Kong Konnect is Kong’s hosted platform. Kong’s Service Level Agreement describes it as a “hosted SaaS API management platform” that customers can use as a control plane for Kong software they run themselves, called Konnect Hybrid, or as a control plane for single-tenant Kong Gateway Enterprise instances that Kong manages, which is sold as Dedicated Cloud Gateways.[2] The current pricing page groups the platform into three solutions, AI Management, API Management and Event Management, each shown with a Plus and an Enterprise column, and states that “each solution is available on its own”.[1] This article records the public rate card and the billing rules, as of 2026-10-08, for software asset managers who need to model Konnect spend or reconcile an invoice.
Editions
Plus. Plus is the self-service plan, priced “From $25/month plus usage, billed monthly”, with a 30-day free trial and no credit card required for the trial.[1] It is aimed at smaller programs. The pricing page describes API Management Plus as “Manage and productize smaller API programs” and AI Management Plus as “Start governing smaller LLM, MCP, and A2A deployments”.[1] Credit card is the supported payment method, in US dollars only.[1]
Enterprise. Enterprise is “Custom, billed annually”. Customers pay by invoice or purchase order, the duration is set in the Order Form, and changes are made through sales.[1] The Enterprise column adds enterprise controls (SSO, SCIM and audit logging in API Management), dedicated training and support, multiple developer portals and customizable limits with volume discounts.[1] Catalog proof: Plus accepts credit card in USD; Enterprise may pay by invoice or PO.
Event Management. For Event Management the rate card shows only Enterprise: Plus is shown as “Not available” for hybrid Event Gateways, virtual clusters and policy features.[1] Enterprise includes 5 virtual clusters, with additional virtual clusters priced as listed, an unlimited number of events, and a self-managed data plane for the SLA.[1] Catalog proof: Event Management is Enterprise only and includes 5 virtual clusters.
| Catalog SKU | Plan | Term and price |
|---|---|---|
| Konnect Plus (AI Management) | Plus | Monthly in arrears; from $25 per month plus usage |
| Konnect Plus (API Management) | Plus | Monthly in arrears; from $25 per month plus usage |
| Konnect Enterprise (AI Management) | Enterprise | Custom, billed annually |
| Konnect Enterprise (API Management) | Enterprise | Custom, billed annually |
| Konnect Enterprise (Event Management) | Enterprise | Custom, billed annually |
| Konnect Dedicated Cloud Gateways | Plus and Enterprise | $500 per month per control plane plus $0.15 per GB on Plus |
Metrics
The rate card is a list of billable resources and volumes. Quantities below are the Plus plan figures on the API Management tab, which the AI Management tab mirrors with “requests” in place of “API requests”.[1]
| Resource | Included on Plus | Price beyond included | Plus limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control plane: Dedicated Cloud Gateway | none stated | $500 per month per control plane | up to 2 |
| Control plane: hybrid gateway | none stated | $200 per month per control plane | up to 2 |
| Control plane: serverless gateway | none stated | $25 per month per control plane | up to 5; no SLA |
| API request (gateway transaction volume) | 1 million per month | $200 per month per additional 1 million | 10 million per month |
| AI Gateway request | 1 million per month | $200 per month per additional 1 million | 10 million per month |
| AI Gateway model (unique LLMs proxied) | 5 | $100 per month per model | 5 |
| Developer Portal | 1 | $200 per month per additional portal | 2 |
| Published API | 2 | $20 per month for the first 10 total APIs; $10 per month for every extra API | 20 |
| Request analytics | first 1 million API requests per month | $20 per 1 million above 1 million | 10 million per month; 14 months retention |
| Ingested event (Metering and Billing) | not stated | $20 per million events | up to 10 million events |
| Billing volume (Metering and Billing) | not stated | 0.4% of billing volume | up to $250,000 |
| Access token (Kong Identity) | not stated | $30 per 1 million access tokens | 10 million per month |
| Dedicated Cloud Gateway bandwidth | not stated | $0.15 per GB | none stated |
Catalog proof: Hybrid gateway control planes on Plus cost $200 per month with a limit of 2; Serverless gateway control planes on Plus cost $25 per month with a limit of 5 and no SLA; Dedicated Cloud Gateway control planes cost $500 per month plus $0.15 per GB; Plus includes 1 million API requests per month; extra blocks cost $200; AI Gateway model proxy limit counts unique LLMs measured hourly and enforced monthly; Published APIs and portals are priced per month beyond the included amounts; Metering and Billing is priced per ingested event and per billing volume; Kong Identity access tokens are priced per million tokens issued.
For Enterprise, the same lines show “Customizable” limits or “Volume discounts available” rather than published prices.[1] The rate card has a few ambiguities. The Metering and Billing “Billing Volume” row is described as “the amount of billed invoices in USD”, and Kong’s text on the analytics row reads “per extra 20M API requests per months” while the price is stated per 1 million requests above 1 million.[1] Where the rate card is unclear, the Order Form or Kong’s account team is the authority; the Customer Agreement says usage limits are those in the Order Form or on the registration or administrative web page.[4]
AI Gateway
On the AI Management tab the rate card lists AI Gateway plugins as free or paid. Enterprise plugins named on the page are AI AWS Guardrails, AI Azure Content Safety, AI Prompt Compressor, AI Proxy Advanced, AI RAG Injector, AI Rate Limiting Advanced, AI Sanitizer, AI Semantic Cache and AI Semantic Prompt Guard, shown as “Available as an add-on” on Plus and “Included” on Enterprise, as is AI Gateway Manager.[1] The model proxy limit counts “Unique LLMs proxied by AI plugins measured hourly, enforced monthly”, at 5 on Plus with $100 per month per model beyond.[1] A self-managed gateway applies the same idea through its licence: release 3.13.0.0 flags requests that use AI Enterprise plugins so they are not counted twice against API requests.[9]
Counting / floors
Hourly metering. The pricing FAQ says that “resource based usage metrics such as Control Planes, Portals, Published APIs are metered hourly and prorated based on amount of usage every month”, and that the monthly prices on the rate card are calculated on an average of 730 hours per calendar month and 8,760 hours per year.[1] A control plane that exists for part of a month is therefore charged for the hours it was provisioned. Catalog proof: Resource metrics are metered hourly and prorated on 730 hours per month.
