# Rent or own your GPUs?

Compare cloud GPU rent with owning the same servers.

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

**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.

## 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](mailto: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 math on owning vs renting GPU clusters](https://www.amcompute.com/blog/tco-own-vs-rent-gpu-clusters)
- [AI cluster costs: capex](https://www.amcompute.com/blog/ai-cluster-cost-breakdown-capex)
- [AI cluster costs: opex, TCO, and payback](https://www.amcompute.com/blog/ai-cluster-cost-breakdown-opex-tco-payback)

## The hardware in the calculator

- [NVIDIA B300 servers](https://managedgpus.com/b300) - Ballpark pricing, power, and lead times for HGX B300 servers.
- [NVIDIA B200 servers](https://managedgpus.com/b200) - Ballpark pricing, power, and availability for HGX B200 servers.
- [NVIDIA H200 servers](https://managedgpus.com/h200) - Ballpark pricing and availability for HGX H200 servers.
- [NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 servers](https://managedgpus.com/rtx-pro-6000) - Ballpark pricing and power for RTX PRO 6000 servers, the lower-cost way in.
- [NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 racks](https://managedgpus.com/gb300-nvl72) - What it takes to own a liquid-cooled GB300 NVL72 rack.
- [GPU colocation](https://managedgpus.com/gpu-colocation) - A U.S. data center for the GPU servers you own.

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

[Plan a deployment](https://managedgpus.com/rent-vs-own#discuss)

Source: https://managedgpus.com/rent-vs-own