What is the difference between Beam and Runpod?

Beam and Runpod are both cloud GPU providers offering different pricing models, features, and GPU availability. Use our comparison tool to see real-time pricing and feature differences.

Which is cheaper: Beam or Runpod?

Pricing varies by GPU model and usage requirements. Check our real-time comparison table to find the best deals for your specific needs.

Can I switch between Beam and Runpod?

Yes, both providers offer flexible cloud GPU services. However, consider factors like data transfer costs, setup time, and specific features when switching between providers.

How many GPU models are available for comparison?

We track pricing for 37 different GPU models across both Beam and Runpod, with 0 models available from both providers.

Beam vs Runpod

Compare GPU and LLM inference API pricing between Beam and Runpod. Find the best rates for AI training, inference, and ML workloads.

Beam

Provider 1

GPUs Available

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Runpod

Provider 2

GPUs Available

Visit Website

Comparison Overview

Total GPU Models

Beam GPUs

Runpod GPUs

Direct Comparisons

Average Price Difference: $0.75/hour between comparable GPUs

GPU Pricing Comparison

Total GPUs: 37Both available: 3Beam: 3Runpod: 37

Showing 15 of 37 GPUs

Last updated: 9/25/2026, 2:31:45 AM

GPU Model ↑	Beam Price	Runpod Price	Price Diff ↕	Sources
A100 PCIE 40GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$1.19/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
A100 PCIE 40GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $1.19/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$1.00/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $1.00/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
A40 48GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.49/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
A40 48GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.49/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
B200 180GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$5.98/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
B200 180GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $5.98/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$2.59/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $2.59/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • BeamRunpod	$3.50/hr	$1.99/hr★ Best	↑+$1.51(+75.8%)	Beam Runpod API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Beam $3.50/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 Runpod $1.99/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Price Difference:↑+$1.51(+75.8%) Beam Runpod API
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$2.69/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $2.69/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
H200 141GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$3.59/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
H200 141GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $3.59/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
HGX B300 288GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$6.94/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
HGX B300 288GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $6.94/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
L4 24GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.49/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
L4 24GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.49/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
L40 40GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.69/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
L40 40GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.69/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
L40S 48GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.79/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
L40S 48GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.79/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$2.39/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $2.39/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
RTX 3070 8GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.13/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
RTX 3070 8GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.13/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
RTX 3080 10GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.17/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
RTX 3080 10GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.17/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API

A100 PCIE 40GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$1.19/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
A100 PCIE 40GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $1.19/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$1.00/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
A100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $1.00/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
A40 48GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.49/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
A40 48GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.49/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
B200 180GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$5.98/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
B200 180GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $5.98/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$2.59/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
H100 NVL 94GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $2.59/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • BeamRunpod	$3.50/hr	$1.99/hr★ Best	↑+$1.51(+75.8%)	Beam Runpod API
H100 PCIe 80GB VRAM • Beam $3.50/hour Updated: 9/22/2026 Runpod $1.99/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Price Difference:↑+$1.51(+75.8%) Beam Runpod API
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$2.69/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
H100 SXM 80GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $2.69/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
H200 141GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$3.59/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
H200 141GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $3.59/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
HGX B300 288GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$6.94/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
HGX B300 288GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $6.94/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
L4 24GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.49/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
L4 24GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.49/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
L40 40GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.69/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
L40 40GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.69/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
L40S 48GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.79/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
L40S 48GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.79/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$2.39/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
MI300X 192GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $2.39/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
RTX 3070 8GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.13/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
RTX 3070 8GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.13/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API
RTX 3080 10GB VRAM • Runpod	Not Available	$0.17/hr★ Best	—	Runpod API
RTX 3080 10GB VRAM • Not Available Runpod $0.17/hour Updated: 9/24/2026 ★Best Price Runpod API

LLM API Pricing Comparison

Total models: 4Both available: 0Beam: 0Runpod: 4

Showing 4 of 4 models

Prices per 1M tokens · Last updated: 9/25/2026, 2:31:45 AM

Model ↑	Beam	Runpod	Input Diff ↕
Kimi K2.6 Kimi	Not available	$0.950 in $4.00 out	—
Kimi K2.7 Code Kimi	Not available	$0.950 in $4.00 out	—
Kimi K3 Moonshot	Not available	$3.00 in $15.00 out	—
Qwen 3 32B Alibaba	Not available	$10.00 in $10.00 out	—

Features Comparison

Beam

Pay-per-millisecond Billing
Only charged when your code runs, no charges for cold starts or server spin-up
Sub-second Cold Starts
Memory snapshots and GPU checkpoint restore bring containers back in seconds, which Beam reports as up to 35x faster than a traditional cold boot
Secure Sandbox Environments
Run untrusted code safely in isolated environments for AI agents and code interpreters
Stateful, Persistent Runtimes
Pause and resume sessions while maintaining filesystem, memory, and running processes
Elastic GPU Scaling
Scale to zero when idle, burst to thousands of containers in seconds
Custom Docker Images
Bring your own Docker images for full environment control, including running the Docker daemon inside containers

