Updated 25 October 2026 · Published by Zoorik
EKS Auto Mode is a mode of Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), where AWS runs your nodes, not just the control plane. It picks, patches and removes the EC2 instances your pods run on, and replaces each one within 21 days.
- It also manages load balancing and block storage.
- It adds nodes for pods that can’t be scheduled, using Karpenter.
- It consolidates, packing pods onto fewer nodes.
A node Auto Mode won’t consolidate
Say a pod has the annotation karpenter.sh/do-not-disrupt set to true. Auto Mode won’t consolidate its node while that pod runs, even when the node is mostly idle, so you keep paying for it.
EKS Auto Mode vs managed node groups
In a managed node group, EKS runs your EC2 instances at no extra charge. But you pick the instance types and roll out patched node images.
Auto Mode does that work for a fee, so EKS Auto Mode is worth it when that work costs more.
Why it matters for your bill
EKS Auto Mode isn’t free. EKS Auto Mode pricing adds a fee per instance, on top of the EC2 price.
- The fee varies by instance type.
- A Savings Plan or spot price doesn’t change the fee.
Auto Mode sizes nodes to your pods’ requests, so EKS Auto Mode cost follows your requests, not real use.
- Coral rebalances CPU and memory requests on AKS and EKS to match real use, so the same pods fit on fewer nodes.
- The free assessment works out your own figure.
Read next: What is Karpenter? How it picks and removes nodes
Sources: AWS, “Automate cluster infrastructure with EKS Auto Mode” (opens in a new tab); AWS, “Cost optimization in EKS Auto Mode” (opens in a new tab); AWS, “Simplify node lifecycle with managed node groups” (opens in a new tab); AWS, “Amazon EKS pricing” (opens in a new tab).