Rent or own your GPUs?

Compare cloud GPU rent with owning the same servers.

GPU
You'd rent
$4.60
80%
Fine-tune
Compare over
$7.50
80%
$550K
$55K
$280
25%
3 months

Owning saves, over 3 years

$4.21M

For 8 B300 servers, after resale.

Renting, 3 years
$7.74M
Owning, 3 years
$3.53M
Owning pulls ahead
22 months
$0$2M$4M$6M$8MNow1 yr2 yr3 yrOwning pulls ahead
RentingOwning
See every line

Renting

Rent per month, first year
$215K
Total over 3 years
$7.74M
Per GPU-hour you use
$5.75

Owning

8 B300 servers, network, shipping, setup
From $4.88M
Data center and management
$1.32M
Idle hours rented out
-$1.57M
Resale value (25%)
-$1.10M
Total over 3 years
$3.53M
Per GPU-hour you use
$2.62

Ballpark, before taxes, insurance, and financing. Owning takes cash upfront, or about half with a lender.

Get this comparison as a spreadsheet

When owning wins

Owning pays off when you use the GPUs most of the time for two years or more. Reserved cloud GPUs bill every hour whether you use them or not, and the servers you own still have resale value at the end.

Keep renting if your usage is spiky or you only need GPUs for a few months. We’ll tell you on the first call if owning doesn’t make sense yet.

What owning takes, and who handles it

  • Cash or financing

    Pay for the servers upfront, or put in about half and borrow the rest.

  • A data center

    We find the space and power, and the contract is in your name.

  • Time

    Usually 60-90 days from order to going live.

  • Someone to run it

    We monitor the cluster and handle repairs and warranty claims.

Tell us what you run today.

  • 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

Rent vs own questions

Is it cheaper to own GPUs or rent them?
Owning usually wins if you use the GPUs most of the time for two years or more. Eight B300 servers cost about $7.7M to rent reserved for three years, or about $3.5M to own, after resale and renting out the hours they don’t use.
When should we keep renting?
When usage is spiky, you need GPUs for only a few months, or you can’t tie up the cash.
How much cash do we need to own?
The servers upfront, or about half with a lender. Lenders want to see strong funding or a signed customer.
How long until we can use it?
Most smaller deployments go live in 60-90 days.
Can we rent out the GPUs we don’t use?
Yes. We can rent idle hours to other AI companies, and that income lowers your cost.
What if we need more GPUs later?
Add servers to the same cluster. We plan power and networking for growth from the start.

Further reading

The hardware in the calculator

Ready to own your compute? We’ll run it.

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