Runpod

Secure Cloud GPUs
Access to a wide range of GPU types with enterprise-grade security
Pay-as-you-go
Only pay for the compute time you actually use
API Access
Programmatically manage your GPU instances via REST API
Fast cold-starts
Pods typically ready in 20-30 s
Hot-reload dev loop
SSH & VS Code tunnels built-in
Spot-to-on-demand fallback
Automatic migration on pre-empt

Pros & Cons

Beam

Advantages

Pay-per-millisecond billing with no charges for cold starts
Ultrafast boot times with sub-second cold starts via memory snapshots
GPU selection spanning RTX 4090 through B200, plus InfiniBand cluster nodes
On-demand machines priced flat per machine, including vCPU, RAM, and NVMe storage

Considerations

Serverless GPUs other than the RTX 4090 require a committed-spend agreement
GPU container concurrency is capped on the lower plan tiers
Multi-node InfiniBand clusters are sales-only with no published pricing

Runpod

Advantages

Competitive pricing with pay-per-second billing
Wide variety of GPU options
Simple and intuitive interface

Considerations

GPU availability can vary by region
Some features require technical knowledge

Compute Services

Beam

Inference Endpoints

Deploy high-performance inference endpoints with custom models

Custom model hosting on GPU or CPU
Pre-loading models for fast response times

Sandboxes

Secure code execution environments for AI agents

Run untrusted LLM-generated code safely
Snapshot and restore complete system state

Task Queues

Run large-scale workloads with distributed processing

Audio processing pipelines
Data processing at scale

Runpod

Pods

On‑demand single‑node GPU instances in Secure Cloud (data‑center hosted) or lower‑cost Community Cloud, with flexible templates and storage.

Serverless

Pay‑per‑second endpoints with automatic scaling for production AI/ML applications.

Instant Clusters

Fully managed multi‑node GPU clusters with high‑speed networking between nodes.

Pricing Options

Beam

Pay-per-millisecond

Serverless GPU, CPU, and sandbox usage billed by the millisecond with no minimum charges

Committed Spend

Serverless access to GPUs beyond the RTX 4090 is arranged through a committed-spend agreement

On-Demand Machines

Flat hourly price per machine that already includes the vCPU, RAM, and NVMe storage

Reserved Clusters

Multi-node InfiniBand clusters reserved monthly or yearly, quoted through sales

Bring Your Own Cloud

Per-vCPU and per-GB management fee on top of compute billed directly by your own cloud provider

Storage

Persistent volumes and snapshots included up to a capacity threshold, then billed per GB per month

Monthly Plans

Developer plan free with usage, Team plan with a monthly base fee plus usage, and a contact-sales Growth tier

Free Monthly Credits

All plans include monthly free credits that refresh each month

Volume Discounts

Discounts available for high monthly usage, arranged through sales

Runpod

Secure Cloud

Pods hosted in vetted data centers; higher reliability tier

Community Cloud

Pods on vetted community hosts at lower rates than Secure Cloud

Spot

Interruptible capacity at reduced prices

Serverless

Pay-per-second billing for endpoint execution time, with automatic scaling and no charge when idle

Clusters

Per-hour or per-second billing for multi-node GPU clusters with no commitment, scaling up to 64 GPUs

Reserved Clusters

Discounted rates for 1, 3, 6, or 12+ month commitments on dedicated clusters with guaranteed availability and SLA-backed uptime; quoted by sales

Public Endpoints

Usage-based billing for pre-deployed model APIs, charged per request, per token, or per 1000 characters depending on the model

Getting Started

Beam

Get Started

1
Create an account
Sign up on the Beam platform to receive monthly free credits
2
Set up Python environment
Create a virtual environment and install the Beam SDK
3
Authenticate with API token
Configure your API token to connect to Beam
4
Deploy your first app
Run a function locally, then deploy it as a web endpoint with the Beam CLI

Runpod

Get Started

1
Create an account
Sign up for Runpod using your email or GitHub account
2
Add payment method
Add a credit card or cryptocurrency payment method
3
Launch your first pod
Select a template and GPU type to launch your first instance

Support & Global Availability

Beam

Global Regions

30+ regions spanning the US, EU, Asia-Pacific, and Canada, with workloads routed across clouds and regions in real time

Support

Documentation, public Slack community, and a status page; live chat support on paid plans and a private Slack channel on the top tier

Runpod

Global Regions

31 global regions worldwide

Support

Documentation site, support request form, public status page, and a community Discord