--- title: "Modal Alternative (2026): GPU Prices vs PowerGPU" description: "Modal vs PowerGPU: B200 price, billing, payment (crypto, no KYC) and what maps to what when you switch. Public list prices checked 2026-09-03." url: https://powergpu.ai/alternatives/modal last_modified: 2026-09-14T11:04:20+00:00 prices_as_of: 2026-09-14 site: PowerGPU (powergpu.ai) --- Alternative · prices checked 2026-09-03 # Modal alternative: same NVIDIA GPUs, fixed prices 30% under the market Modal is a serverless platform where Python functions decorated with a GPU spec run in containers that scale from zero to thousands and bill per second — GPU, CPU and memory as separate meters. It is excellent for bursty inference and jobs; it is not a place to keep a machine, SSH in and leave Jupyter running. 4 min read Updated 2026-09-14 (PowerGPU prices live from the sheet) ## Modal vs PowerGPU at a glance Modal Python-native serverless: functions on GPUs, per-second, scale to zero PowerGPU Fixed prices at market median × 0.70, crypto only, verified datacenters | | Modal | PowerGPU | | --- | --- | --- | | Billing | Per second — GPU + CPU ($0.047/core-hr) + memory ($0.008/GiB-hr) separately | Per second, no minimum, price locked at deploy | | Payment | Card | Crypto only — USDT (TRC-20/ERC-20), BTC, XMR, LTC, ETH, TRX, SOL | | Identity | Card or GitHub account | Email + password. No KYC, no card, no stored IP addresses | | Free credit | $30/month (Starter), $100/month (Team) | None — every hour is ≥30% under the market median instead | | Cheaper tier | None | Interruptible flat −50% (no auction) · reserved −35% (3+ months) | | Regions | United States (+ selected) | 32 regions on 5 continents, verified datacenters only | | Minimums | None | None — 1× to 8× GPUs at the same per-GPU price | | Storage | Volumes $0.09/GiB/mo, first 1 TiB free | $0.08/GB/month NVMe, volumes survive instances | | Egress | Free | $0.01/GB in and out, every region | | Access | Python SDK only (no SSH, no long-lived VMs) | Containers or full KVM VMs, SSH, Jupyter, REST API, CLI, Python SDK | Modal column: as published on modal.com on 2026-09-03. Details change — verify before you decide. ## Modal vs PowerGPU prices, GPU by GPU Public on-demand list prices per GPU-hour on Modal's pricing page (2026-09-03) against PowerGPU's fixed rates today — every PowerGPU price is the public marketplace median × 0.70, rounded down, re-checked weekly. | GPU | Modal list | PowerGPU on-demand | PowerGPU interruptible | Difference | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [B200](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/b200) ($0.001736/s) | $6.25 | **$5.425** | $2.712 | −13% on PowerGPU | | [H200](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/h200) ($0.001261/s) | $4.54 | **$2.791** | $1.395 | −39% on PowerGPU | | [H100 SXM](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/h100-sxm) ($0.001097/s) | $3.95 | **$1.428** | $0.714 | −64% on PowerGPU | | [A100 SXM4](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/a100-sxm4) (80 GB, $0.000694/s) | $2.50 | **$0.560** | $0.280 | −78% on PowerGPU | | [L40S](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/l40s) ($0.000542/s) | $1.95 | **$0.514** | $0.257 | −74% on PowerGPU | | [A10](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/a10) ($0.000306/s) | $1.10 | **$0.168** | $0.084 | −85% on PowerGPU | | [L4](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/l4) ($0.000222/s) | $0.80 | **$0.225** | $0.112 | −72% on PowerGPU | | [Tesla T4](https://powergpu.ai/gpu/tesla-t4) ($0.000164/s) | $0.59 | **$0.103** | $0.051 | −83% on PowerGPU | Configurations differ (node sizes, tiers, regions); the note beside each card says which Modal price is quoted. Negative differences mean Modal is cheaper on that card. ## When to stay with Modal - Your workload is bursty inference written in Python and you want autoscaling without operating anything. - The $30/month free credit covers your usage. - You never need a shell, a desktop, a