Renting out GPUs: marketplaces vs contracts
After a 20% fee, a B300 listed at $7.50 an hour has to rent 77% of its hours to match a $4.60 contract that bills all of them. Change the numbers below.
Fine-tune
1 B300 server, 3 years. On the marketplace you keep about $3.00 of every GPU-hour you own; on the contract, $4.60.
Marketplace
$7.50 list, 50% rented, 20% fee
$12Knet a month
- Rent you keep, month 1
- $18K
- Data center and our fee
- -$5.3K
- Upfront
- $578K
- Pays for itself
- Not in 3 yrs
- Net after 3 years
- -$102K
3-year contract
$4.60 for every hour, take-or-pay
$22Knet a month
- Rent you keep, month 1
- $27K
- Data center and our fee
- -$5.3K
- Upfront
- $602K
- Pays for itself
- 29 months
- Net after 3 years
- $298K
Both cases: our ballpark server price, colocation at $280 per kW a month, 3 months to go live, our $1K a month per 4 servers, resale at 25% after 3 years. The contract pays our 2.5% fee for finding the customer. Before taxes, insurance and financing. Illustrative, not a forecast or investment advice.
The marketplace keeps a fifth to a quarter
Marketplace income is three numbers multiplied: the hourly price, the share the marketplace leaves you, and the share of hours rented.
| Marketplace | Host keeps | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Vast.ai | About 80% of what renters pay | No host fee since June 2024; renters pay about 25% above the host’s price |
| TensorDock | 75% | 25% revenue share; vetted hosts set their own prices |
| Runpod | 76% in its 2024 docs | Runpod sets on-demand prices; no new Community Cloud hosts |
Each marketplace’s own pages and docs, October 10, 2026. The calculator starts at a 20% fee.
Marketplaces vet hosts before the first rental
The data center tiers ask for a certified facility and a registered business. Runpod has closed Community Cloud to new hosts.
| Tier | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Vast.ai verified | A dedicated machine, 500 Mbps up and down, a public IPv4 address, Ubuntu Server, system RAM at least 95% of GPU memory, reliability above 90% |
| Vast.ai datacenter | An ISO/IEC 27001 certificate, a registered business, a signed hosting agreement, an owner ID check, at least 5 GPU servers |
| Runpod | At least 20 GPUs and KYC; Community Cloud closed to new hosts |
| Runpod Secure Cloud | 100 kW of GPU servers in a Tier III+ facility; SOC 2, ISO 27001 or PCI DSS; 100 Gbps of diverse internet; a shared storage cluster |
| TensorDock | Vetted hosts, a static IP, 24/7 uptime with downtime penalties |
The hours rented and the price both move against you
No marketplace publishes occupancy. Vast.ai’s own host example assumes 80% (Vast.ai). The calculator starts at 50% for a passive listing.
Hourly prices fall as newer GPUs ship. H100s rented for about $8 an hour in 2023 and about $2 by late 2024 (Latent Space). The calculator lowers marketplace prices 10% a year.
Gaming cards earn little. Vast.ai says RTX 5090 hosts typically earn $0.30-0.60 per GPU-hour (Vast.ai), before home electricity.
A contract bills every hour at a lower rate
The customer pays whether it uses the GPUs or not. It rents every GPU for a fixed term, usually 1-3 years. Large contracts include a prepayment: Microsoft pays IREN 20% of each tranche before delivery (IREN 8-K).
The risk moves to the customer. If it stops paying, the servers earn nothing until they are rented again. Stability AI’s cloud suppliers forgave about $100M of unpaid bills in its June 2024 rescue (TechCrunch), so check the customer before you sign.
We find the customer. For servers we run, we charge 2.5% of the contract, only if it signs.
Want your GPUs on a contract? Tell us what you have.
- A call with our CTO about what you need
- Ballpark costs and timelines for your budget
- A straight answer if it’s not a fit
Prefer email? hello@amcompute.com
Renting out GPUs: questions
- How much does Vast.ai take from hosts?
- No host fee since June 2024. Hosts earn the price they set, and renters pay about 25% above it, so hosts keep about 80% of what the renter pays.
- Do GPU marketplaces withhold taxes?
- Vast.ai does not; hosts report their own earnings. Ask your tax advisor how rental income applies to you.