How to Cancel Elastic Cloud in 2026 — Stop Elasticsearch Billing + Self-Host

Last updated: February 2026 • Difficulty: Medium

⚠️ The Elastic pricing trap: Elastic Cloud charges by resource consumption — a modest 3-node cluster with 100GB storage runs $500-1,000/month. The license change from open-source to SSPL drove many companies to OpenSearch (AWS's fork), which is free and API-compatible.

Why Elastic Cloud Gets Expensive

Hourly compute: Each node bills by the hour based on RAM/CPU tier
Storage costs: Hot/warm/cold/frozen tiers each bill differently
ML features: Machine learning nodes add significant cost
Enterprise features: Security, alerting, and APM require paid licenses
Data retention: Logs grow exponentially — most teams don't set retention policies
Marketplace billing: AWS/Azure/GCP marketplace subscriptions add platform markup

Step 1: Export Your Data

Use Elasticsearch snapshots to back up all indices to S3/GCS/Azure Blob
For small datasets: elasticdump to export index mappings + data as JSON
Export Kibana dashboards: Stack Management → Saved Objects → Export All
Export alert rules, index patterns, and ILM policies
Document your cluster configuration (node types, shard settings, replicas)

Step 2: Delete Deployments

Log in to cloud.elastic.co
Go to each deployment → Manage → Delete deployment
Type the deployment name to confirm
Check ALL regions — deployments in different regions bill separately
Verify no remaining deployments in the deployment list

Step 3: Cancel Subscription

Go to Account → Billing → Subscription
Click Cancel Subscription
If billed through a cloud marketplace: cancel there too (AWS/Azure/GCP)
Remove payment method to prevent accidental reactivation
For enterprise contracts: send written notice per your agreement terms

Free and Cheaper Alternatives

OpenSearch: Free, open-source Elasticsearch fork by AWS — fully API-compatible, includes dashboards
Meilisearch: Free, open-source — blazing fast for application search, much simpler than Elasticsearch
Typesense: Free, open-source — search-as-a-service alternative, typo-tolerant
Zinc/Zincsearch: Free, lightweight — uses 90% less resources than Elasticsearch
Loki (Grafana): Free log aggregation — doesn't index log content (much cheaper)
Self-hosted Elasticsearch: Same software, zero license cost on SSPL (with limitations)

The Math: Elastic Cloud vs Self-Hosted

A 3-node Elastic Cloud cluster with 200GB storage: ~$700/month = $8,400/year. Self-hosted OpenSearch on 3 Hetzner dedicated servers: ~$100/month = $1,200/year. That's an 86% savings — and OpenSearch is the same code base. For search use cases, Meilisearch on a single $20/month VPS often outperforms a $700/month Elastic cluster.

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Quick Cancel Guide: Elastic Cloud

Direct cancel link + step-by-step instructions