Documentation Index Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.galadriel.co/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Pricing Guide Galadriel uses marketplace-driven pricing where supply and demand determine GPU costs through a transparent orderbook system. This guide explains how pricing works and strategies to save money.
Core Pricing Model Market-Driven vs Fixed Pricing
Aspect Fixed Pricing (Traditional Cloud) Marketplace (Galadriel) Price discovery Platform sets price Market determines price ✓ Demand response Fixed regardless of demand Adjusts to demand ✓ Customer savings No opportunity for deals Can bid below market ✓ Price transparency Opaque Full orderbook visibility ✓
Result : Lower average prices, better utilization, more supply.All transactions include a 10% platform fee :
Example Transaction: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Customer pays: 16 GPUs × 24h × $1.40/hr = $537.60 Platform fee (10%): +$53.76 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Total charge: $591.36 Provider receives (90%): $483.84
What the 10% covers:
✅ Orderbook matching engine
✅ Payment processing (Stripe fees ~3%)
✅ Kubernetes orchestration
✅ Network setup (InfiniBand config)
✅ Monitoring and support
✅ Platform development and operations
Typical Pricing Patterns By Time of Day Typical H100 Pricing (us-west-1) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Weekday Peak (9am-6pm): Supply: 500 GPUs Demand: 800 GPUs Price: $1.40-1.50/hr ⬆️ Weekday Off-Peak (6pm-9am): Supply: 500 GPUs Demand: 200 GPUs Price: $1.20-1.30/hr ⬇️ (10-15% cheaper) Weekends: Supply: 500 GPUs Demand: 300 GPUs Price: $1.25-1.35/hr ➡️ (5-10% cheaper) Conference Deadlines (e.g., NeurIPS): Supply: 500 GPUs Demand: 1500+ GPUs Price: $1.80-2.00/hr ⬆️⬆️ (40-60% surge)
Price History Example View historical prices:
galadriel prices --gpu-type h100 --zone us-west-1 --days 7
Output:
H100 Price History (us-west-1) - Last 7 Days ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ $2.00 ┤ ╭╮ $1.90 ┤ │╰╮ $1.80 ┤ ╭╯ ╰╮ $1.70 ┤ ╭───╮ │ ╰╮ $1.60 ┤ ╭───╯ ╰───╮ ╭───╯ ╰─╮ $1.50 ┤ ╭───╯ ╰──────╯ ╰── $1.40 ┤ ────╯ $1.30 ┤ $1.20 ┤────── └┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬─── Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Current: $1.35/hr 7-day avg: $1.42/hr 7-day low: $1.20/hr (Sun 3am) 7-day high: $1.95/hr (Wed 2pm - Conference deadline) 💡 Tip: Best prices typically 11pm-6am (15-20% less demand)
Cost Optimization Strategies 1. Time-Shift Workloads (Save 30-40%) Run workloads during off-peak hours:
Instead of: Running during peak hours Do this: Schedule for off-peak (nights/weekends) Example: Peak price: $1.45/hr Off-peak price: $1.25/hr Savings: 14% Job: 16 GPUs × 12 hours Peak cost: $278.40 Off-peak cost: $240.00 Saved: $38.40
How to do it: # Flexible order - execute anytime in next 48h galadriel order buy \ --gpu-type h100 \ --gpus 16 \ --duration 12h \ --flex 48h \ --price 1.30
2. Use Limit Orders (Save 10-25%) Set your maximum price and wait:
Instead of: Market orders (instant but expensive) Do this: Limit orders below current market Example: Current market: $1.40/hr Your limit: $1.25/hr (11% below) Wait time: 2-4 hours Job: 8 GPUs × 24 hours Market cost: $268.80 Limit cost: $240.00 Saved: $28.80 Worth waiting? YES if not urgent
How to do it: galadriel order buy \ --gpu-type h100 \ --gpus 8 \ --duration 24h \ --price 1.25
3. Monitor the Orderbook Check prices before buying:
# View current orderbook galadriel orderbook --gpu-type h100 --zone us-west-1 # Get price estimate galadriel prices estimate --gpu-type h100 --gpus 16 --zone us-west-1
If the spread is wide or prices are high, consider:
Placing a limit order below best ask
Waiting for off-peak hours
Using flexible timing
4. Resell Unused Time Finished early? Recover costs by reselling:
Original purchase: 168h × 16 GPUs × $1.30 = $3,494.40 Used: 120h (5 days) Remaining: 48h (2 days) Without reselling: - Refund: 48h × 16 × $1.30 = $998.40 With reselling at $1.20/GPU/hr: - Refund: $998.40 (from Galadriel) - Resell revenue: 48h × 16 × $1.20 = $921.60 - Platform fee (10%): -$92.16 - Net recovery: $829.44 - Total back: $998.40 + $829.44 = $1,827.84 - Extra recovered: $829.44
How to do it: galadriel lease resell lse_xyz123 --price 1.20
See the Reselling Guide for details.
