AWS Lambda MicroVMs pricing calculator: what your sandboxes cost, and on Runtime
Lambda MicroVMs bill about $0.0997 per vCPU-hour and $0.0132 per GB-hour of their baseline size for every second they run.
Runtime costs 85% less than Lambda MicroVMs for an agent that waits on a model. 100,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox, each using 20 CPU-seconds, cost $63.89 a month on Runtime and $420.33 on Lambda MicroVMs. Even with both CPUs busy the whole time, the same month is $133.33 on Runtime. Rates checked 25 September 2026.
Price your workload
$63.89 a month on Runtime against $420.33 on AWS Lambda MicroVMs: 85% less.
| Provider | A month | Runtime saves |
|---|---|---|
| Runtime | $63.89 | — |
| Northflank | $111.10 | 42% |
| Cloudflare Sandbox | $135.04 | 53% |
| Fly Machines | $143.50 | 55% |
| Prime Sandboxes | $151.67 | 58% |
| Morph | $166.67 | 62% |
| Vercel Sandbox | $212.44 | 70% |
| Freestyle | $224.99 | 72% |
| CodeSandbox | $247.67 | 74% |
| E2B | $276.00 | 77% |
| Daytona | $276.00 | 77% |
| Blaxel | $276.00 | 77% |
| Fly Sprites | $330.56 | 81% |
| Modal | $396.60 | 84% |
| AWS Lambda MicroVMs | $420.33 | 85% |
| Runloop | $532.56 | 88% |
CPU and memory at published list rates, checked 23 September 2026 to 25 September 2026. Plan fees, storage, network and free credits are left out.
How Lambda MicroVMs bill
AWS publishes the rates per second: $0.0000276944 per vCPU-second and $0.0000036667 per GB-second. A MicroVM is billed for its baseline, the vCPUs and memory it was created with, whenever it runs; memory is always 2 GB per vCPU, up to 4 vCPUs and 8 GB. Use above the baseline, when a MicroVM scales up for a burst, is billed on top for as long as it lasts, and the calculator leaves it out.
| Meter | Lambda MicroVMs, per second | Per hour, for 2 vCPUs and 4 GB | Runtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | $0.0000276944 per vCPU | $0.1994 | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of CPU actually used |
| Memory | $0.0000036667 per GB | $0.0528 | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour |
That is $0.2522 an hour for the shape on Lambda, busy or waiting. Runtime charges $0.03125 an hour for it while it waits and $0.08 with both CPUs working.
Example workloads
A month of each, CPU and memory only, from the calculator above. Every shape here is one Lambda offers as a baseline.
| Workload | Runtime | AWS Lambda MicroVMs |
|---|---|---|
| Agent runs: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 20 CPU-seconds, 100,000 a month | $63.89 | $420.33 |
| Tool calls: 1 vCPU, 2 GiB, 2 min, 30 CPU-seconds, 50,000 | $35.42 | $210.17 |
| Long sessions: 4 vCPU, 8 GiB, 30 min, 720 CPU-seconds, 10,000 | $350.00 | $2,522.00 |
| Every CPU busy: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 120 CPU-seconds, 100,000 | $133.33 | $420.33 |
The saving runs from 83% to 86% in the first three rows and is still 68% in the last, where the CPUs never rest.
Where the difference comes from
Two things add up. Lambda's per-unit rates are higher: about four times Runtime's for CPU and 1.8 times for memory, before counting that a GiB is 7% more than a GB. And Lambda bills the baseline vCPUs whether they work or not, where Runtime bills the CPU time used, with a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU. An agent that spends most of a minute waiting for a model pays Lambda for two whole vCPUs and Runtime for the few seconds it computed.
A MicroVM suspends after five minutes idle and keeps its state for up to eight hours, which stops the compute meter but starts snapshot storage at $0.08 per GB-month, with a one-week minimum. A paused Runtime sandbox costs $0.08 per GB a month too, but keeps its memory for 1 to 365 days.
What the calculator leaves out
- Snapshot storage and transfer. Lambda also bills each snapshot read and write, and data transfer at AWS's standard rates.
- Burst above the baseline. Left out on Lambda; on Runtime a sandbox bursts to all its vCPUs and the calculator counts the CPU-seconds you enter.
- Free start. Lambda MicroVMs have no free tier. Runtime gives 100 sandbox hours on the free trial, no card.
Price your own runs exactly
After a few runs on Runtime, the CLI prices those same sandboxes at Lambda MicroVMs' published rates:
Terminalruntime compare --from lambda-microvmsIt reads the last 30 days of settled sandboxes (--days up to 90). The full
comparison is Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs,
AWS Lambda vs an agent sandbox covers
Lambda functions, and the
sandbox cost calculator prices every
provider for your shape.
Sources
- AWS Lambda pricing, checked 25 September 2026
- Lambda MicroVMs
- Runtime pricing
Rival rates on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.