Runtime costs 62% less than Morph 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 $166.67 on Morph. Morph bills a machine's full size for as long as it runs. Runtime bills the CPU your code uses. Rates checked 25 October 2026.
How Morph bills
Morph Cloud counts Morph Compute Units. A machine is billed for as many MCUs as its largest need, CPU, memory or disk, for every hour it runs.
| Machine | MCUs | Morph, at $0.05 per MCU-hour | Runtime, waiting | Runtime, fully busy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU and 2 GB | 1 | $0.05 an hour | $0.01625 an hour | $0.04 an hour |
| 2 vCPUs and 4 GB | 2 | $0.10 an hour | $0.03125 an hour | $0.08 an hour |
Runtime's figures come from its two rates: $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU, and $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour. The calculator gives Morph the MCUs your vCPUs and memory need, and assumes the disk fits inside them.
Example workloads
A month of each, CPU and memory only, from the calculator above.
| Workload | Runtime | Morph |
|---|---|---|
| Agent runs: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 20 CPU-seconds, 100,000 a month | $63.89 | $166.67 |
| Every CPU busy: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 120 CPU-seconds, 100,000 | $133.33 | $166.67 |
| Tool calls: 1 vCPU, 2 GiB, 2 min, 30 CPU-seconds, 50,000 | $35.42 | $83.33 |
| Data analysis: 4 vCPU, 16 GiB, 60 min, 2,880 CPU-seconds, 2,000 | $280.00 | $400.00 |
Runtime costs less in every row, and 20% less even with both CPUs busy for the whole minute. A 1 vCPU, 2 GB machine pays for a whole MCU, which is 4 GB of memory's worth, so Runtime saves 57% on the tool-call row.
Memory-heavy shapes follow the same rule. A machine with 2 vCPUs and 16 GB counts as 4 MCUs, because memory is its largest need: $0.20 an hour on Morph. The same Runtime sandbox costs $0.12125 an hour waiting and $0.17 with both CPUs busy.
Where the saving comes from: of Runtime's $63.89 in the first row, $50.00 is memory and $13.89 is CPU, because only the 20 CPU-seconds each run uses are billed. Morph bills both MCUs for the whole minute of every run.
What the calculator leaves out
- Plan fees and included credit. Morph has no included credit. Its Team plan costs $40 a month with 1,000 MCUs, and Scale costs $250 a month. Runtime has no plan: prepaid credit from $10, and 100 free hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days on the trial, no card.
- Storage and snapshots. Left out on both sides. A paused Runtime sandbox keeps its files, memory and running processes for $0.08 per GB a month.
Network and taxes are also left out.
Price your own runs exactly
After a few runs on Runtime, price the same sandboxes in MCUs at Morph's published rate:
Terminalruntime compare --from morphIt reads the last 30 days of settled sandboxes, or up to 90 with --days, and
shows what you save a month.
Both keep memory in snapshots and forks: a Runtime fork copies a running sandbox with its memory and processes, 1 to 100 copies at a time. The full comparison is Runtime vs Morph. Forks for RL and search are covered in RL environments, and the sandbox cost calculator prices every provider for your shape.
Sources
- Morph Cloud pricing, checked 25 October 2026
- Morph Devboxes
- Runtime pricing
Rival rates on this page were checked on 25 October 2026.