VM or a long-running notebook. ## Why teams switch to PowerGPU - Long-running machines: SSH, Jupyter, full KVM VMs, desktops — Modal has no persistent instances. - One price per GPU-hour that includes the CPU and RAM; Modal meters GPU, CPU and memory separately. - Fixed rates at market median × 0.70 (Modal H100 $3.95, A100 80 GB $2.50), interruptible −50%, reserved −35%. - Crypto settlement with no card or KYC — and a serverless endpoint product when you do want scale-to-zero. ## Switching from Modal: what maps to what | On Modal | On PowerGPU | | --- | --- | | @app.function(gpu="H100") | Serverless endpoint (vLLM / ComfyUI / any container) or an instance you keep | | Modal Volume | Volume, $0.08/GB/month | | Container image definition | Any OCI image or one of 37 templates | | Modal CLI | powergpu CLI, REST API, Python SDK | *the whole migration, from the shell* ``` pip install powergpu export POWERGPU_API_KEY=pg_live_… # console → API keys powergpu launch --gpu b200 --template pytorch --disk 100 --volume data:/data # ✓ instance i-52ab77c1 running (24.1s) · $5.425/hr · per second powergpu stop i-52ab77c1 # billing ends this second ``` Data moves the boring way: rsync or rclone from your Modal machine to a PowerGPU [volume](https://powergpu.ai/products/volumes), which then mounts on every future instance in seconds. Templates for [PyTorch](https://powergpu.ai/templates/pytorch), [vLLM](https://powergpu.ai/templates/vllm), [ComfyUI](https://powergpu.ai/templates/comfyui) and [Ollama](https://powergpu.ai/templates/ollama) are official images; anything else runs from its OCI reference. ## A real month, costed | Scenario | Modal | PowerGPU | | --- | --- | --- | | 1× B200, 730 hours on-demand | $4,563 | **$3,960** | | 1× B200, 8 h/day × 20 days | $1,000 | **$868** | | Same 160 hours, PowerGPU interruptible | — | **$434** | | 500 GB of storage, one month | Volumes $0.09/GiB/mo, first 1 TiB free | $40 | Run your own schedule through the [cost calculator](https://powergpu.ai/calculator) — it adds storage and bandwidth and compares against the marketplace median. ## Modal alternative: FAQ **Is PowerGPU cheaper than Modal?** Per GPU-hour, yes: Modal bills the H100 at $3.95/hr and the A100 80 GB at $2.50/hr plus CPU and memory meters (checked 2026-09-03); PowerGPU fixes them at the public market median × 0.70, CPU and RAM included. Modal's $30 monthly credit can make tiny workloads free. **Does PowerGPU have scale-to-zero like Modal?** Yes — serverless endpoints with queue-based autoscaling, cached weights and per-second billing on the same fixed prices. The difference is that PowerGPU also offers instances, VMs and SSH when a function is not the right shape. **Can I keep using Python to drive PowerGPU?** Yes: pip install powergpu gives a typed SDK with a context manager that guarantees the meter stops when your block exits. --- Try the switch for the price of a coffee Top up $40 in USDT or Monero, deploy the same image you run on Modal, and benchmark it. No card, no KYC, per-second billing — stop it the minute you are done. Modal and its logo are trademarks of their owner, used here only to identify the compared service; PowerGPU is not affiliated with Modal. NVIDIA GPU names are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. --- *About PowerGPU:* PowerGPU (powergpu.ai) is a cloud GPU rental service offering 80 NVIDIA GPU models — from the RTX A2000 at $0.024/hr to the B300 — at fixed prices set at least 30% below the public GPU marketplace median and re-checked weekly (H100 SXM: $1.428/hr on-demand). Billing is per second with no minimums; payment is crypto only (USDT, BTC, XMR, ETH, SOL, LTC, TRX) with no KYC. Instances run in Tier-III datacenters across 32 regions with a 99.9% uptime SLA and deploy in about 30 seconds from the web console (cloud.powergpu.ai) or the REST API. Source: https://powergpu.ai/alternatives/modal · Site index for AI assistants: https://powergpu.ai/llms.txt · Full content: https://powergpu.ai/llms-full.txt