What drives the A100 80GB price gap
The NVIDIA A100 80GB is identical silicon everywhere — the 7.4× gap between Thunder Compute at the bottom and the hyperscalers at the top is about packaging, not performance. Specialist and marketplace clouds compete on raw $/hr; AWS, Azure and Google bundle the card with their platform, networking and support and price accordingly. For a sustained training run or a busy inference fleet, settling on the cheapest reliable provider is one of the largest single levers on your compute bill.
On-demand vs spot
On-demand guarantees the GPU is yours; spot and marketplace supply is cheaper but can be reclaimed, so it suits fault-tolerant or checkpointed workloads. Toggle "Best (incl. spot)" in the table above to see the cheapest available rate including interruptible supply.
Should you rent, or use an API?
If your goal is running an LLM rather than training one, renting a A100 80GBonly beats a managed API above a breakeven volume — and the maths flips once you count idle hours. Check it first with the self-host vs API breakeven calculator.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest cloud A100 80GB price?
The lowest on-demand rate we track for the NVIDIA A100 80GB is $0.78/hr at Thunder Compute, across 6 providers (verified 2026-06-05). Spot and marketplace rates run lower with variable availability.
How much does an A100 80GB cost per hour?
On-demand A100 80GB pricing ranges from $0.78/hr to $5.78/hr per GPU depending on provider — about a 7.4× spread for the same card. Specialist clouds are cheapest; hyperscalers (AWS/Azure/GCP) sit at the top.
Is it cheaper to rent an A100 80GB or use an LLM API?
Renting only wins above a breakeven volume, because a GPU bills every hour it exists while an API bills per token. Model your own crossover with the self-host vs API breakeven calculator before committing.
Independent comparison, no vendor influence. Standard on-demand pricing per single GPU, re-verified weekly (last 2026-06-05); negotiated and committed-use rates differ. Published under CC BY 4.0.