Home / Buy vs rent
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
Your workload
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B · Q4 · 8K
- 200 active hours/month · RigForAI default assumption
- $0.15/kWh · RigForAI default assumption, not a national tariff
- 24-month comparison horizon · RigForAI default assumption
- 36-month amortization for the monthly equivalent view only · RigForAI default assumption
- Maintenance $0.00/month · RigForAI default assumption ($0)
- Idle wall power outside active hours is excluded (unknown idle draw).
- PSU rated wattage is not used as system power draw.
Buy
Cheapest validated custom build
No combination passed every fail-closed compatibility check with current priced SKUs.
Prebuilt workstation
No currently priced compatible workstation configuration.
Rent
Memory-capable rental options with current Phase 11 prices. Hourly offers use your active hours. Monthly dedicated offers use the contract price regardless of hours. Setup fees are separate.
| Offer | Billing | Usage-adjusted / month | Setup | Cumulative 24 mo | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vast.ai · 4× NVIDIA RTX 3090 24 GB Memory-capable rental option · Japan, JP · JP | hour · $0.406/h | $81.16 | $0.00 | $1,947.73 | listed as available |
| Vast.ai · 1× NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GB Memory-capable rental option · Tennessee, US · US | hour · $1.069/h | $213.78 | $0.00 | $5,130.67 | listed as available |
| Vast.ai · 2× NVIDIA H100 NVL 94 GB Memory-capable rental option · California, US · US | hour · $5.335/h | $1,066.96 | $0.00 | $25,607.11 | listed as available |
| OVHcloud · 4× NVIDIA L4 24 GB Memory-capable rental option · EU | month · $1,577/mo | $1,577.00 | $1,204.00 | $39,052.00 | current catalog offer · availability unconfirmed |
| OVHcloud · 4× NVIDIA L4 24 GB Memory-capable rental option · EU | month · $1,614/mo | $1,614.00 | $1,241.00 | $39,977.00 | current catalog offer · availability unconfirmed |
Lowest monthly rental cost under these usage assumptions: Vast.ai hour $81.16 · provider listing
Lowest cumulative cost after 24 months (rent side): Vast.ai hour $1,947.73
Break-even
Need a current BUY price (validated build or priced workstation) and a current RENT price to compute break-even.
| BUY vs this RENT | State | Months |
|---|---|---|
| BUY vs Vast.ai (hour) | INSUFFICIENT_DATA | — |
| BUY vs Vast.ai (hour) | INSUFFICIENT_DATA | — |
| BUY vs Vast.ai (hour) | INSUFFICIENT_DATA | — |
| BUY vs OVHcloud (month) | INSUFFICIENT_DATA | — |
| BUY vs OVHcloud (month) | INSUFFICIENT_DATA | — |
Serving economics
Cost per 1M output tokens: TOKEN_ECONOMICS_UNAVAILABLE
- Phase 5 llama.cpp tok/s is not used.
- Phase 11C vLLM serving evidence is required on both BUY and RENT under the same model, runtime, precision, workload shape, serving mode, concurrency, and EXACT_HARDWARE mapping.
- runtime_not_vllm_on_both_sides
- catalog_model_mismatch_or_missing
No EXACT_HARDWARE Phase 11C mapping on the ranked rental offers for this catalog model.
Buy vs rent by AI model
Model → GPU fit → custom build, workstation, or rental server → cash-flow comparison. Calculator query states are not indexed.
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Qwen2.5 14B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Qwen2.5 32B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- GPT-OSS 20B · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- GPT-OSS 120B · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Mistral Small 24B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Gemma 2 9B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Gemma 2 27B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Mixtral 8x7B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
- Llama 3.2 3B Instruct · Cheapest GPU · Run comparison
Compare ways to run AI
How buy vs rent works
- Select an AI workload.
- Compare current compatible BUY and RENT options.
- See cumulative cost and break-even under your assumptions.