# Freestyle vs Prime Sandboxes: pricing, forks and concurrency

Both bill what a sandbox is given while it runs. Prime's rates are lower, so the 2 vCPU, 4 GiB benchmark costs $1.52 on Prime and $2.25 on Freestyle.

**Runtime costs 72% less than Freestyle and 58% less than Prime on it.** The
benchmark is 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox, 20 CPU-seconds
of work apiece: $2.25 on Freestyle, $1.52 on Prime Sandboxes and $0.64 on
Runtime.

## At a glance

|           | Freestyle                         | Prime Sandboxes                                | Runtime                                                  |
| --------- | --------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | Full Linux virtual machines       | Hardware-virtualized microVM, own guest kernel | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                          |
| CPU       | $0.04032 per allocated vCPU-hour  | $0.02 per vCPU-hour while running              | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory    | $0.0129 per GiB-hour              | $0.0125 per GiB-hour                           | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour                            |
| Forks     | Live, without pausing the VM      | Listed as coming soon                          | Up to 10 copies of a running sandbox                     |
| At once   | 10 free, 40 Hobby, 400 Pro        | 1,024 per account to start                     | 100 paid; 50 during the first week                       |
| Plan      | Free, Hobby $50, Pro $500 a month | None; rates through 22 December 2026           | None; prepaid credit from $10                            |

## Forks today, or scale today

Freestyle's strength is state: live forks and weeks-long hibernation. Prime's
is breadth: a thousand microVMs per account from the start at half Freestyle's
CPU rate, with forks still to come. Runtime has forks and memory-keeping
pauses now, and prices waiting time at a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU.

## Cost for the same job

The benchmark, 60 seconds a run, with each rival's default disk (32 GiB on Freestyle, 5 GiB on
Prime):

```
Freestyle CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.04032           = $1.34
          Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0129            = $0.86
          Disk   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 32 × $0.000086         = $0.05
          Total                                                  $2.25

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
```

Monthly at 100,000 runs: $224.99 on Freestyle, $151.67 on Prime, $63.89 on
Runtime. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute: $2.25 on Freestyle, $1.52 on Prime, $1.33 on Runtime.

## Which one to pick

- **Freestyle** for VMs of up to 32 vCPUs that fork without a pause.
- **Prime Sandboxes** for rollouts by the thousand inside Prime Intellect.
- **Runtime** for the lowest price per run, forks and pauses that keep memory,
  and no plan fee.

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

## Sources

Freestyle and Prime rates checked 25 September 2026.

- [Freestyle pricing](https://www.freestyle.sh/pricing), [Freestyle VM pricing and limits](https://www.freestyle.sh/docs/vms/pricing-and-limits)
- [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.