Starter
Starter guide: pick a GPU by memory and budget
A short route for someone renting a GPU for the first time. Decide how much memory the job needs, find the lowest-priced listing at that size, then read the listing before you pay. The numbers below come from the same data as the finder.
Step 1
Start from memory, not from the GPU name
| If you need | Look at | Lowest-priced listing | $/GPU-hr | 10 hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image generation and small modelsA 7B model at FP16 is 14 GB of weights, which leaves room on 24 GB. | 24 GB tier | RTX 3090 at Runcrateours, live | $0.23 | $2.30 |
| 13B models at FP16, or 30B at INT8A 13B model at FP16 is 26 GB of weights; 32 GB holds it with a little room. | 32 GB tier | V100 at Verda | $0.24 | $2.44 |
| Fine-tuning with more headroom48 GB holds a 7B model at FP16 with room for optimizer state and a larger batch. | 48 GB tier | RTX A6000 at Thunder Compute | $0.35 | $3.50 |
| 70B models quantized, or 34B at FP16A 70B model at INT4 is 35 GB of weights; a 34B model at FP16 is 68 GB. | 80 GB tier | A100 80GB at Thunder Compute | $1.09 | $10.90 |
Weights-only arithmetic: parameters in billions times bytes per parameter (FP16 2, INT8 1, INT4 0.5). It leaves out the KV cache, activations and runtime, so real runs need more. The last column is ten hours at that price, nothing added.
Step 2
Pick a budget line
- $112 GPU models$24.00 for a day
- $219 GPU models$48.00 for a day
- $321 GPU models$72.00 for a day
- $423 GPU models$96.00 for a day
- $623 GPU models$144 for a day
A budget line is per GPU-hour. The lowest listing anywhere is $0.23 for a RTX 3090, $5.52 for a day.
Step 3
Read the listing before you pay
- Billing unit. 6 of 24 lowest-priced listings state per-second billing; others bill by the minute or the hour, or do not say. A one-hour minimum turns a ten-minute test into a one-hour charge.
- Machine size. 5 lowest-priced listings belong to machines of several GPUs, priced here per GPU. You may have to rent the whole machine, so check the minimum size on the provider's page.
- Stock and region. A price on a page does not say a card is free right now or where it sits. Neither is in our data, so check before planning around a listing.
- Extras. Storage, network traffic and tax are not in a price per GPU-hour. They can matter more than a few cents on the hourly rate.
Questions
What is the lowest-priced GPU I can rent?
By price per hour, the RTX 3090 at $0.23 per GPU-hour from Runcrate, with 24 GB. By price per GB see the value ranking.
How much memory do I need for a 7B model?
Weights alone are 14 GB at FP16, 7 GB at INT8 and 3.5 GB at INT4. Add room for the KV cache and activations; a 24 GB card is a common starting point.
Should I pick the lowest price?
Start there, then check billing unit, minimum machine size and whether the provider sets the price itself. A listing that is a few cents lower but billed by the hour can cost more for a short job.
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Disclosure
Low-Cost GPU Finder is published by the Runcrate team, who also run Runcrate, an AI cloud. Runcrate is listed in the table, marked "ours, live". It is sorted by price like every other row, with no pinned position. Other providers' prices are read from their own public pricing pages. We have no paid placement.