Microsoft Azure vs RunPod
- GPUs
- 9 43
- Cheapest GPU
- $0.34/hr $0.13/hr
- Price wins
- 0/7 7/7
RunPod is cheaper on all 7 GPUs both rent. RunPod carries 34 more GPUs.
Hyperscaler that rents GPU virtual machines on demand, reserved or spot, integrated with Azure's managed AI and enterprise cloud services.
Best for: Microsoft-centric enterprise AI workloads
GPU cloud that rents pods billed per second and runs serverless endpoints, with community and secure hosting tiers.
Best for: Serverless inference and cheap GPU pods
Price by GPU
The 7 GPUs both rent. Cheapest live rate per GPU-hour, most powerful first. The cheaper side is in purple.
| GPU | Microsoft Azure | RunPod | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Instinct MI300X 192GB | $6.00/hr | $2.39/hr | 151% |
| NVIDIA H100 SXM5 80GB | $11.06/hr | $3.49/hr | 217% |
| NVIDIA H200 SXM 141GB | $10.60/hr | $4.59/hr | 131% |
| NVIDIA H100 NVL 94GB | $6.98/hr | $3.19/hr | 119% |
| NVIDIA A100 SXM4 80GB | $4.10/hr | $1.59/hr | 158% |
| NVIDIA A100 PCIe 80GB | $3.67/hr | $1.59/hr | 131% |
| NVIDIA A100 SXM4 40GB | $3.40/hr | $1.00/hr community | 240% |
Prices last checked: Microsoft Azure 1 Oct 2026, RunPod 1 Oct 2026.
Only on one side
Only on Microsoft Azure 2
Only on RunPod 36
- NVIDIA B200 SXM 180GB $6.79
- NVIDIA B300 SXM 262GB $7.89
- NVIDIA H200 NVL 141GB $3.79
- NVIDIA H100 PCIe 80GB $2.89
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition $2.19
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition $0.59
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition $0.50
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 32GB $0.99
- NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada 48GB $0.84
- NVIDIA L40S 48GB $1.09
- NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada 32GB $0.83
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell 48GB $0.96
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 16GB $0.59
- NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell 32GB $0.72
- NVIDIA L40 48GB $0.82
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB $0.74
- NVIDIA RTX A6000 48GB $0.53
- NVIDIA A40 48GB $0.49
- +18 more on the RunPod page
Company facts
| Fact | Microsoft Azure | RunPod |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters |  Redmond, WA | United States |
| Type | GPU cloud | GPU cloud |
| Founded | n/a | 2022 |
| GPUs priced | 9 | 43 |
| Fastest GPU | AMD Instinct MI300X 192GB | NVIDIA B200 SXM 180GB |
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states it holds, linked to its own statement. Not published means we found no statement, not that the provider fails it. Check the scope with the provider.
Pick your provider
Questions
- What is the difference between Microsoft Azure and RunPod?
- Microsoft Azure: Hyperscaler that rents GPU virtual machines on demand, reserved or spot, integrated with Azure's managed AI and enterprise cloud services. RunPod: GPU cloud that rents pods billed per second and runs serverless endpoints, with community and secure hosting tiers.
- Is Microsoft Azure cheaper than RunPod?
- RunPod is cheaper on all 7 GPUs both rent. RunPod carries 34 more GPUs.
- How much does a AMD Instinct MI300X 192GB cost on Microsoft Azure and RunPod?
- Microsoft Azure charges $6.00 per GPU-hour and RunPod charges $2.39 per GPU-hour, the cheapest live rate on each.
- Which GPUs can I rent on both Microsoft Azure and RunPod?
- 7 GPUs, including AMD Instinct MI300X 192GB, NVIDIA H100 SXM5 80GB, NVIDIA H200 SXM 141GB, NVIDIA H100 NVL 94GB, NVIDIA A100 SXM4 80GB, NVIDIA A100 PCIe 80GB.
- How are these prices compared?
- Each figure is the cheapest live rate per GPU-hour for that GPU. We use on-demand pricing where a provider sells it and fall back to community or reserved terms, labelled, where that is all they sell. Spot capacity is left out because it can be reclaimed. Rates are refreshed by our daily ingest.
How we define a live price: methodology.
