Vercel Sandbox vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs: two clouds' Firecracker sandboxes

Vercel bills active CPU, Lambda MicroVMs bill the baseline. On the 2 vCPU, 4 GiB benchmark that is $2.12 on Vercel and $4.20 on Lambda.

Runtime runs it for 70% less than Vercel and 85% less than Lambda. The benchmark is 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox that computes for 20 CPU-seconds of each minute: $2.12 on Vercel Sandbox, $4.20 on AWS Lambda MicroVMs, $0.64 on Runtime. All three run Firecracker.

Estimated compute cost

70% less than Vercel Sandbox85% less than AWS Lambda MicroVMs

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 (Vercel Sandbox pricing, AWS Lambda pricing). Plan fees, network, taxes and free credits are left out. The worked example below shows the arithmetic.

At a glance

	Vercel Sandbox	AWS Lambda MicroVMs	Runtime
Isolation	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	Firecracker microVM	Firecracker microVM, own kernel
CPU	$0.128 per active CPU-hour, `iad1`	$0.0997 per baseline vCPU-hour	$0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor
Memory	$0.0212 per provisioned GB-hour	$0.0132 per GB-hour	$0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour
Largest	8 vCPUs and 16 GB on Pro; 32 and 64 GB on Enterprise	A 4 vCPU, 8 GB baseline	16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, paid
Idle	Stop keeps the filesystem; processes start again	Suspend keeps memory and disk, up to 8 hours	Pause keeps memory and processes, 1 to 365 days
Regions	19	AWS regions	One US region

Active CPU against the baseline

Vercel and Runtime both charge CPU only while it works, which is why Vercel beats Lambda on a waiting agent even though its CPU rate is the highest of the three. Lambda charges its baseline for every second a MicroVM is up. The order flips when the work gets busy, because then Vercel's $0.128 rate bites.

Cost for the same job

1,000 runs of 60 seconds on 2 vCPU and 4 GiB (4 GB on both rivals), 20 CPU-seconds of work each:

TextVercel    CPU    1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.128                 = $0.71          Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0212            = $1.41          Total                                                  $2.12Lambda    CPU    1,000 × 60 s × 2 × $0.0000276944              = $3.32          Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.0000036667              = $0.88          Total                                                  $4.20Runtime   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 $212.44, $420.33 and $63.89 for a month of 100,000 runs. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute the job costs $5.68 on Vercel, $4.20 on Lambda and $1.33 on Runtime, so Lambda becomes cheaper than Vercel and Runtime stays cheapest.

Which one to pick

Vercel Sandbox for apps already on Vercel, in any of 19 regions.
Lambda MicroVMs for workloads that live inside an AWS VPC.
Runtime for active-CPU billing at a fifth of Vercel's rate, memory kept across pauses, and withruntime/vercel for Vercel Sandbox code after one import changes.

See Runtime vs Vercel Sandbox and Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs.

Sources

Vercel rates checked 23 September 2026; Lambda rates checked 25 September 2026.

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.