# E2B vs Prime Sandboxes: pricing, scale and snapshots

Both give every sandbox a microVM and bill it while it runs. A 2 vCPU, 4 GiB job costs $2.76 on E2B and $1.52 on Prime Sandboxes.

**Runtime costs 77% less than E2B and 58% less than Prime Sandboxes on the
same job.** 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox with 20
CPU-seconds of work each are $2.76 on E2B, $1.52 on Prime and $0.64 on
Runtime. Prime's rates are the lower of the two rivals'; Runtime's measured CPU
undercuts both.

## At a glance

|                | E2B                             | Prime Sandboxes                                | Runtime                                                  |
| -------------- | ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation      | Firecracker microVM, own kernel | Hardware-virtualized microVM, own guest kernel | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                          |
| CPU            | $0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.02 per vCPU-hour while running              | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory         | $0.0162 per GiB-hour            | $0.0125 per GiB-hour                           | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour                            |
| Largest        | 8 vCPUs and 8 GiB               | 16 vCPUs, 64 GiB, 128 GiB of disk              | 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, paid                                |
| At once        | Set by plan                     | 1,024 per account to start                     | 100 paid; a new account 50 for a week                    |
| Pause and fork | Pause keeps memory              | Snapshots and forks listed as coming soon      | Pause keeps memory; forks of a running sandbox           |
| Price terms    | Hobby $0; Pro $150 a month      | Published through 22 December 2026             | Fixed in each quote; no plan                             |

## Rates against features

Prime is cheaper than E2B at every level of use here: its CPU rate is less
than half of E2B's and its memory about a quarter lower. What E2B has that
Prime does not yet is state: an E2B pause keeps memory and processes with no
expiry, while Prime lists snapshots, and forking a sandbox mid-run, as coming
soon. Prime starts accounts at 1,024 sandboxes at once, built for reinforcement
learning rollouts.

## Cost for the same job

2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 seconds and 20 CPU-seconds a run, 1,000 runs, with Prime's
default 5 GiB disk:

```
E2B       CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.0504            = $1.68
          Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0162            = $1.08
          Total                                                  $2.76

Prime     CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.02              = $0.67
          Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0125            = $0.83
          Disk   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 5 × $0.0002            = $0.02
          Total                                                  $1.52

Runtime   CPU    1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025                = $0.14
          Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075           = $0.50
          Total                                                  $0.64
```

That is $276.00, $151.67 and $63.89 a month at 100,000 runs. With the CPUs busy for the whole minute, the job costs $2.76 on E2B, $1.52 on Prime and $1.33 on Runtime; Runtime stays cheapest because its memory is the cheapest.

## Which one to pick

- **E2B** when paused sandboxes must stay forever, or you may self-host.
- **Prime Sandboxes** for thousands of rollouts at once from the first day,
  inside Prime Intellect's training platform.
- **Runtime** for agents and rollouts that wait on a model: the lowest bill,
  pause and forks today, and eval harnesses ([Harbor](/docs/harbor),
  [Inspect](/docs/inspect)) that switch without code changes.

See [Runtime vs E2B](/docs/e2b-alternative) and
[Runtime vs Prime Sandboxes](/docs/prime-sandboxes-alternative).

## Sources

E2B rates checked 23 September 2026; Prime rates checked 25 September 2026.

- [E2B pricing](https://e2b.dev/pricing), [E2B sandbox persistence](https://docs.e2b.dev/sandbox/persistence)
- [Prime Sandboxes overview](https://docs.primeintellect.ai/sandboxes/overview), [Prime Sandboxes launch](https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/sandboxes)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.