Runpod logo Salad logo

Runpod vs Salad

Both Runpod and Salad offer a mix of secure and community GPUs. RunPod provides more granular control with both container and VM options, while Salad focuses on a streamlined container engine experience.

Jump to: What's good Pricing GPUs Services Company details Alternatives

What's good about...

Runpod logo Runpod

  • Deploy affordable GPUs in under a minute
  • Scale across 30+ regions worldwide
  • SOC 2 Type II certified, 99.9% uptime SLA
  • Flexible billing: pay by the second, no commitments
  • Built-in deployments, autoscaling & monitoring

Salad logo Salad

  • 60,000+ daily active GPUs across 191 countries
  • Consumer GPU range from GTX 1050 Ti to RTX 5090
  • Rates well below datacenter GPU clouds
  • Fully managed container engine, Kubernetes-compatible deployments
  • Secure Cloud option for enterprise datacenter GPUs

Price comparison

How do Runpod's prices compare against Salad?

VM Small

Closest config to 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM.
Runpod Runpod
$43.20 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Salad Salad
--

VM Medium

Closest config to 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM.
Runpod Runpod
$86.40 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Salad Salad
--

VM Large

Closest config to 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (dedicated preferred).
Runpod Runpod
$172.80 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Salad Salad
--

Block Storage

Closest config to 100+ GB SSD, 3,000+ IOPS, 100+ MB/s throughput, no snapshots.
Runpod Runpod
$10.00 / mo 100 GB
Salad Salad
--

1 TB of egress beyond allowance

Runpod Runpod
Free and unlimited
Salad Salad
--

Salad logo Salad Pricing Details

Salad bills per hour for resources actually consumed, with no commitments. Instances are priced by component, combining the GPU rate with per-vCPU and per-GB memory rates, plus a priority level that trades cost against scheduling preference. Volume discounts are available for large deployments.

GPU Fleet Overview

Same GPU, Both Providers

Cheapest rate per GPU per hour for the cards both providers sell, compared on a billing mode they both publish.

On-demand price per GPU-hour.

Runpod Runpod
Salad Salad
RTX 5090 $0.69 $0.25 RTX 4090 $0.34 $0.16 RTX 3090 $0.22 $0.09 RTX 5080 $0.39 $0.18

Billing Options

Runpod Runpod
On-DemandReservation
Salad Salad
On-Demand

Available Models

Ranked by how many providers list each card. The number beside a GPU is how many instance configurations this provider sells it in, not how many are in stock.

Runpod offers 34 GPU models, while Salad offers 33.

Runpod Runpod
H100(13) A100(15) H200(8) RTX PRO 6000(3) L40S(7) B200(5) B300(3) V100(3) RTX A6000(4) RTX 4090(5)
View all 34 GPUs →
Salad Salad
RTX 4090(1) RTX 5090(1) A5000(1) RTX 3090(1) RTX 3080 Ti(1) RTX 4080(1) RTX 3070(1) RTX 3060 Ti(1) RTX 3080(1) RTX 5080(1)
View all 33 GPUs →

Heads up: We do our best to keep these specs & prices accurate. However, cloud costs may fluctuate based on region, usage, and other factors not listed here. These are estimates based on common setups and are for informational purposes only. Always verify current rates & exact specs with the provider before provisioning.

Which services do they offer

Here are some managed services that Runpod and Salad offer:

Service Runpod Salad
Block Storage
GPU-powered Servers
Managed Containers
Python Notebooks
Virtual Private Server (VPS)

Company details

Website
Runpod Runpod
www.runpod.io
Salad Salad
salad.com
Headquarters
Runpod Runpod
United States of America
Salad Salad
United States of America
Founded
Runpod Runpod
2022
Salad Salad
2018
Data Center Locations
Runpod Runpod
30
Salad Salad
--
Example Customers
Runpod Runpod
Zillow, CivitAI, Wix, OpenAI, Perplexity, Cursor
Salad Salad
Discord, Stability AI, Blend, undetectable.ai, Civitai

Alternatives to consider

Compare Runpod and Salad against other cloud providers.

View all comparisons

Our data for Runpod was last updated on Aug. 22, 2026, and for Salad on Aug. 22, 2026.