{"id":14,"date":"2026-09-13T15:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/?p=14"},"modified":"2026-09-13T16:16:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T16:16:06","slug":"two-clocks-of-gpu-rental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/?p=14","title":{"rendered":"The two clocks behind every GPU rental quote"},"content":{"rendered":"

A quote needs more than an hourly rate<\/h2>\n

Imagine two offers for the same GPU configuration. Both say \u201cthree months\u201d and both show a dollar-per-hour rate. One starts today; the other starts in December. These offers solve different scheduling problems. The first provides capacity for immediate work. The second is relevant to a project whose data, model or team will only be ready later.<\/p>\n

Without an explicit start date, a comparison can mix currently usable capacity with future availability. Without a duration, it can mix a flexible rental with an obligation that continues after the workload ends. Neither error is fixed by converting every number into dollars per GPU-hour.<\/p>\n

Separate observation, start and duration<\/h2>\n

A price record should include three time fields. The observation time<\/strong> tells you when the offer was seen. The start date<\/strong> tells you when access begins. The duration<\/strong> tells you the contracted period of access or payment. An expiry time, if the supplier provides one, tells you how long the quote remains valid.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Illustrative record<\/th>\nStart<\/th>\nDuration<\/th>\nObservation<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Immediate rental<\/td>\n13 Sep 2026<\/td>\n3 months<\/td>\n13 Sep 2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Future-start rental<\/td>\n13 Dec 2026<\/td>\n3 months<\/td>\n13 Sep 2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Both records were observed on the same day. Their start dates differ. A later quote observed in December would be another record, even if its start date and duration matched the second row.<\/p>\n

Read a published commitment curve<\/h2>\n

A term curve changes contract duration while holding the product constant. A forward-start curve instead changes when access begins. The homepage uses Verda\u2019s H100 SXM5 80GB instance with 30 CPUs and 120GB RAM. Its published on-demand base is $3.25 per hour for one GPU.<\/p>\n

The supplier lists discounts of 2%, 3%, 4% and 8% for commitments of one, three, six and twelve months. Applying those discounts gives $3.1850, $3.1525, $3.1200 and $2.9900 per GPU-hour. TensorCurve calculates these values; the source publishes the base and discount schedule. The chart uses equal spacing for duration categories, not a continuous calendar axis.<\/p>\n

Source checked 13 September 2026: Verda official pricing<\/a>. Calculations use the published on-demand rate and reserved discounts; they are not separately quoted transaction prices.<\/p>\n

This is one supplier\u2019s tariff-derived commitment curve. It does not measure the global GPU market. The pricing table does not establish a region-specific offer or a guaranteed start date. Those fields remain unverified. A price for a twelve-month commitment does not tell us what a twelve-month contract beginning next December would cost.<\/p>\n

Do not confuse a discount with capacity assurance<\/h2>\n

Payment commitment and capacity reservation also need separate fields. A lower effective rate does not, by itself, establish that a particular machine will be ready for a particular workload on a particular day.<\/p>\n

For a concrete product example, AWS describes Capacity Blocks for ML<\/a> as a way to reserve accelerated instances for a future date. Separately, AWS Savings Plans<\/a> exchange a usage commitment for a different pricing arrangement. These documents describe different commercial mechanisms; their terms should be checked individually rather than grouped under one generic \u201creserved GPU\u201d label.<\/p>\n

What to record before comparing<\/h2>\n

Keep the original quote beside its normalized rate. Record the GPU model and count, region, tenancy, start date, duration, payment schedule and cancellation conditions. If a field is missing, mark it unknown instead of filling it with an industry assumption.<\/p>\n

Then ask a practical question: can both offers serve the same workload over the same period under comparable terms? If the answer is no, keep them in separate comparison groups. A smaller set of genuinely comparable records is more informative than a large table that conceals contractual differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When capacity starts and how long you commit are different decisions. A useful price comparison needs both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gpu-pricing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18,"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tensorcurve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}