Cloud GPU Rental Cost Calculator
Estimate monthly cost of renting cloud GPUs.
For the “L4 (~$0.80/hr)” scenario, $576.00/month — 1 GPU(s) x 24h/day at $0.8000/hr. Enter your own numbers below to recompute instantly; the full step-by-step math is shown under the worked example.
Results update automatically as you type.
- Price / GPU-hour
- $2.50
- GPUs
- 1
- Hours / day
- 24
- Cost / day
- $60.00
- Cost / month
- $1,800.00
Estimate the cost of renting GPUs by the hour for training or self-hosted inference. Use the presets for common GPU types or enter your own rate.
How this is calculated
Monthly cost = price per GPU-hour × number of GPUs × hours per day × 30. Use the presets for common GPU types (L4, A100, H100) or enter your own rate. For inference you can autoscale down; for training you pay for the full run.
Is this a good result? What to do next
Renting only beats a hosted API at high, steady utilization — idle GPUs are pure waste. If your GPUs sit idle much of the day, drop hours/day or reconsider a per-token API.
Typical planning ranges
- L4
- ~$0.80/hr
- A100 80GB
- ~$1.80/hr
- H100
- ~$3.00/hr
Ranges are typical planning figures to sanity-check your result, not authoritative benchmarks. Your numbers will vary with use case, volume, and vendor.
How to improve this number
- Autoscale inference GPUs to zero when idle.
- Use spot/preemptible instances for fault-tolerant jobs.
- Right-size the GPU to the model.
Common mistakes
- Paying for 24/7 GPUs that sit idle.
- Comparing rental to API without counting utilization.
When to use a different approach
To find the self-host break-even, use the self-hosted vs API calculator. For a training run, use the model training cost calculator.
Worked examples
Real scenarios you can reproduce by loading these presets in the calculator above:
L4 (~$0.80/hr)
- Price / GPU-hour
- $0.8000
- GPUs
- 1
- Hours / day
- 24
- Cost / day
- $19.20
- Cost / month
- $576.00
A100 80GB (~$1.80/hr)
- Price / GPU-hour
- $1.80
- GPUs
- 1
- Hours / day
- 24
- Cost / day
- $43.20
- Cost / month
- $1,296.00
H100 (~$3.00/hr)
- Price / GPU-hour
- $3.00
- GPUs
- 1
- Hours / day
- 24
- Cost / day
- $72.00
- Cost / month
- $2,160.00
Sources & references
Frequently asked questions
Is renting cheaper than the API?+
Only at high, steady utilization. Idle GPUs waste money — compare with our self-hosted vs API calculator.
Do I need GPUs 24/7?+
For inference you can autoscale to zero; for training you pay for the full run. Adjust hours/day accordingly.
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