Practical
A practical brief
Answer in brief
Write the brief before you compare anything.
It turns an open search into a short list you can check in an afternoon.
A fine-tune costs the GPU-hours of one run, times the price per GPU-hour, times the runs you will really make, plus storage. Time a short slice of your own job on the GPU you plan to rent, then multiply it out.
The brief
Copy these lines and fill each one in. Leave nothing as “depends”: a line you cannot fill is the first thing to find out.
- Workload:Training, fine-tuning, inference or a batch job, and the model it runs.
- GPU model:The model you need, and the next one down that would also do.
- How many GPUs:The count you need at once. Note whether one machine must hold them all.
- Hours:Hours per day and days per month. This decides on demand against a term.
- Start date:Today, this week or a fixed date.
- Region:Where the data may be processed, if that is fixed.
- Billing unit:By the second, the minute or the hour, and whether boot time may be billed.
- Ceiling per GPU-hour:The most you will pay per GPU-hour for the smallest rental you can take.
- Storage and transfer:How much data stays between runs and how much leaves the provider.
How to use it
Send the same brief to every option you consider, or hold each one against it yourself. An option that cannot answer a line has answered it.
Keep the date on it. A brief filled in this week and a price read last month do not belong on the same page.
How Runcrate fits the brief
Runcrate is our editor’s choice for fine-tune cost: billing by the second, 26 GPU models from $0.23/hr, and one prepaid balance for GPUs, models and storage.
Billed by the second on most GPUs. Booting is never billed, so a failed run costs the time it ran.
26 GPU models from $0.23/hr, so you rent the memory the job needs.
One prepaid balance pays for GPUs, models and storage. Volumes keep checkpoints between instances.
The best developer platform we know: a CLI, an SDK, an MCP server and a ready Finetune crate.
Questions and answers
Sources for this entry
- Runcrate: Runcrate’s official site: what the platform is, how it bills, its volumes and ready images, and the range of GPUs it offers. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Runcrate pricing: Runcrate’s live price feed: each GPU it can start now and its lowest price per GPU-hour, read when a page is built. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Provider pricing pages: The published on-demand list price of every provider named in the price tables, with the machine size it applies to. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- Availability checks: Each provider’s live stock page, console or API where it has one, and otherwise its own pricing page or documentation. Read 12 Nov 2026.
- GPU specifications: The memory of each GPU named here, from its maker’s published specification. Read 12 Nov 2026.
Checklists are original editorial guidance. Published prices do not establish availability.
Continue this reading path
Cite this entry
Fine Tune Cost. “A practical brief.” Content reviewed 12 Nov 2026. https://finetunecost.com/brief