Billing cycle. Invoices are calculated at the end of each calendar month and due at the start of the next. Plans are billed monthly in arrears: a customer is charged for the previous month at the start of the following month.[1] Catalog proof: Konnect Plus is billed monthly in arrears from the rate card.
Plus limits. A Plus customer who exceeds monthly resource limits receives email and in-app notifications “prompting you to reduce usage or upgrade”. SSO and audit logs are available only with Enterprise.[1] Catalog proof: Exceeding Plus limits triggers notices; SSO and audit logs are Enterprise only. Under the Customer Agreement, Kong “may invoice Customer for any excess or additional use exceeding the usage limits set out in the Order Form”, and increased limits purchased mid-term are prorated.[4]
Control plane resource limits. Separate from billing, every Konnect API Gateway control plane has a default limit per entity, which also applies to Dedicated Cloud Gateway control planes. Examples include 10,000 Services, 10,000 Routes, 50,000 Consumers, 100 Custom Plugins and a limit of 100 Control Planes. Kong Support can raise a limit on request.[5] Catalog proof: Konnect control planes have default per-entity resource limits.
Virtualization & partitioning
Konnect is priced per control plane, and a control plane groups the gateway data plane nodes that run its configuration. The Dedicated Cloud Gateways reference explains that creating a Dedicated Cloud Gateway creates a Konnect control plane hosted by Konnect, that data planes can then be deployed in different regions, and that Konnect “pre-warms and autoscales the data plane nodes automatically” from the expected requests per second.[6] The rate card lists no per-node price for Dedicated Cloud Gateways; it prices the control plane and the bandwidth.[1] On Plus, a Dedicated Cloud Gateway control plane is limited to one region; Enterprise has “No region limitations”.[1]
Cloud / BYOL
Konnect Hybrid keeps the control plane in Konnect and runs Kong software in the Customer Network Environment.[2] That environment may include the customer’s own servers and servers of third-party cloud providers such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.[4] Self-managed Enterprise nodes use the licence rules in Kong Gateway open-source and Enterprise licensing. For a deployment connected to Konnect, the Gateway documentation says that “all licensing is handled automatically by Konnect”.[10] For fully self-hosted gateways, where both the control plane and the data plane are hosted locally, Kong says they are available “as a part of our separate Gateway Enterprise offering” with fully custom pricing negotiated with Kong.[1] Catalog proof: Fully self-hosted gateways are a separate Gateway Enterprise offering with custom pricing.
For Dedicated Cloud Gateways the Product-Specific Terms say that customer content passing through the hosted gateways is proxied and not stored, and that the customer may access the Konnect control plane for 30 days after termination or expiry (if not renewed) only to retrieve its content there.[3] Kong may monitor and inspect traffic and logs to derive Usage Data.[3] Catalog proof: Dedicated Cloud Gateway control plane remains accessible for 30 days after termination.
Programs
- Konnect 30-day free trial. The trial is free and has no credit card requirement on the pricing page.[1] The Customer Agreement says a trial is for evaluation purposes only.[4]
- Konnect legacy rate cards. Organizations that signed up between 2023-09-26 and 2025-03-01 have a separate rate card, published as a PDF. Organizations that signed up for Free or Plus before 2025-03-01 can use the earlier sign-in page. Those that signed up before 2023-09-26 register a new Plus account to move to the current Plus plan.[1] Catalog proof: Earlier Konnect Free and Plus sign-ups use legacy rate cards.
- Konnect Enterprise support tiers. Diamond: 24x7, 30-minute SLA. Platinum: 24x7, 1-hour SLA. Business: regional business hours, 2-hour SLA. Plus has email-only support with a 2 business day SLA.[1] Catalog proof: Enterprise support tiers are Diamond, Platinum and Business.
- Konnect and Dedicated Cloud Gateways Service Credits. The pricing FAQ gives a target availability for Konnect of 99.9% per calendar month, and the rate card shows a 99.99% SLA for Dedicated Cloud Gateways.[1] To claim a Service Credit the customer must log a support ticket within 24 hours of becoming aware of the event and submit the claim by the end of the following month. Credits apply only to the affected cluster, cannot be converted to money and are the sole remedy.[2] Catalog proof: Service Credits require a ticket within 24 hours and a claim by the end of the next month; Service Credits are the sole remedy and cannot be converted to money.
Metering and Billing
Kong Metering and Billing is part of Konnect, and Kong states on its product page that “OpenMeter Cloud is now Kong Konnect Metering and Billing”.[8] For the customer’s own purposes it is both a Kong product with its own meters, and a way to meter usage by the customer’s end customers. Entitlements in the product are an attribute of rate cards and come in three types: metered (usage limits per period, with optional soft limit and overage preservation), static (a customer-specific JSON configuration) and boolean (access to a feature on or off).[7] These entitlement types describe how a customer configures its own plans in the product. They are not Kong’s licence terms for the product, which are the rate card and the Order Form.
Out of scope
This article does not cover Konnect features that carry no separate price, Kong’s partner or marketplace pricing, private offers, committed-spend discounts or tax treatment. It does not cover self-managed Gateway licence files, Kong Mesh or Insomnia. The public rate card is undated, so figures can change without a version marker; the retrieval date is the only date reliably attached to each figure here.