Comparing Order Types Cost Comparison Example Job: 16 GPUs × 24 hours in us-west-1
Order Type Price Total Cost Wait Time Savings Market $1.40/hr $537.60 0 min Baseline Limit ($1.30) $1.30/hr $499.20 ~1-2 hrs $38.40 (7%) Limit ($1.25) $1.25/hr $480.00 ~3-5 hrs $57.60 (11%) Flexible (48h) $1.20/hr $460.80 Scheduled $76.80 (14%)
Platform fee (10%) is included in all costs shown above.
When to Use Each Order Type Market Orders:
✅ Deadline-driven workloads
✅ Production inference serving
✅ Time-sensitive experiments
❌ Cost-optimized training
❌ Batch processing jobs
Limit Orders:
✅ Non-urgent training runs
✅ Cost-sensitive workloads
✅ Predictable schedules
❌ Immediate needs
❌ Guaranteed execution time
Flexible Orders:
✅ Maximum cost savings
✅ Batch jobs
✅ Dataset preprocessing
✅ Model evaluation
❌ Interactive development
❌ Fixed deadlines
Billing & Invoicing How Billing Works 1. Order Placement Customer creates buy order: 16 GPUs @ max $1.35/hr × 24h Platform holds authorization: $1.35 × 16 × 24 × 1.10 = $570.24 (Includes 10% platform fee)
2. Order Matching Matched with provider at $1.30/hr (below max!) Actual charge: $1.30 × 16 × 24 × 1.10 = $548.48 Saved: $21.76 vs max price
3. Early Termination If terminated early (e.g., after 20 hours): Actual usage: $1.30 × 16 × 20 × 1.10 = $457.60 Refund: $548.48 - $457.60 = $90.88
Monthly Invoice Example Galadriel GPU Marketplace - November 2025 Customer: alice@example.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DATE ORDER GPUs HOURS RATE COMPUTE FEE TOTAL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 11/05 14:00 ord_abc123 16 24.0 $1.30 $499.20 $49.92 $549.12 11/08 09:00 ord_def456 8 12.5 $1.45 145.00 14.50 159.50 11/15 22:00 ord_ghi789 32 48.0 $1.20 1,843.20 184.32 2,027.52 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subtotal (Compute): $2,487.40 Platform Fees (10%): $248.74 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Total: $2,736.14 Payment Method: Card ending in 1234 Due Date: 2025-12-08 💡 Savings this month: $412 by using limit orders and off-peak hours
View billing:
galadriel billing usage galadriel billing invoices
All instances include:
✅ Compute : Full node exclusivity (8 GPUs minimum)
✅ InfiniBand : 400 Gbps RDMA, GPUDirect enabled
✅ Network Egress : Unlimited data transfer out
✅ Storage : At least 2TB of local NVMe storage per node
✅ Support : Email/Slack support, documentation
✅ API Access : Unlimited API calls
✅ SSH Access : Direct SSH to all your nodes
✅ Kubernetes Access : Full kubectl access
No hidden fees. Just the 10% platform fee on compute. Refund & Cancellation Policy Early Termination by Customer Scenario: Ordered 24h, terminated after 4.5h Original order: 16 GPUs × $1.30/hr × 24h = $499.20 + $49.92 fee = $549.12 Actual usage: 16 GPUs × $1.30/hr × 4.5h = $93.60 + $9.36 fee = $102.96 Refund: $549.12 - $102.96 = $446.16 (credited immediately)
Cancellation Before Start over 24 hours before: Full refund (100%) 1-24 hours before: 50% refund (provider gets 50% of 1hr cost) under 1 hour before: No refund (provider gets 1hr minimum)
Rationale : Protects providers who blocked capacityJob running 10 hours, GPU fails, 1 hour downtime Full refund for downtime: 1hr × 16 GPUs × $1.30 × 1.10 = $22.88 Automatic credit to account Provider still gets paid (platform absorbs cost)
Price Guarantees For Customers 1. No Surprise Charges
Limit orders guarantee max price
Market orders show price before confirmation
No hidden fees beyond 10% platform fee
2. Price Lock
Once matched, price is fixed for entire duration
No surge pricing mid-job
Early termination gets prorated refund at matched price
3. Price History
All historical prices publicly visible
Can analyze trends before ordering
Algorithm recommendations based on patterns
For Providers 1. Minimum Price Guarantee
Your listing price is the minimum you’ll accept
Platform never matches below your min price
Can adjust prices anytime (for future orders)
2. Payment Guarantee
Platform holds customer payment upfront
You get paid even if customer cancels
Automatic payout after job completion
Advanced: Price Estimation Get accurate price estimates before ordering:
# Estimate cost for market order galadriel prices estimate --gpu-type h100 --gpus 16 --zone us-west-1
Output:
Price Estimate for Market Order ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ GPU Type: H100 Zone: us-west-1 Quantity: 16 GPUs Estimated price: $1.38/hr (weighted average) Best ask: $1.40/hr Worst fill price: $1.45/hr Total available: 48 GPUs Sufficient liquidity: YES ✓ For 24h lease: Estimated cost: $530.88 Platform fee: $53.09 Total: $583.97
Next Steps
How the Marketplace Works Understand orderbooks and order types
Cluster Specs GPU types, system specs, and access model
Reselling Guide Recover costs by reselling unused time
Examples Real-world cost optimization examples
