Small business▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 2% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 8 → 23 of 78
Kubecost
75Judge labels
1First choices
4Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
2Categories
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
2% in FinOps for mid-market buyers
Rank 8 of 76 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 3% of its 31 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Kubecost →By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.
Small business24 of 83
0%24 labels
accepted challenger
Mid-market8 of 76
2%31 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise12 of 73
0%15 labels
accepted challenger
In finops · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Kubecost for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud cost management | Cloud and infrastructure | 2% | 8 of 76 | 3% | 31 | accepted challenger | ▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
| IT financial management | IT operations and endpoint | 0% | 60 of 159 | 0% | 3 | under 10 labels · led by Nicus ITFM Platform at 9% |
Movement
Since September 2026, Kubecost held within the floor in all two categories: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · FinOps · by segment
Mid-market▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
2%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 12 → 7 of 70
Enterprise=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 12 → 10 of 71
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FinOps | 0% | 2% | ▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 12 → 8 of 76 |
| IT financial mgmt | 0% | 0% | newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now. | New this edition | Rank 60 of 159, unchanged |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Kubecost across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Kubecost across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mistral Small | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
By framing
Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.
FramingLabels by classFirst choices
Direct9 labelsNone
Paraphrase6 labelsNone
Comparative22 labels1not counted in share
Budget-constrained15 labels1
Scale-constrained12 labelsNone
Negative11 labelsNone
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative75 labels in all, every segment counted; 1 of the 2 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“Kubecost (if using Kubernetes), nOps (for broader cloud cost management), and Pump (for AWS users) are among the best free or low-cost options” Mistral Small · FinOps · budget prompt · first choice
“If you use Kubernetes extensively: Kubecost is the industry standard.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · FinOps · comparative prompt · first choice
“Best for Kubernetes-Heavy Estates: *Kubecost*. The gold standard if your cloud spend is overwhelmingly centered around EKS, AKS, or GKE.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · FinOps · scale prompt · alternative
“Free tier: Unlimited clusters up to 250 cores, 15-day data retention; Paid: Business starts at $449/month” Kimi K2 · FinOps · budget prompt · alternative
And against it
Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.
“Kubecost (acquired by IBM)... Use cautiously if you value an independent vendor” Qwen 3.7 Flash · FinOps · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Kubecost, over the 75 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Kubecost was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Kubecost, over the 75 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Kubecost was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.
What carried it into the answer
The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Kubecost. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 63 of the 75 answers that named Kubecost and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
cloudaware.com47
cloudzero.com39
amnic.com32
nops.io26
finout.io24
openmetal.io24
usage.ai22
g2.com21
vantage.sh18
cloudbolt.io17
No domain is on file for Kubecost, so its own site is not marked.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
Where Kubecost stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.ShowHide
Search and answers
Where Kubecost stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimates- Searches for its name, Google
- 1,000 a month (“kubecost”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 25 a month
- Its own site
- No site of its own on file, so no site figures
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
2%
rank 8 of 76 in finops
Segment leader
45%
Vantage
- First choices
- 1 across its categories
- Named in
- 75 answers
- Its own site cited
- No site on file to match
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Names read as Kubecost
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Kubecost; a claim can dispute any of them.
KubeCost 2Kubecost (Community Edition) 1
Follow Kubecost
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
Is this your product?
Claim this page
Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Kubecost's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Kubecost, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Kubecost by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Kubecost is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Kubecost, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.