# Freestyle pricing calculator: what your VMs cost, and on Runtime Freestyle bills $0.04032 per vCPU-hour and $0.0129 per GiB-hour of memory on what a VM is allocated, busy or idle. **Runtime costs 72% less than Freestyle 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 $224.99 on Freestyle, before Freestyle's plan fee. Half-hour sessions that spend most of their time waiting save 76%. Rates checked 25 September 2026. ## How Freestyle bills Freestyle's pricing page is plain about it: vCPU, memory and storage are billed on the amount allocated to the VM for the time it is allocated, and a reserved core is yours whether or not the guest is busy. A paused VM holds no compute and pays only for storage. | Meter | Freestyle, as published | For 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB and 32 GiB of disk | Runtime | | ------- | ----------------------- | ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | | CPU | $0.04032 per vCPU-hour | $0.08064 an hour | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of CPU actually used | | Memory | $0.0129 per GiB-hour | $0.0516 an hour | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour | | Storage | $0.000086 per GiB-hour | $0.0028 an hour | Included while it runs | The calculator keeps Freestyle's default disk, 32 GiB, for every shape. On top of the usage sit the plans: the free plan runs 10 VMs at once, Hobby is $50 a month for 40 and Pro is $500 a month for 400, each fee counted toward that month's usage. ## Example workloads A month of each, from the calculator above. | Workload | Runtime | Freestyle | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ------: | --------: | | Agent runs: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 20 CPU-seconds, 100,000 a month | $63.89 | $224.99 | | Waiting agents: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 30 min, 180 CPU-seconds, 10,000 | $162.50 | $674.96 | | Long sessions: 4 vCPU, 8 GiB, 30 min, 720 CPU-seconds, 10,000 | $350.00 | $1,336.16 | | Every CPU busy: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 120 CPU-seconds, 100,000 | $133.33 | $224.99 | Runtime is cheaper in every row. The gap is widest where the agent waits longest, and it stays at 41% even when both CPUs work the whole minute, because Runtime's rates are lower on both meters. ## When the plan matters more than the rate Freestyle's allowances cover 200 vCPU-hours and 400 GiB-hours of memory a month, so a small project can run inside them for free. Past that, the plan sets how many VMs run at once. An agent fleet of 100 sandboxes at once needs Freestyle's $500 Pro plan; a paid Runtime account runs 100 with no plan at all, on prepaid credit from $10, once its first week at 50 is past. Size matters too. The largest VM on Freestyle's Hobby plan is 8 vCPUs and 16 GiB, and 64 GiB takes Pro. A paid Runtime sandbox goes to 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB at the same per-unit rates as a small one. ## What the calculator leaves out - **Plan fees and allowances.** Both are left out on Freestyle; Runtime has no plan. The [free trial](/docs/trial) gives 100 sandbox hours, no card. - **Data transfer.** Freestyle charges $0.02 per GB past the plan's allowance; it is left out on both sides. - **Paused storage.** Freestyle bills storage while a VM sleeps. A paused Runtime sandbox keeps files, memory and processes for $0.08 per GB a month. ## Price your own runs exactly After a few runs on Runtime, the CLI prices those same sandboxes at Freestyle's published rates: ```bash check runtime compare --from freestyle ``` It reads the last 30 days of settled sandboxes, so you see the figure for what you actually ran. The full comparison is [Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative), and the [sandbox cost calculator](/calculators/sandbox-cost-calculator) prices every provider for your shape. ## Sources - [Freestyle pricing](https://www.freestyle.sh/pricing), checked 25 September 2026 - [Freestyle VM pricing and limits](https://www.freestyle.sh/docs/vms/pricing-and-limits) - Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing) Rival rates on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.