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Fine-tuning on rented GPUsEdition of 12 Nov 2026
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Fine-tuning on rented GPUs

Glossary

Answer in brief

The 8 terms you meet when you read about fine-tuning on rented GPUs, each in one sentence, with an entry that says what it changes for a buyer.

Terms

  • GPU-hour

    A GPU-hour is one GPU running for one hour, the unit that fine-tune prices and estimates are counted in.

  • LoRA

    LoRA is a fine-tuning method that freezes the model and trains small added matrices, so the job needs far less GPU memory than a full fine-tune.

  • QLoRA

    QLoRA is LoRA with the frozen model loaded at lower precision, which cuts the memory the job needs again.

  • Full fine-tune

    A full fine-tune updates every weight in a model, which needs memory for the weights, their gradients and the optimizer state.

  • Checkpoint

    A checkpoint is a saved copy of the training state, written during a run so that the run can resume or be rolled back.

  • Epoch

    An epoch is one full pass of the training data through the model.

  • GPU memory

    GPU memory is the memory on the card itself, which must hold the model, the gradients, the optimizer state and a batch of data during training.

  • Volume

    A volume is storage that exists apart from a machine, so files on it remain when the machine is stopped or deleted.

Questions and answers

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. Runcrate publishes this site.

Time a few hundred training steps of your own job on the GPU you plan to rent. Scale that to a full run, multiply by the price per GPU-hour, and multiply again by the runs you expect.

Sources for this entry

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

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Cite this entry

Fine Tune Cost. “Glossary.” Content reviewed 12 Nov 2026. https://finetunecost.com/glossary