{"slug": "i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-here-s-what-i-found", "title": "I Compared 5 GPU Clouds for LLM Inference in 2026 — Here's What I Found", "summary": "A developer compared five GPU cloud providers for LLM inference workloads, finding Vast.ai cheapest at roughly $1.20/hr for an A100 80GB, ahead of Lambda Labs (~$1.50), RunPod (~$1.89), GCP (~$2.90) and AWS (~$3.20). For 7B–13B models, the developer reports an RTX 4090 at about $0.35/hr on Vast.ai is sufficient, noting \"If your model fits, don't overpay for an A100.", "body_md": "*Researched October 2026. Prices from public pricing pages and third-party trackers.*\n\nRunning LLMs in production gets expensive fast. I spent a week comparing GPU cloud providers to find the cheapest way to serve inference workloads. Here are the results.\n\nI looked at five providers that offer on-demand GPU instances suitable for LLM inference:\n\n| Provider | A100 80GB/hr | Notes | \n|---|---|---|\n| Vast.ai | ~$1.20 | Marketplace, prices fluctuate | \n| RunPod | ~$1.89 | Secure Cloud pricing | \n| Lambda Labs | ~$1.50 | On-demand | \n| AWS (p4d) | ~$3.20 | On-demand, us-east-1 | \n| GCP (a2-highgpu) | ~$2.90 | On-demand | \n\n*Prices are approximate, researched October 2026. Always check current pricing.*\n\nFor smaller models (7B-13B), a 4090 is often enough and much cheaper:\n\n| Provider | RTX 4090/hr | \n|---|---|\n| Vast.ai | ~$0.35 | \n| RunPod | ~$0.69 | \n\nA 4090 can handle Llama 3 8B inference comfortably. If your model fits, don't overpay for an A100.\n\nI'm building a free tool that recommends the cheapest GPU for your specific workload. Drop a comment with your use case and I'll share early access.\n\n*What's your go-to GPU cloud? Am I missing a cheaper option?*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-here-s-what-i-found", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/qisuancloud/i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-heres-what-i-found-4884", "published_at": "2026-10-06 09:41:57+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-06 09:47:46.584580+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "large-language-models", "ai-chips"], "entities": ["Vast.ai", "RunPod", "Lambda Labs", "AWS", "GCP", "A100", "RTX 4090", "Llama 3"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-here-s-what-i-found", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-here-s-what-i-found.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-here-s-what-i-found.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-compared-5-gpu-clouds-for-llm-inference-in-2026-here-s-what-i-found.jsonld"}}