Why Kubernetes Management Is Hard
Running production Kubernetes requires expertise most SMBs don't have in-house
No In-House Expertise
Hiring Kubernetes engineers costs €80,000+/year. Even then, you need multiple specialists for networking, storage, security, and monitoring. Most businesses can't justify dedicated platform teams.
Platform Maintenance Overhead
Kubernetes updates every 3 months. Security patches weekly. etcd backups. Certificate rotation. Monitoring setup. Node upgrades. Your team should focus on applications, not platform babysitting.
Cloud Costs Spiral out of Control
AWS EKS: $73/month control plane + expensive EC2 instances + $90/TB egress. Azure/GKE similar. Bills increase 20-30% annually. Vendor lock-in makes it hard to leave.
Own Network
Metrics Monitored
Uptime History
Years Experience
Production-Ready Managed Kubernetes
Complete infrastructure management with senior engineer support. Clusters from €668/month, ordered online.
Platform Stack
- ✓ RKE2 Control Plane (3-master HA)
- ✓ Rancher UI
- ✓ Prometheus + Grafana monitoring
- ✓ Storage CSI (Longhorn/CEPH)
- ✓ ArgoCD (optional)
- ✓ Private Git Repo/Registry (optional)
We Manage
- ✓ Control plane & etcd backups
- ✓ Worker OS patches
- ✓ Kubernetes upgrades
- ✓ Certificate rotation
- ✓ 24/7 monitoring & alerting
- ✓ Scaling (add/remove nodes)
Expert Support
- ✓ Direct access to senior engineers
- ✓ No ticketing ping-pong
- ✓ No scripted responses
- ✓ 15+ years infrastructure experience
- ✓ 8x5 phone + Teams support
- ✓ One point of contact
Standard Tooling, No Lock-In
kubectl, Helm, Terraform, ArgoCD or Flux against a plain kubeconfig from the Rancher UI. HAProxy Ingress is included; Nginx Ingress was retired in March 2026, here is why we run HAProxy.
Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure
Built on enterprise hardware and carrier-grade networking. No consumer-grade shortcuts.
Network
- AS215197 - Own autonomous system
- 100Gbps Backbone - Cisco infrastructure
- DE-CIX, AMS-IX - Sites right next door
- Multi-path - Redundant routing
Hardware
- Supermicro - Enterprise servers
- Kioxia NVMe - SSD storage
- CEPH NVMe - Distributed storage
- ECC RAM - Error correction
- Redundant PSU - Dual power feeds
- LACP bonding - Dual uplinks
Platform
- RKE2 v1.34.1 - CNCF conformant
- Tier III - Datacenter certification
- DE, NL, FI - EU datacenter locations
- GDPR Compliant - EU data residency
Every component matters. We don't cut corners on hardware, network, or operations.
15+ years building production infrastructure. German company, German engineering standards.
Simple, Transparent Pricing
Cluster prices include the €95/month management fee and three worker nodes. Add nodes anytime; storage and egress are billed per use. No per-IOPS charges. No per-request fees.
Cluster Sizes
Medium
- 24 vCPUs / 96 GB RAM cluster capacity
- 3 worker nodes, 100 GB NVMe local each
- Managed HA control plane, Rancher UI, monitoring
- Additional nodes €191/month (+8 vCPUs / 32 GB)
- 12-month term, billed monthly, no setup fee
- 10 Gbps bandwidth
- Production apps
Large
- 48 vCPUs / 192 GB RAM cluster capacity
- 3 worker nodes, 100 GB NVMe local each
- Managed HA control plane, Rancher UI, monitoring
- Additional nodes €367/month (+16 vCPUs / 64 GB)
- 12-month term, billed monthly, no setup fee
- 25 Gbps bandwidth
- High-traffic, databases
Enterprise
- Custom node sizes, memory-optimized or GPU
- Multi-datacenter or dedicated hardware
- 100 Gbps uplinks, external firewall and load balancer
- Architecture workshop and knowledge transfer
- Individual SLA
Medium and Large clusters are ordered online and set up by our engineers within 2 business days. Prefer no commitment? Choose the monthly term in the cart for a one-time €500 setup fee. Enterprise configurations (memory-optimized 1:8 ratio, GPU nodes, high-frequency CPUs, 100 Gbps uplinks) are quoted individually. All prices exclude VAT.
