Cheapest GPU to generate 1,000 images.
prices as of · re-ranked daily · 156 qualifying machines
Image generation is the one job on this site where the cheap cards win outright, because the model fits on all of them and only throughput separates them. We count only machines with 16 GB of GPU memory or more, and 156 of the 156 rentals we read qualify. The cheapest of them is $0.320 per 1,000 images at RTX A5000 · Community Cloud, which rents for $0.160/GPU-hr. They are ranked by what the work costs rather than by the hourly rate, because a faster card at twice the price can still be the cheaper way to buy the job.
The cheapest machine that can do this job is RTX A5000 · Community Cloud at RunPod: $0.320 per 1,000 images, read 17 Sept 2026.
Cheapest that fits
RTX A5000 · Community Cloud
RunPod$0.320per 1,000 images
$0.160/GPU-hr
lowest cost per 1,000 images
Cheapest interruptible
1V100.6V · 1x Tesla V100 16GB
Verda (DataCrunch)$0.346per 1,000 images
$0.173/GPU-hr · $0.173 on spot
same machine, taken back at any moment
Most memory for the money
8A6000.80V · 8x RTX A6000 48GB
Verda (DataCrunch)$1.18per 1,000 images
$0.592/GPU-hr · $0.592 on spot
the largest instance in the first twenty-five
What actually matters here
- 16 GB is the floor
- An SDXL-sized model and one 1024-pixel image fit in 16 GB. Everything in this index clears it, so the job is decided on price and speed rather than on whether it runs.
- Throughput, not memory
- Once the model fits, more memory buys nothing. What you are paying for is how fast the card pushes the denoising steps, which is why the cheap boards do well here and badly everywhere else.
- One GPU at a time
- Images are generated one per GPU, so a node of eight is eight times the work and eight times the price. The cost below is per GPU, which makes node size irrelevant.
- Cold starts cost money
- The model has to load before the first image. On a run this short, a provider that bills by the second and keeps the weights on local disk is worth more than a few cents on the rate.
Cheapest 10 per 1,000 images
- 1RunPod
RTX A5000 · Community Cloud
$0.320 per 1,000 images · 1x RTX A5000 · 24 GB · 9 vCPU · 25 GB RAM · $0.16/hr for the machineCommunity Cloud: vetted third-party hosts, cheaper and less consistent · storage billed separately · billed per second
✓ 24 GB per GPU
$0.160/GPU-hr
- 2Verda (DataCrunch)
1V100.6V · 1x Tesla V100 16GB
$0.346 per 1,000 images · 1x V100 16GB · 16 GB · 6 vCPU · 23 GB RAM · $0.17/hr for the machine · $0.173 at its spot rateDedicated Hardware Instance · storage billed separately
✓ 16 GB per GPU✓ spot rate published
$0.173/GPU-hr
- 3Verda (DataCrunch)
2V100.10V · 2x Tesla V100 16GB
$0.346 per 1,000 images · 2x V100 16GB · 16 GB each · 10 vCPU · 45 GB RAM · $0.35/hr for the machine · $0.173 at its spot rateDedicated Hardware Instance · storage billed separately · NVLink up to 50GB/s between GPUs
✓ 16 GB per GPU✓ 2 GPUs✓ spot rate published
$0.173/GPU-hr
- 4Verda (DataCrunch)
4V100.20V · 4x Tesla V100 16GB
$0.346 per 1,000 images · 4x V100 16GB · 16 GB each · 20 vCPU · 90 GB RAM · $0.69/hr for the machine · $0.173 at its spot rateDedicated Hardware Instance · storage billed separately · NVLink up to 50GB/s between GPUs
✓ 16 GB per GPU✓ 4 GPUs✓ spot rate published
$0.173/GPU-hr
- 5Verda (DataCrunch)
8V100.48V · 8x Tesla V100 16GB
$0.346 per 1,000 images · 8x V100 16GB · 16 GB each · 48 vCPU · 180 GB RAM · $1.38/hr for the machine · $0.173 at its spot rateDedicated Hardware Instance · storage billed separately · NVLink up to 50GB/s between GPUs
