host containers and the Kubernetes orchestration layer. Again, we can see how the type and number of VMs we pick dramatically alter how much we pay. The lesson is a recurring one: many GCP services are based on GCE VMs, and those VMs vary wildly in their costs. The left-hand side screenshot shows a five-node cluster running on n1-standard-16 instances, and costing $1,941/month, whereas the right-hand side screenshot is a single-node cluster running on f1-micro, and it costs just $3.88/month.