Modal vs Freestyle: pricing, isolation and long-running VMs

Freestyle bills a full VM's allocation at $0.04032 per vCPU-hour; Modal bills a gVisor sandbox's request. The 2 vCPU benchmark: $2.25 on Freestyle, $3.97 on Modal.

Runtime is 84% cheaper than Modal and 72% cheaper than Freestyle on that benchmark, 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox using 20 CPU-seconds each: $3.97, $2.25 and $0.64. Runtime charges the CPU seconds the code consumed, not the cores it reserved.

Estimated compute cost

84% less than Modal72% less than Freestyle

2 vCPUs · 4 GiB · 60 s a run · 20 CPU-seconds busy

Runs1,000

Compute only, at list rates checked 23 September 2026 and 25 September 2026 (Modal pricing, Freestyle pricing). Plan fees, network, taxes and free credits are left out. The worked example below shows the arithmetic.

At a glance

	Modal Sandboxes	Freestyle	Runtime
Isolation	gVisor, a user-space kernel	Full Linux virtual machines	Firecracker microVM, own kernel
CPU	$0.1419 per physical core-hour (2 vCPUs), request or use	$0.04032 per allocated vCPU-hour	$0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor
Memory	$0.0240 per GiB-hour, request or use	$0.0129 per GiB-hour	$0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour
Lifetime	Up to 24 hours per sandbox	Runs until stopped; hibernates with memory	Leases extended as needed; pause kept 1 to 365 days
Plan	Starter $0 with $30 a month; Team $250 a month	Free, Hobby $50, Pro $500 a month	None; prepaid credit from $10
Largest	Set per sandbox	32 vCPUs and 64 GiB on Pro	16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, paid

Short jobs or long machines

Modal sandboxes are for work measured in minutes or hours, capped at 24 hours, next to Modal's functions and GPUs. Freestyle sells the opposite: VMs that run for weeks, hibernate with their memory and fork live. Runtime covers both ends: a lease extended as long as needed or persistent: true, and a pause that keeps memory for up to 365 days.

Cost for the same job

2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 seconds and 20 CPU-seconds, 1,000 times; Freestyle with its default 32 GiB disk:

TextModal     CPU    1,000 × 60 s × 1 core × $0.00003942           = $2.37          Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.00000667                = $1.60          Total                                                  $3.97Freestyle 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                                                  $2.25Runtime   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

Per month at 100,000 runs: $396.60 on Modal, $224.99 on Freestyle, $63.89 on Runtime. With the CPUs busy for the whole minute: $3.97 on Modal, $2.25 on Freestyle, $1.33 on Runtime.

Which one to pick

Modal for sandboxes beside GPU training and inference code.
Freestyle for one VM of up to 32 vCPUs, or forks taken with no pause.
Runtime for the lowest bill and a hypervisor boundary on every sandbox, with no plan fee for 100 sandboxes at once after a first week at 50.

Also: Runtime vs Modal, Runtime vs Freestyle.

Sources

Modal rates checked 23 September 2026; Freestyle rates checked 25 September 2026.

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.