Pay for RunPod

RunPod’s billing page says you can start with as little as $10 in credits. Compute and disk are billed per second, network volumes hourly, and there are no fees for data going in or out. GPU prices depend on the card and the cloud tier: RunPod’s pricing page advertises an RTX 4090 from $0.34 an hour and an H100 80GB from $1.99 an hour, with other models in between and above. Rates change, so check the console for the exact figure before you deploy. Sales tax may be added where RunPod is required to collect it.

Storage is the cost people forget. A container disk and a volume disk on a running Pod are each $0.10 per GB per month, but a volume disk on a stopped Pod costs $0.20 per GB per month, and network volumes are $0.07 per GB per month under 1 TB and $0.05 above it. Stopping a Pod stops the GPU bill, not the storage bill. For steady workloads RunPod also sells prepaid 3- and 6-month savings plans on GPU compute; they are non-refundable and expire on a fixed date.

The balance matters more here than on a subscription service. You need at least one hour’s worth of credits for the configuration you pick before a Pod will deploy. When the balance reaches $0, RunPod stops every running Pod: Pods attached to a network volume keep their data, while Pods without one are terminated and their data cannot be recovered. You can set an email alert for a low balance, or turn on auto-pay, which charges your default saved card a set amount whenever the balance nears a threshold.

RunPod takes Visa, Mastercard, American Express and the other cards its processor, Stripe, supports. One rule is worth knowing before you fund a card: RunPod’s documentation says prepaid cards must deposit at least $100 per transaction. If your card is treated as prepaid, a $10 top-up will not go through, so plan on a single deposit of $100 or more plus any tax. RunPod also accepts cryptocurrency directly through a payment processor, but asks for identity verification (KYC) before your first crypto payment. A USDT-funded card is the route for people who want to pay in dollars by card instead.

Two more things to be straight about. Credits are non-refundable and can only be spent on RunPod, so load what you expect to use. And RunPod’s terms of service bar the service in embargoed countries and regions — they name Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Crimea and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. A payment card does not change that: the card and RunPod’s country rules are separate matters, and it is RunPod’s rules that decide whether you may hold an account.