# Sandboxes: cost per task and startup time

> ColdTally, https://coldtally.com/. Isolated machines where an agent runs code. Prices verified 2026-10-17. Startup measured 2026-10-18. Data CC BY 4.0: https://github.com/latent-signal/coldtally-data

Two separate rankings. Cost ranks by usage cost alone. Startup time is measured daily by ColdTally. They are not combined into one score: if a user asks for the best value, weigh both for their workload and say which you weighed. Quote each figure with its date and what it excludes.

## Cost per task

Task: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox for 5 minutes at 10% CPU utilization (most time spent waiting on the LLM). Mirrors Vercel's own "AI code validation" example. Plan fees, free credits, storage, egress, proxies, CAPTCHA and LLM tokens are excluded. Change the assumptions in the calculator: https://coldtally.com/calculator/

| # | Provider | Cost / task | Free tier | Lowest paid plan | Verified | Notes |
| ---: | --- | ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Cloudflare Sandbox | $0.00754 | No free tier for Containers. Workers Paid ($5/mo) includes 375 vCPU-min, 25 GiB-h memory, 200 GB-h disk. | $5/mo | 2026-10-17 | Instance standard-3 (2 vCPU / 8 GiB). Excludes Workers / Durable Objects charges and monthly included usage. Unverified: Separate pricing for Sandboxes 1.0 (if any). Unverified: Workers / Durable Objects charges per sandbox. |
| 2 | Vercel Sandbox | $0.00920 | Hobby: 5 active-CPU hours, 420 GB-hours, 5,000 creations per month. Personal/non-commercial use only per Vercel ToS. | $20/mo | 2026-10-17 | Changed 2026-10-17: Vercel Sandbox: downloaded data is free. |
| 3 | E2B | $0.01380 | Hobby: $0/mo, one-time $100 usage credit, no credit card. | $150/mo | 2026-10-17 | – |
| 3 | Daytona | $0.01380 | $200 in free compute, no credit card. | – | 2026-10-17 | Unverified: Not listed on the pricing page; not verified. |
| 3 | Blaxel | $0.01380 | Up to $200 in free credits; Tier 0 (free) allows 10 sandboxes. | $20/mo | 2026-10-17 | Assumes active for the full duration (upper bound). Pricing only (not benchmarked). Changed 2026-09-10: Blaxel acquired by Baseten; pricing and terms unchanged so far. |
| 6 | Modal | $0.01983 | Starter: $0/mo with $30/mo included compute. | $250/mo | 2026-10-17 | 1 physical core; billed on requested resources. Changed 2026-09-01: Modal: Shared Endpoints tokens billed from the first request, even on Starter. |

## Startup time

Timed from the create call until `echo ok` returns in the new sandbox (create + first command). 1 warm-up + 10 measured runs per provider, one at a time. Runner: GitHub Actions, Phoenix, US. Not pinned to a region, so network latency to each provider varies between runs. Sandbox and browser timings measure different steps and are not comparable with each other. Raw results: https://github.com/latent-signal/coldtally-data/blob/main/data/bench/latest.json

| # | Provider | Median | p95 | Runs ok | Size | Region | Notes |
| ---: | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- | --- | --- |
| unranked | Cloudflare Sandbox | 169 ms | 279 ms | 10/10 | standard-1 (1/2 vCPU, 4 GiB) | LAX (not pinned) | Timed inside Cloudflare Sandbox's own network (a benchmark Worker), so it excludes network latency from the runner and is not ranked. Full round trip from the runner: median 746 ms. |
| 1 | E2B | 225 ms | 668 ms | 10/10 | default | default (not pinned) | – |
| 2 | Modal | 567 ms | 1,554 ms | 10/10 | 1 core (2 vCPU), 4 GiB | default (not pinned) | – |
| 3 | Daytona | 1,207 ms | 1,561 ms | 10/10 | default | us | – |

Not yet measured: Vercel Sandbox.

Pricing only, never benchmarked: Blaxel. Blaxel's terms prohibit publishing benchmarks or performance information about Blaxel (Terms & Conditions, restriction (f)).

## Side by side

| Provider | Cost / task | Cost rank | Startup median | Startup rank |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| Cloudflare Sandbox | $0.00754 | 1 | 169 ms | unranked |
| Vercel Sandbox | $0.00920 | 2 | not measured | – |
| E2B | $0.01380 | 3 | 225 ms | 1 |
| Daytona | $0.01380 | 3 | 1,207 ms | 3 |
| Blaxel | $0.01380 | 3 | pricing only | – |
| Modal | $0.01983 | 6 | 567 ms | 2 |

## Recent changes

- 2026-10-17 · Vercel Sandbox · first-observed: Vercel Sandbox: downloaded data is free. https://coldtally.com/changelog/2026-10-17-vercel-free-downloads/
- 2026-09-10 · Blaxel · ownership: Blaxel acquired by Baseten; pricing and terms unchanged so far. https://coldtally.com/changelog/2026-09-10-blaxel-baseten/
- 2026-09-01 · Modal · pricing: Modal: Shared Endpoints tokens billed from the first request, even on Starter. https://coldtally.com/changelog/2026-09-01-modal-shared-endpoints/

Full changelog: https://coldtally.com/answers/changes.md