Buy vs rent
Given a model and your monthly usage, when does buying used hardware beat renting a cloud
GPU? The verdict comes only from the formula below, and both paths get equal billing. Hardware
costs use listings that passed our trust screen (screened, not guaranteed).
Popular models at default assumptions
Defaults: 40 h/mo · $0.16/kWh ·
24-month horizon · resale at
65% of median ask.
Qwen3.6 27B
(Q4_K_M, needs 20.88 GB VRAM)
Renting wins at 40 h/mo (breakeven ≈ 84 months, beyond the 24-month horizon).
Buy hardware $850
1× NVIDIA TITAN RTX: 24 GB VRAM, ~355 W
system
Est. resale − $649
Net hardware cost $201
Power at $0.16/kWh $0.057/hr used · 12,733 feedback · 99.6% positive · Top Rated seller · returns accepted · listed 21d
Screened, not guaranteed. Eligible purchases are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee .
Rent cloud $0.116/hr
Vast.ai: cheapest offer fitting 20.88 GB (rtx-3090 class, on-demand)
40 h/mo $4.65/mo
Total over 24 months
$112
Cloud prices checked 2026-07-31.
Storage/egress excluded.
Renting wins at 40 h/mo (breakeven ≈ 103 months, beyond the 24-month horizon).
Buy hardware $2,480
2× NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090: 48 GB VRAM, ~775 W
system
Est. resale − $1,689
Net hardware cost $791
Power at $0.16/kWh $0.124/hr used · 39,860 feedback · 99.7% positive · returns accepted · listed 14d
This config needs 2× this card; cost above sums the 2 cheapest screened listings.
Screened, not guaranteed. Eligible purchases are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee .
Rent cloud $0.316/hr
Vast.ai: cheapest offer fitting 25.41 GB (rtx-5090 class, on-demand)
40 h/mo $12.65/mo
Total over 24 months
$304
Cloud prices checked 2026-08-01.
Storage/egress excluded.
Gemma 4 31B
(Q4_K_M, needs 21.22 GB VRAM)
Renting wins at 40 h/mo (breakeven ≈ 84 months, beyond the 24-month horizon).
Buy hardware $850
1× NVIDIA TITAN RTX: 24 GB VRAM, ~355 W
system
Est. resale − $649
Net hardware cost $201
Power at $0.16/kWh $0.057/hr used · 12,733 feedback · 99.6% positive · Top Rated seller · returns accepted · listed 21d
Screened, not guaranteed. Eligible purchases are covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee .
Rent cloud $0.116/hr
Vast.ai: cheapest offer fitting 21.22 GB (rtx-3090 class, on-demand)
40 h/mo $4.65/mo
Total over 24 months
$112
Cloud prices checked 2026-07-31.
Storage/egress excluded.
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Assumptions behind these numbers (from the data export, verbatim)
assumptions.resale_fraction 0.65
assumptions.kwh_price 0.16
assumptions.hours_per_month 40
assumptions.horizon_months 24
assumptions.power_model power_per_hr = est_system_watts / 1000 * kwh_price
assumptions.excluded_costs cloud storage/egress excluded
assumptions.hw_cost_basis sum of the gpu_count cheapest active buy_pick listings (used bucket); a config whose GPU has fewer screened listings than it needs is left unpriced
assumptions.resale_basis resale_fraction x current median_ask x gpu_count
Interactive calculator
Pick a model and quant, then adjust usage, power price, and horizon. Everything recomputes
locally in your browser.
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Show the math
The interactive calculator needs JavaScript. Without it, the results above still cover
the three most popular models at the default assumptions.