Every default below is editable and dated September 2026 — prices drift, so adjust before deciding. The reasoning behind the model is in the local vs cloud GPU guide; the rest of the budget lines come from the research stack guide.

Your workload

Results

Own the GPU

$—

    Rent the GPU

    $—
      —
      Assumptions (edit me — defaults dated September 2026)

      How the model works

      Own = card price amortized linearly (default 30 months, conservative — cards hold resale value), plus metered electricity, plus local NVMe amortized over 3 years. Rent = marketplace-cloud hourly rate (Vast/RunPod-tier interruptible; hyperscaler on-demand runs 2–5× higher), plus cloud object storage. Both share your data subscriptions, batch-API spend, and VPS line so the totals are whole-stack budgets, not just GPU line items.

      What it deliberately ignores: your time (ops overhead of owning, checkpoint discipline of renting), resale value (favors owning), and data-licensing restrictions that can forbid third-party clouds outright — that last one overrides any price math and is covered in the guide.

      Prefer a spreadsheet? Download the same model as an .xlsx with live formulas — edit the blue cells, keep it in your planning folder.