RunPod H100 vs Vast.ai H100
Vast.ai H100 is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | RunPod H100 | Vast.ai H100 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | No | No | — |
Source: RunPod pricing (May 2026) · Vast.ai pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | RunPod H100 | Vast.ai H100 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $1,453 | $1,205 | Vast.ai H100saves $248/mo (17%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $2,905 | $2,409 | Vast.ai H100saves $496/mo (17%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $1,453 | $1,205 | Vast.ai H100saves $248/mo (17%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
RunPod H100
by RunPod
Per-second billing across a vetted Secure Cloud tier and a cheaper Community Cloud. The split lets you trade price against reliability explicitly rather than guessing.
Vast.ai H100
by Vast.ai
Marketplace bidding drives the lowest H100 rate available anywhere. Capacity is rented from independent hosts, so reliability, network, and disk vary by machine rather than by a published SLA.
Common questions
- Is RunPod H100 or Vast.ai H100 cheaper in 2026?
- Vast.ai H100 is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- Which has the better free tier, RunPod H100 or Vast.ai H100?
- Neither publishes a free tier; both bill from the first unit of usage.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.