✓ 16 GB per GPU✓ 8 GPUs✓ spot rate published
$0.173/GPU-hr
- 6RunPod
RTX 3090 · Community Cloud
$0.440 per 1,000 images · 1x RTX 3090 · 24 GB · 16 vCPU · 125 GB RAM · $0.22/hr for the machineCommunity Cloud: vetted third-party hosts, cheaper and less consistent · storage billed separately · billed per second
✓ 24 GB per GPU
$0.220/GPU-hr
- 7RunPod
RTX A5000 · Secure Cloud
$0.540 per 1,000 images · 1x RTX A5000 · 24 GB · 9 vCPU · 25 GB RAM · $0.27/hr for the machineSecure Cloud: RunPod's own datacentres · storage billed separately · billed per second
✓ 24 GB per GPU
$0.270/GPU-hr
- 8RunPod
RTX A6000 · Community Cloud
$0.660 per 1,000 images · 1x RTX A6000 · 48 GB · 9 vCPU · 50 GB RAM · $0.33/hr for the machineCommunity Cloud: vetted third-party hosts, cheaper and less consistent · storage billed separately · billed per second
✓ 48 GB per GPU
$0.330/GPU-hr
- 9RunPod
RTX 4090 · Community Cloud
$0.680 per 1,000 images · 1x RTX 4090 · 24 GB · 6 vCPU · 41 GB RAM · $0.34/hr for the machineCommunity Cloud: vetted third-party hosts, cheaper and less consistent · storage billed separately · billed per second
✓ 24 GB per GPU
$0.340/GPU-hr
- 10RunPod
RTX 5090 · Community Cloud
$0.767 per 1,000 images · 1x RTX 5090 · 32 GB · 9 vCPU · 35 GB RAM · $0.69/hr for the machineCommunity Cloud: vetted third-party hosts, cheaper and less consistent · storage billed separately · billed per second
✓ 32 GB per GPU
$0.690/GPU-hr
An image is one 1024 by 1024 picture from a Stable Diffusion XL sized model. Boards are placed in four speed classes by the memory bandwidth their vendor publishes, and counted at 1,400, 900, 500 or 180 images an hour from the fastest class to the slowest. Those four numbers are assumptions for planning, not something measured here, so treat the ranking as the shape of the market rather than as a benchmark. The price beside each row is the on-demand rate for one GPU for one hour, so the two numbers answer different questions: $0.160/GPU-hr is what the GPU costs, and $0.320 per 1,000 images is what the work costs.
Frequently asked
- What is the cheapest GPU to generate 1,000 images?
- RTX A5000 · Community Cloud at RunPod, $0.320 per 1,000 images. That is 1x RTX A5000 with 24 GB of memory each, renting for $0.160/GPU-hr. Read on 17 Sept 2026.
- How is the cost worked out?
- An image is one 1024 by 1024 picture from a Stable Diffusion XL sized model. Boards are placed in four speed classes by the memory bandwidth their vendor publishes, and counted at 1,400, 900, 500 or 180 images an hour from the fastest class to the slowest. Those four numbers are assumptions for planning, not something measured here, so treat the ranking as the shape of the market rather than as a benchmark.
- Why do only 156 machines qualify?
- The job needs 16 GB of GPU memory or more. The other 0 rentals we read are still in the index; they just cannot do this job as described. Serverless rates are left out entirely, because they buy a container that runs when it is called rather than a machine you hold.
- Can I pay less on spot?
- 61 of the 156 qualifying machines publish an interruptible rate, and the column beside each row shows what the same work would cost on it if the run were never preempted. It can be, so treat the spot figure as a floor rather than a quote.
- How current are these prices?
- Prices are read daily from 10 providers' own public pages and keyless APIs, and this ranking recomputes with them. Last refresh: 17 Sept 2026.