# Sandbox cost calculator: Runtime, E2B, Daytona, Modal, Vercel and more

Enter a sandbox size, run length, CPU use and runs a month to see the monthly cost on Runtime and 12 other providers.

**Runtime is the cheapest for an agent that waits on a model.** 100,000
one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox doing 20 CPU-seconds of work each
cost $63.89 a month on Runtime, $276.00 on E2B or Daytona and $396.60 on Modal. Runtime bills the CPU
your code uses, not the CPUs it holds. Rival rates checked 23 September 2026.

## How the price is worked out

Every provider is priced on the same workload, at its published list rates.

| Part           | Runtime                                                         | Most other providers                           |
| -------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| CPU            | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of CPU actually used, floor 0.05 of a vCPU | Every allocated vCPU, for the whole run        |
| Memory         | $0.0075 per GiB-hour reserved                                   | Per GiB-hour, allocated or in use              |
| Plan fee       | None                                                            | Some charge a monthly plan for longer sessions |
| Minimum top-up | $10 of prepaid credit                                           | Varies                                         |

A CPU-second is one core busy for one second. An agent that sends a prompt and
waits for the answer is mostly idle: 20 CPU-seconds out of the 120 that 2 vCPUs
could do in 60 seconds. Build steps and test suites come close to the whole 120.

## Example workloads

A month of each, CPU and memory only.

| Workload                                                         | Runtime |       E2B |   Daytona |     Modal | Vercel Sandbox |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ------: | --------: | --------: | --------: | -------------: |
| Agent runs: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 20 CPU-seconds, 100,000 a month |  $63.89 |   $276.00 |   $276.00 |   $396.60 |        $212.44 |
| Every CPU busy: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 120 CPU-seconds, 100,000    | $133.33 |   $276.00 |   $276.00 |   $396.60 |        $568.00 |
| Long sessions: 4 vCPU, 8 GiB, 30 min, 720 CPU-seconds, 10,000    | $350.00 | $1,656.00 | $1,656.00 | $2,379.60 |      $1,104.00 |
| Small checks: 1 vCPU, 1 GiB, 10 s, 5 CPU-seconds, 1,000,000      |  $55.56 |   $185.00 |   $185.00 |   $263.80 |        $236.67 |

Runtime costs less than all four in every row, even with every CPU busy for the
whole run.

## Why Runtime costs less

- **Measured CPU.** Time your agent spends waiting on a model costs only the
  floor, a twentieth of a vCPU. Other providers bill every vCPU for the whole
  run.
- **Lower rates on both meters.** $0.025 per vCPU-hour against E2B's and
  Daytona's $0.0504, and $0.0075 per GiB-hour of memory against their $0.0162.
- **No plan fee.** Prepaid credit from $10, with no subscription, and 50 free
  sandbox hours to start, no card.
- **Pause instead of idling.** A paused sandbox keeps its files, memory and
  running processes for $0.08 per GB a month and uses no CPU or memory time.

## Price your own runs exactly

After a few runs on Runtime, the CLI prices the sandboxes you actually ran at
another provider's rates, with the date of those rates:

```bash check
runtime compare --from e2b
```

It reads your settled sandboxes from the last 30 days. The same figures come
from `GET /v1/usage/compare` and the `runtime_usage_compare` MCP tool.

## Sources

Rival rates checked 23 September 2026; their working and sources are on each
comparison page and in the [pricing guide](/docs/pricing). Runtime's rates are
in [pricing](/docs/pricing). Plan fees, storage, network, taxes, free credits
and negotiated discounts are left out of every figure.

- [Runtime vs E2B](/docs/e2b-alternative), [Runtime vs Daytona](/docs/daytona-alternative),
  [Runtime vs Modal](/docs/modal-sandbox-alternative),
  [Runtime vs Vercel Sandbox](/docs/vercel-sandbox-alternative)
- [E2B vs Daytona](/compare/e2b-vs-daytona), [E2B vs Modal](/compare/e2b-vs-modal),
  [E2B alternatives](/compare/e2b-alternatives), [Modal alternatives](/compare/modal-alternatives)