Vercel Sandbox vs Runloop: pricing, isolation and limits

Vercel Sandbox bills active CPU and Runloop bills every CPU a devbox holds, so an agent that waits on a model costs less on Vercel.

Runtime runs the same job for 70% less than Vercel and 88% less than Runloop. 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox cost $2.12 on Vercel, $5.33 on Runloop and $0.64 on Runtime. Runtime bills measured CPU like Vercel, at about a fifth of Vercel's rate, and a paused Runtime sandbox keeps its running processes, which neither rival does. Rates checked 23 September 2026.

At a glance

Vercel's figures are at the rates of its default iad1 region. Runloop's are for its MEDIUM devbox: 2 CPUs, 4 GB and 8 GB of disk.

	Vercel Sandbox	Runloop	Runtime
Isolation	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	microVM, with a container inside	Firecracker microVM, own kernel
CPU	$0.128 per active CPU-hour	$0.108 per CPU-hour while the devbox runs	$0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor
Memory	$0.0212 per provisioned GB-hour	$0.0252 per GB-hour	$0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour
Plan fee	Hobby allowance free; usage beyond it needs Pro	Basic free; Pro $250 a month plus usage	None; prepaid credit from $10
Free start	5 active CPU-hours and 420 GB-hours a month on Hobby	$50 of credit, no card	50 sandbox hours, no card
Stop or suspend	Stop keeps the filesystem; processes start again	Suspend keeps the disk; processes restart	Pause keeps files, memory and processes, 1 to 365 days
Session length	45 minutes on Hobby, 24 hours on Pro	Not stated on the pricing page	Leases of up to an hour, extended as often as needed

Why does Runloop cost more than twice as much for the same agent?

Because of what each one counts. Runloop bills both of a devbox's CPUs for every second it runs, at $0.108 a CPU-hour, whether the code is computing or waiting for a model to answer. Vercel bills only the CPU time a sandbox uses: time spent waiting on I/O does not count. In the example below the agent is busy for 20 of its 120 CPU-seconds, so Vercel charges for a sixth of what Runloop charges for.

The gap closes as the work gets busier. Runloop's rate per CPU-hour is lower than Vercel's, and its total does not change with load, so Runloop becomes the cheaper of the two only when a run keeps its CPUs busy for more than about 110 of its 120 CPU-seconds. Memory is the other difference: $0.0212 per GB-hour on Vercel against $0.0252 on Runloop, and Runloop adds a small disk charge.

Cost for the same job

1,000 runs of a 2 vCPU sandbox with 4 GiB, or 4 GB on Vercel and Runloop. Each run lasts 60 seconds and keeps the CPU busy for 20 CPU-seconds: an agent that mostly waits for a model.

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                                             $2.12Runloop  CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.108       = $3.60         Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0252      = $1.68         Disk   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 8 × $0.00034236 = $0.05         Total                                             $5.33Runtime  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

At 100,000 runs a month that is $212.44 on Vercel, $532.56 on Runloop and $63.89 on Runtime. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute, it is $1.33 on Runtime against $5.68 on Vercel and $5.33 on Runloop, so Runtime is cheaper however busy the sandbox is. Plan fees, creations, storage while stopped or suspended, network and free allowances are left out.

What survives a stop or a suspend?

On both rivals, files do and processes do not. A stopped Vercel sandbox keeps its filesystem and its processes start again. A suspended Runloop devbox keeps its disk, its ID and its SSH keys, and Runloop's docs say daemons running at suspend time must be restarted by hand. Runloop stops billing compute while a devbox is suspended and keeps billing its storage.

A paused Runtime sandbox keeps its memory and running processes as well as its files, and wakes on the next request, so a dev server or a half-finished agent loop carries on where it was. Forks copy a running sandbox the same way:

TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime";const sbx = await Sandbox.create({ timeoutSeconds: 600 });await sbx.exec("echo state > /workspace/state.txt");await sbx.pause(); // memory and files are kept; compute billing stops// ... later, even from another process:const again = await Sandbox.connect(sbx.id);await again.wake({ timeoutSeconds: 1200 });await again.stop();

See how to pause and resume a sandbox.

Which one to pick

• Pick Vercel Sandbox if your app already lives on Vercel, or you need sandboxes in many regions: Vercel runs them in 19, with up to 10,000 at once on Pro.
• Pick Runloop if you want agent benchmarks run for you (it runs SWE-Bench and other public benchmarks and builds custom ones from your data), or need devboxes deployed into your own cloud account with SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR readiness.
• Pick Runtime for measured CPU at about a fifth of Vercel's rate and under a quarter of Runloop's, pause and forks that keep running processes, and no plan fee. For running benchmarks yourself, see agent evals and SWE-bench.

Switch from either one

From Vercel Sandbox, Runtime's SDK runs your code after one import change, with no Vercel project or token:

TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime/vercel"; // was: from "@vercel/sandbox"

Pythonfrom withruntime.vercel import sandbox  # was: from vercel import sandbox

From Runloop there is no compatible import. Create a Runtime sandbox where you create a devbox, run commands with exec, move files with files.write and files.read, and call stop() where you shut the devbox down. Where you suspend and resume, use pause() and wake(), and the processes come back too.

Or give your coding agent the one instruction in migration: it switches the project on a branch, tests it on the free trial and reports the monthly saving. From Vercel, npx withruntime switch --from vercel before your first top-up matches that top-up with credit, up to $100. The full side-by-sides are Runtime vs Vercel Sandbox and Runtime vs Runloop.

Sources

Rates checked 23 September 2026; Runloop's devbox lifecycle page read 25 September 2026.

• Vercel Sandbox pricing, Understanding Vercel Sandboxes
• Runloop pricing, Devbox sizes, Devbox lifecycle
• Runtime pricing

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.