# 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.

## 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:

```
Modal     CPU    1,000 × 60 s × 1 core × $0.00003942           = $2.37
          Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.00000667                = $1.60
          Total                                                  $3.97

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

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
```

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](/docs/modal-sandbox-alternative),
[Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative).

## Sources

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

- [Modal pricing](https://modal.com/pricing), [Modal resources and billing](https://modal.com/docs/guide/resources)
- [Freestyle pricing](https://www.freestyle.sh/pricing), [Freestyle VM pricing and limits](https://www.freestyle.sh/docs/vms/pricing-and-limits)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.