Home / Buy vs rent

Economics 1.0.0 · cash-flow break-even · not “best”

Buy or rent hardware for your AI workload?

Purchase prices come from the current validated build BOM or an exact workstation configuration. Rent comes from currently priced GPU server offers. Electricity uses active hours only. Token cost per 1M output tokens is shown only when Phase 11C serving evidence is comparable on both sides.

Advanced assumptions

Select a model to compare current BUY and RENT prices for that workload.

Buy vs rent by AI model

Model → GPU fit → custom build, workstation, or rental server → cash-flow comparison. Calculator query states are not indexed.

Compare ways to run AI

Build a PC

Validated complete BOM from current priced parts.

Workstations

Exact prebuilt configurations.

Rent a GPU server

Current provider offers for GPU compute.

Find a GPU

Full-VRAM fit for a chosen model.

Multi-GPU

2–4 identical GPUs when one card is not enough.

How buy vs rent works

  1. Select an AI workload.
  2. Compare current compatible BUY and RENT options.
  3. See cumulative cost and break-even under your assumptions.