# AWS Lambda MicroVMs pricing in 2026: the rates, and a cost calculator

Lambda MicroVMs bill about $0.0997 per vCPU-hour and $0.0132 per GB-hour of their baseline size for every second they run.

**Runtime costs 85% less than Lambda MicroVMs for an agent that waits on a
model.** 100,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox, each using 20
CPU-seconds, cost $63.89 a month on Runtime and $420.33 on Lambda MicroVMs.
With both CPUs busy the whole time, the same month costs $133.33 on Runtime.
Rates checked 25 October 2026.

## How Lambda MicroVMs bill

AWS publishes the rates per second: $0.0000276944 per vCPU-second and
$0.0000036667 per GB-second. A MicroVM is billed for its baseline, the vCPUs and
memory it was created with, whenever it runs. Memory is always 2 GB per vCPU,
and the default baseline is 1 vCPU and 2 GB. Usage above the baseline, when a MicroVM scales up for a
burst, is billed on top for as long as it lasts. The calculator leaves it
out.

| Meter  | Lambda MicroVMs, per second                        | Per hour, for 2 vCPUs and 4 GB          | Runtime                                |
| ------ | -------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- |
| CPU    | $0.0000276944 per vCPU  | $0.1994    | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of CPU used |
| Memory | $0.0000036667 per GB | $0.0528 | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour  |

On Lambda, the shape costs $0.2522 an hour whether it is busy or waiting. On Runtime, it
costs $0.03125 an hour while it waits and $0.08 with both CPUs
working.

## Example workloads

A month of each, CPU and memory only, from the calculator above. Every shape
here is a baseline that Lambda offers.

| Workload                                                         |                             Runtime |                         AWS Lambda MicroVMs |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------: | ------------------------------------------: |
| Agent runs: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 20 CPU-seconds, 100,000 a month |             $63.89 |   $420.33 |
| Tool calls: 1 vCPU, 2 GiB, 2 min, 30 CPU-seconds, 50,000         |   $35.42 |   $210.17 |
| Long sessions: 4 vCPU, 8 GiB, 30 min, 720 CPU-seconds, 10,000    | $350.00 | $2,522.00 |
| Every CPU busy: 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 60 s, 120 CPU-seconds, 100,000    |  $133.33 |  $420.33 |

The saving is 83% to 86% in the first three rows. It is 68% in the last, where
the CPUs are never idle.

## Where the difference comes from

Two factors add to the gap. Lambda's per-unit rates are higher: about four times Runtime's for CPU and 1.8 times for memory, before counting that a GiB is 7%
more than a GB. And Lambda bills the baseline vCPUs whether they work or not,
where Runtime bills the CPU time used, with a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU.
An agent that spends most of a minute waiting for a model pays Lambda for two
whole vCPUs and Runtime for the few seconds it computed.

A MicroVM suspends after an idle time you set and keeps its state for at most
eight hours of life. Suspending stops the compute meter, but snapshot storage starts at $0.08 per
GB-month, with a one-week minimum. A paused Runtime sandbox costs $0.08 per GB
a month too. It keeps its memory while you have credit.

## What the calculator leaves out

- **Snapshot storage and transfer.** Lambda also bills each snapshot read and
  write, and data transfer at AWS's standard rates.
- **Burst above the baseline.** Left out on Lambda; on Runtime a sandbox bursts
  to all its vCPUs and the calculator counts the CPU-seconds you enter.
- **Free start.** Lambda MicroVMs have no free tier. Runtime gives 100 free hours of a 1 GB machine [in the first 30 days](/docs/included-usage), no card.

## Price your own runs exactly

After a few runs on Runtime, the CLI prices those same sandboxes at Lambda
MicroVMs' published rates:

```bash check
runtime compare --from lambda-microvms
```

It reads the last 30 days of settled sandboxes (`--days` up to 90). The full
comparison is [Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs](/docs/aws-lambda-microvms-alternative),
[AWS Lambda vs an agent sandbox](/compare/aws-lambda-vs-agent-sandbox) covers
Lambda functions, and the
[sandbox cost calculator](/calculators/sandbox-cost-calculator) prices every
provider for your shape.

## Sources

- [AWS Lambda pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/), checked 25 October 2026
- [Lambda MicroVMs](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/lambda-microvms/)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Rival rates on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.