Storage
| CEPH (NVMe) | €0.06/GB/month |
| S3 object storage (ZERO-Z3, separate service) | €0.0075/GB/month |
Network
| Egress | €5.00/TB |
| Ingress | FREE |
Optional Add-ons
ArgoCD (GitOps)
Private Git/Container Registry
External Firewall (Cisco)
External Loadbalancer
Example: Medium Cluster
| 3× Medium workers (24 vCPUs / 96 GB RAM total) | €573 |
| Management fee | €95 |
| 500 GB CEPH NVMe storage | €30 |
| 5 TB egress/month | €25 |
| Total: | €723/month |
Azure AKS equivalent: ~€1,212/mo* | Save 40%
ZERO-RKE vs Cloud Providers
Same cluster, less cost, better support
| Feature | ZERO-RKE | AWS EKS | Azure AKS | Google GKE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Node Cluster Total | €723/mo | ~€1,211/mo* | ~€1,212/mo* | ~€1,222/mo* |
| 3× Medium workers + 500 GB storage + 5 TB egress/month - Breakdown below ↓ | ||||
| Control Plane | €95/mo (incl. monitoring) | €63/mo | Free** | €62/mo |
| 3× Workers (8 vCPUs / 32 GB each) | €573 | €720 | €720 | €732 |
| Storage (500 GB) | €30 | €43*** | €55*** | €43*** |
| Egress (5 TB/month) | €25 | €385 | €375 | €385 |
| Key Differentiators ↓ | ||||
| Monitoring | Included | Extra | Extra | Extra |
| Support Access | 8x5 phone + Teams (billed hourly) | Enterprise only | Extra | Extra |
| EU Data Residency | Always | Optional | Optional | Optional |
| Vendor Lock-In | None | High | High | High |
*All competitor total prices converted from USD to EUR using exchange rate: 1 USD = 0.86 EUR (November 2025)
**Azure control plane free but requires Standard tier (€62/mo) for production SLA
***Cloud provider storage pricing excludes per-IOPS charges (AWS: €0.005-0.065/IOPS, Azure: €0.0005-0.12/IOPS, GKE: €0.06-0.18/IOPS). Zero Services has no per-IOPS or per-request fees. Predictable flat-rate pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Medium cluster (24 vCPUs / 96 GB RAM across three worker nodes) is €668/month, a Large cluster (48 vCPUs / 192 GB RAM) €1,196/month. Both include the €95 management fee (monitoring, support, 1h management); additional nodes are €191 (+8 vCPUs / 32 GB) or €367 (+16 vCPUs / 64 GB) per month. Ceph storage and egress are billed per use. The 12-month term has no setup fee; a monthly term without commitment costs a one-time €500 setup fee. Enterprise configurations are quoted individually.
Medium and Large clusters ordered online are set up by our engineers within 2 business days; an emergency deployment within 24 hours is possible on request. Enterprise and custom configurations (GPU nodes, memory-optimised nodes, multi-datacenter) depend on hardware availability. Lead times vary; we agree the schedule with you in the initial call.
Yes. Add or remove worker nodes anytime. We handle the infrastructure changes. Your applications continue running (Kubernetes reschedules pods automatically).
Control plane (3-master HA), Rancher UI, HAProxy Ingress, Prometheus + Grafana monitoring + alerting, platform updates, 1 hour management time monthly, Access to 8x5 phone + Teams support.
GPU-enabled worker nodes available (NVIDIA A2000, A4000 Ada, A6000 Ada). Custom pricing based on GPU model. Useful for AI/ML inference, rendering, scientific computing.
Yes. We can deploy clusters across FRA1, FRA2, HEL1, EYL1 for geo-redundancy. Requires additional networking (MPLS backhaul recommended). Contact us for multi-DC design.
Yes. Most customers perform their own migrations using standard Kubernetes tools (kubectl, Helm, Terraform). We provide optional migration assistance including DNS cutover planning, workload migration strategy, and data migration support. Typical timeline: 1–2 weeks.
Latest stable RKE2 version (currently v1.34.1, based on Kubernetes 1.34). We follow upstream releases and provide upgrades quarterly during maintenance windows.
Yes, 12 months minimum. We offer discounts for 36-month commitments.
We maintain 99.99% uptime history across our infrastructure. Control plane is HA (3 masters), worker nodes can be spread across datacenters, redundant networking via AS215197.
Ready to Discuss Your Requirements?
Let's design the right Kubernetes infrastructure for your business
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