Curated Buying Guide · prices verified 2026-08-25
Run LLM-Generated Code Safely — Priced to the Cent
The classic agent loop: your model writes code, an isolated sandbox runs it, returns stdout, and dies. Short sessions and per-second billing matter more than raw price — but at 500 hr/mo of 2 vCPU / 4 GiB the computed spread still runs $33.33 to $158.40.
🏆 Recommendations for This Workload
Editorial picks — curated by us for this workload. The full computed table (all priced vendors) follows below.
Computed bill $33.33/mo at 500 hr of 2 vCPU / 4 GiB — 2.5× under the E2B/Daytona tie.
$82.80/mo computed, with first-class LLM-agent tooling and per-second granularity.
Same computed $82.80/mo as Daytona; the SDK most agent frameworks target first — mind the ≤24h Pro session cap.
Computed Monthly Cost at This Guide's Workload
Workload: 500 sandbox-hrs/mo · 2 vCPU per sandbox · 4 GiB RAM per sandbox
| Rank | Vendor | $/vCPU-hr | $/GiB-hr | Computed Monthly Bill | × cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | E2B | $0.0504 | $0.0162 | $82.80/mo | 2.50× |
| 2 | Daytona | $0.0504 | $0.0162 | $82.80/mo | 2.50× |
| 5 | Beam (sandbox) | $0.0675 | $0.0230 | $113.58/mo | 3.40× |
| 6 | Modal (Sandboxes) | $0.0710 | $0.0240 | $119.00/mo | 3.60× |
| 8 | Runloop | $0.1080 | $0.0252 | $158.40/mo | 4.80× |
| 7 | Self-host Firecracker (Hetzner) | — | incl. | $153.59/mo | 4.60× |
| 4 | Cloudflare Containers | $0.0720 | $0.0090 | $90.00/mo | 2.70× |
| 1 | Northflank | $0.0167 | $0.0083 | $33.33/mo | cheapest |
💡 Key Takeaways
- Every ranked vendor here bills per-second or better — you never pay for idle minutes.
- The cheapest managed option runs 2.5× under the premium tier; at 5,000 hr/mo that gap is $333.30 vs $828.00.
- Free credits (E2B's one-time $100) are onboarding sweeteners, not modeled discounts — the monthly run-rate is what repeats.
⚠️ Gotchas & Hidden Costs
- Session caps kill long agent runs: E2B Hobby dies at 1h, Pro at 24h.
- Concurrency caps on self-serve plans gate fan-out before budget does.
Fine-Tune for Your Exact Workload
Adjust sandbox-hours and the vCPU/RAM profile in the full interactive calculator.
Customize This Workload in Calculator →