# CoreWeave vs RunPod

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/coreweave-vs-runpod/

Every value below is read from CoreWeave's and RunPod's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | CoreWeave | RunPod |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Storage price | $0.06 per GB per month for hot AI object storage, and $0.070 per GB per month for the tier listed beside it. | Persistent storage from $0.05 per GB per month, in standard and high-performance tiers. |
| H100 SXM, per GPU-hour | $6.16 per GPU-hour for H100 SXM 80GB. CoreWeave sells the 8-GPU HGX H100 node at $49.24/hour on demand — the per-GPU figure is that divided by eight, ours rather than CoreWeave's, and you cannot rent one card. | $3.49 per hour for H100 SXM 80GB, single card. The PCIe variant is $2.89 and H100 NVL is $3.19. |
| Cheapest GPU, per hour | $1.25 per GPU-hour for L40, again as an 8-GPU node at $10.00/hour. A100 80GB nodes are $21.60/hour, or $2.70 per GPU. | $0.27 per hour for an RTX A5000 with 24GB. RTX 3090 is $0.50, RTX 4090 $0.74, L40S $1.09. |
| Largest GPU offered | 288GB per GPU on B300-class hardware; the largest listed on-demand node is HGX B200 at 180GB per GPU, eight GPUs, $68.80/hour. | 288GB per GPU on B300; B200 at 180GB is $6.79 an hour and H200 at 141GB is $4.59. |

## Where they differ

### Storage price

- CoreWeave: $0.06 per GB per month for hot AI object storage, and $0.070 per GB per month for the tier listed beside it. ([source](https://www.coreweave.com/pricing))
- RunPod: Persistent storage from $0.05 per GB per month, in standard and high-performance tiers. ([source](https://www.runpod.io/pricing))

### H100 SXM, per GPU-hour

- CoreWeave: $6.16 per GPU-hour for H100 SXM 80GB. CoreWeave sells the 8-GPU HGX H100 node at $49.24/hour on demand — the per-GPU figure is that divided by eight, ours rather than CoreWeave's, and you cannot rent one card. ([source](https://www.coreweave.com/pricing))
- RunPod: $3.49 per hour for H100 SXM 80GB, single card. The PCIe variant is $2.89 and H100 NVL is $3.19. ([source](https://www.runpod.io/pricing))

### Cheapest GPU, per hour

- CoreWeave: $1.25 per GPU-hour for L40, again as an 8-GPU node at $10.00/hour. A100 80GB nodes are $21.60/hour, or $2.70 per GPU. ([source](https://www.coreweave.com/pricing))
- RunPod: $0.27 per hour for an RTX A5000 with 24GB. RTX 3090 is $0.50, RTX 4090 $0.74, L40S $1.09. ([source](https://www.runpod.io/pricing))

### Largest GPU offered

- CoreWeave: 288GB per GPU on B300-class hardware; the largest listed on-demand node is HGX B200 at 180GB per GPU, eight GPUs, $68.80/hour. ([source](https://www.coreweave.com/pricing))
- RunPod: 288GB per GPU on B300; B200 at 180GB is $6.79 an hour and H200 at 141GB is $4.59. ([source](https://www.runpod.io/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick CoreWeave if Training runs that want a whole HGX node and move large datasets — free egress and free I/O operations remove the charge that usually dominates a data-heavy job.

Pick RunPod if Short experiments and bursty inference — per-second billing and a $0.27 entry card mean an idle hour costs nothing and a small job is genuinely small.

Consider something else: CoreWeave — You cannot rent a single card: the H100 is sold as an eight-GPU node at $49.24 an hour, so a one-GPU experiment costs eight GPUs.

Consider something else: RunPod — The catalogue mixes community and secure capacity, so the cheapest quoted rate is not always the tier a production workload should sit on.

## Documented by only one

- Egress over allowance: CoreWeave: Free. CoreWeave charges nothing for egress or for I/O operations, and runs a zero-egress migration programme for moving data in.
- Billing granularity: RunPod: Per second, with per-hour rates shown for comparison. Clusters can be started with no commitment and scaled to 64 GPUs.
- Reserved pricing: CoreWeave: Up to 60% below on-demand for reserved compute capacity.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose CoreWeave or RunPod?**

Pick CoreWeave if Training runs that want a whole HGX node and move large datasets — free egress and free I/O operations remove the charge that usually dominates a data-heavy job.
Pick RunPod if Short experiments and bursty inference — per-second billing and a $0.27 entry card mean an idle hour costs nothing and a small job is genuinely small.