Modal Pricing Calculator 2026
Estimate your total cost including hidden fees
The Modal calculator estimates the cost of your selected plan. Change the team size where pricing is per person, choose an available billing period, and add reported extras that apply to your contract.
Enter your requirements below to see the recurring cost and first-year total. Unverified extras are excluded.
- Plans: 3 tiers; Free–$250/GPU/hour
- GPU Compute Costs Billed on Top of Plan Fee: $2-$72/hr per GPU
- DIY Configuration Overhead and Cold Start Latency: 5-15% of license costs
- DIY Infrastructure Overhead: vLLM Configuration and Cold Starts: 10-25% of license costs
Reported extras may depend on your usage and contract. Confirm the final quote with Modal.
Modal pricing ranges from $0 to $250 per GPU/hour as of September 2026. Modal offers 3 pricing tiers. Reported extras are shown below. Only costs with a clear amount and billing basis can be added to the estimate. Pricing verified from 4 sources by CostBench.
Estimate Your Monthly Cost
Enter your expected monthly usage:
- Compute rates apply to all plans (Starter, Team, Enterprise)
- Billed per second of active execution — no idle charges
- Free credits automatically applied before billing
- Sandbox/Notebook CPU and memory priced higher (~3x base)
- Non-preemptible execution available at 3x base prices
- Volume storage: $0.09/GiB/mo (includes 1 TiB/mo free)
Real-World Modal Cost Examples
Solo Developer on Starter Plan
$0$0/month platform fee + ~$2/hr per GPU compute
A solo developer using the free Starter plan for occasional on-demand GPU workloads. Compute is billed at ~$2/hr per GPU baseline with no monthly platform fee.
HN community (sid-the-kid, 2025-04-24)Small Team Running Large Model Inference
$250$250/month platform fee + ~$72/hr GPU costs for large model serving
A small team on the Team plan deploying a 100B+ parameter model for product use. Large model serving can require multi-GPU setups at ~$72/hr, making this viable for shared usage across many users but prohibitively expensive for low-utilization individual deployments.
HN community (weitendorf, 2025-07-13)Solo Developer (Occasional GPU Workloads)
$~$2/hour per GPU on-demand; $0 platform fee (Starter plan)~$2/hour per GPU on-demand; $0 platform fee (Starter plan)
A single developer on the Starter plan running occasional on-demand GPU tasks such as model fine-tuning experiments or inference testing. No platform fee; total cost is entirely compute-driven.
HN community report (2025-04-24)Small Team Hosting a Large Open-Source LLM
$~$72/hour to serve a Kimi K2-class model; $250/month Team plan platform fee~$72/hour to serve a Kimi K2-class model; $250/month Team plan platform fee
A small engineering team running a continuously available large model (Kimi K2-class) for internal tooling or a product feature. Cost depends heavily on hours of sustained GPU usage.
HN community report (2025-07-13); Current tier dataEnterprise / High-Volume Production Workload
$200,000$200,000/year median (Vendr deal flow)
An organization with sustained, high-volume GPU workloads running on an Enterprise plan with custom pricing and SLAs.
VendrSolo Developer: On-Demand GPU Experiments
$0$0/month platform + ~$2/hr per GPU used
A single developer on the Starter plan running occasional GPU workloads — model fine-tuning, inference testing, and batch jobs. Zero platform cost; all spend is variable GPU compute billed per hour.
HN community (sid-the-kid, 2025-04-24)Small AI Team: Collaborative Development
$250$250/month platform + variable GPU compute at ~$2/hr per standard GPU
A team of 3–10 engineers on the Team plan building and deploying AI models together. Fixed $250/month platform fee plus variable GPU compute that can significantly exceed the platform fee during active development.
Current tier data + HN communityLarge Model Serving: Single LLM Deployment
$~$72/hr per large model deployment~$72/hr per large model deployment
Running a large open-source model (Kimi K2 scale) on Modal's H100-class GPUs to serve multiple concurrent users. One deployment can serve many users simultaneously but at significant hourly cost — economics depend heavily on utilization.
HN community (weitendorf, 2025-07-13)Compare at This Team Size
Frequently Asked Questions
01 How accurate is this Modal pricing calculator?
This calculator uses official Modal pricing data verified as of 2026-07-29. Hidden cost estimates are based on 10 verified cost categories from real user reports. Actual costs may vary based on negotiated discounts, specific feature requirements, and implementation complexity.
02 What hidden costs should I include in my Modal budget?
Our calculator includes 3 verified hidden cost categories for Modal: DIY Configuration Overhead and Cold Start Latency, DIY Infrastructure Overhead: vLLM Configuration and Cold Starts, Team Collaboration Requires $250/Month Upgrade. Toggle each to see how they affect your total cost.
03 Should I choose monthly or annual billing for Modal?
Compare the published annual total with twelve monthly payments when both are available. An annual commitment may reduce flexibility; confirm cancellation terms and whether the quoted plan fits your needs.
04 How do I know which Modal tier I need?
Start with your must-have features. Modal offers 3 tiers ranging from $0 to $250/GPU/hour. Entry tiers work for basic needs, while enterprise tiers add advanced security, customization, and support.
05 Can I negotiate Modal pricing below calculator estimates?
Negotiated pricing depends on the vendor, plan and contract. We do not assume a discount in this estimate. See our negotiation guide for tactics.