# 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.

## 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](/docs/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:

```bash check
runtime compare --from lambda-microvms
```

It reads the last 30 days of settled sandboxes (`--days` up to 90). The full
comparison is [Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs](/docs/aws-lambda-microvms-alternative),
[AWS Lambda vs an agent sandbox](/compare/aws-lambda-vs-agent-sandbox) covers
Lambda functions, and the
[sandbox cost calculator](/calculators/sandbox-cost-calculator) prices every
provider for your shape.

## Sources

- [AWS Lambda pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/), checked 25 September 2026
- [Lambda MicroVMs](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/lambda-microvms/)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Rival rates on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.