zCLOUD vs Nebius: A Nebius Alternative Compared on H100 Price, Regions, Network and Cost to Completion
Nebius is a neocloud, a company built to rent out GPUs for AI work. zCLOUD, the Nebius alternative we run, rents capacity from 40+ providers and sets each price at purchase.
zCLOUD costs less for H100 jobs that can't be interrupted: on-demand H100 starts at $3.75 per GPU-hour, against Nebius's $4.50 since October 1, 2026. Nebius costs less for jobs that can restart, with interruptible H100 instances from $0.79.
Each zCLOUD rate is a starting price, confirmed when zCLOUD assigns your GPUs. Nebius runs its H100s in Finland, so H100 work that has to stay in the US needs another Nebius GPU or one of the Nebius alternatives.
zCLOUD vs Nebius Pricing and Capacity at a Glance
| Criterion | zCLOUD | Nebius |
|---|---|---|
| On-demand H100 | From $3.75 per GPU per hour, confirmed when GPUs are assigned | $4.50 per GPU per hour since October 1, 2026 |
| H100 on a term | From $2.79 per GPU per hour with a term commitment | Up to 35% off the hourly rate, about $2.93, for multi-month commitments on large clusters |
| Interruptible H100 | zCLOUD doesn't list an interruptible option | From $0.79 per GPU per hour, repriced up to four times an hour |
| Where H100s run | zCLOUD places jobs by price first, and sales arranges a required region | Finland (eu-north1) |
| Newer GPUs | H200 and NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs on request through sales | B200 at $8.50 and B300 at $9.50 per GPU per hour, with GB200 and GB300 racks of 72 GPUs through sales |
| Cluster network | zFABRIC, Zettabyte's Ethernet-based GPU network | NVIDIA InfiniBand, a dedicated high-speed GPU network |
How Much Does Nebius Charge for an H100 After the October Increase?
Nebius charges $4.50 per GPU-hour for an on-demand H100, up from $3.85 before October 1, 2026. FinanceFeeds, a financial news site, reports that the increase raised H100, H200, B200 and B300 rates by 16.9% to 21%.
The increase adds $3,744 to a 720-hour month on a server of eight H100s, taking the list charge from $22,176 to $25,920.
Nebius takes up to 35% off its hourly rates for large clusters reserved for several months, which brings H100 to about $2.93 at the maximum discount.
A preemptible H100 is one Nebius can stop when it needs the capacity back. Its price starts at $0.79 and can rise to one cent under the standard hourly rate.
Nebius's price list sorts its NVIDIA GPUs into three groups by how you can buy them:
- GB300 NVL72 and GB200 NVL72 racks: Nebius quotes these through its sales team, and its price list shows neither an hourly nor a preemptible rate.
- HGX B300, B200, H200 and H100: each carries a standard hourly price and a preemptible price, and these four took the October increase.
- RTX PRO 6000 and L40S: these kept their hourly prices in October, at $1.80 and from $1.55 per GPU.
Where Does Nebius Run H100s, and Where Does zCLOUD?
Nebius's region table places its H100s in eu-north1, in Finland. An H100 job that has to stay in the US moves to a different GPU at Nebius.
Nebius's two US regions offer H200, B200 and RTX PRO 6000 in Kansas City and B300 in Woodbury, Minnesota. Its nine public regions also cover Finland, France, Spain, the UK and Israel.
zCLOUD places a job wherever the best price is, and its pricing page leaves out region tables. Ask zCLOUD's sales team to match capacity to a required location.
zCLOUD as a Nebius Alternative: How It Sets GPU Prices
zCLOUD sets each price at purchase: it bids on your behalf against its providers' asking prices and takes the best available offer. The hourly H100 rate starts at $3.75, and reserved H100 starts at $2.79 with a term commitment.
H200 and Blackwell GPUs are available on request through sales. Reserved clusters target deployment within 6 hours of confirmed requirements.
zCLOUD targets 99.9% uptime and publishes status updates and incident timelines.
Cluster Network: Nebius InfiniBand vs zFABRIC
Network speed between servers limits training runs that span several servers. Nebius builds its GPU clusters on NVIDIA InfiniBand, with 3.2 terabits per second for each eight-GPU server.
Each Nebius cluster stays inside one InfiniBand fabric, a physical network with a set GPU capacity, so cluster size depends on room in that fabric.
Zettabyte's zFABRIC runs on RoCEv2, a way to send GPU traffic directly between servers over standard Ethernet switches. It works across NVIDIA, AMD and other accelerators.
Zettabyte designs zFABRIC to scale from thousands to hundreds of thousands of GPUs in one environment. Optics speed, switch capacity, and data center power and cooling set its scaling limits.
What Does an H100 Job Cost to Finish on zCLOUD and Nebius?
Cost to completion means what you pay to finish a run, including hours you pay to rerun after an interruption. The table prices eight H100s for a 720-hour month at each published starting rate, before storage and tax.
| Pricing option | Rate per GPU per hour | Eight H100s for 720 hours |
|---|---|---|
| Nebius hourly rate | $4.50 | $25,920 |
| Nebius at its maximum 35% commitment discount | About $2.93 | About $16,848 |
| Nebius preemptible (spot), at its starting rate | From $0.79 | From $4,550, plus rerun hours |
| zCLOUD hourly starting rate | From $3.75 | From $21,600 |
| zCLOUD reserved starting rate | From $2.79 | From $16,070 |
Four questions decide which row applies to your job:
- Can the job stop and restart? A job that saves checkpoints, snapshots it can resume from, can use Nebius's preemptible pricing on H100, H200, B200, B300 and RTX PRO 6000. A job that can't stop pays an hourly or term rate, and zCLOUD's starting rates come in below Nebius's on both.
- Which GPU generation does it need? Nebius publishes hourly rates for B200 and B300. Ask both providers for a written quote on newer racks, since Nebius prices GB200 and GB300 through sales and zCLOUD does the same for H200 and Blackwell.
- Where does it have to run? If the job has to stay in the US, compare Nebius's US-region GPUs, starting with H200 at $5.40, against a US placement quoted by zCLOUD sales.
- How long will it run? Nebius's 35% discount applies to large clusters reserved for several months, so a single eight-GPU server may not qualify. zCLOUD's reserved rate needs a term commitment.
Nebius Reliability: SemiAnalysis ClusterMAX 3.0 Platinum Rating
SemiAnalysis is a chip and AI cloud research firm. Its ClusterMAX 3.0 report, which rates GPU clouds from hands-on cluster tests, put Nebius in Platinum, the top tier.
Nebius reports that the testers saw its GB300 NVL72 racks reboot failed servers and return them to service automatically. A server that recovers by itself loses fewer paid hours, which lowers cost to completion.
Which Workloads Fit zCLOUD, and Which Fit Nebius?
zCLOUD fits H100 work that has to run without interruption, such as a training run on a deadline or a live inference service. Its hourly and term starting rates come in below Nebius's hourly rate and maximum commitment discount.
Nebius fits work that restarts from checkpoints, since its preemptible H100 starts at $0.79. It also fits a job that needs a published region in Europe, Israel or the US.
The zCLOUD product page covers the pay-by-the-hour, reserved cluster and private cloud options, and the pricing page lists the current H100 starting rates.