Ranking by cost per job
| Rank | Configuration | Type | Cost per job at 100,000 jobs a month | At 10,000 | At 1,000 | List price per minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RunsOn | Self-hosted | 88% lower | 75% lower | 43% higher | your cloud bill |
| 2 | Vitko RunnersVitko | Managed | 84% lower | 84% lower | 84% lower | $0.002 a minute |
| 3 | Vitko Runners (warm starts + test splitting)Vitko | Managed | 84% lower | 84% lower | 84% lower | $0.002 a minute |
| 4 | Ubicloud | Managed | 83% lower | 83% lower | 83% lower | $0.00125 a minute |
| 5 | Self-hosted runners on AWS (one VM per job) | Self-hosted | 62% lower | 60% lower | 49% lower | your cloud bill |
| 6 | Self-hosted runners on Google Cloud | Self-hosted | 59% lower | 59% lower | 59% lower | your cloud bill |
| 7 | Blacksmith | Managed | 52% lower | 52% lower | 52% lower | $0.004 a minute |
| 8 | GitHub-hosted runners (ubuntu-latest, 2 vCPU) | Managed | baseline | baseline | baseline | $0.006 a minute |
| 9 | GitHub-hosted larger runner (4 vCPU) | Managed | 39% higher | 39% higher | 39% higher | $0.012 a minute |
Cost per job is what the same jobs cost, as a ratio to GitHub-hosted (ubuntu-latest). It uses list prices dated 2026-10-05 and the measured time of each job, so a runner that finishes sooner can cost less per job at a higher price per minute. Self-hosted options spread fixed monthly costs over the volume, so their cost changes with it. List price per minute is not cost per job; faster runners finish sooner. All providers' per-minute prices, with sources: list prices.
Cost per $1.00 spent on GitHub-hosted (100,000 jobs a month)
Head to head: Vitko Runners vs Blacksmith · Vitko Runners vs Ubicloud · Vitko Runners vs RunsOn · Vitko Runners vs Self-hosted runners on AWS · Vitko Runners vs Self-hosted runners on Google Cloud · Vitko Runners vs GitHub-hosted larger runner (4 vCPU) · Vitko Runners vs GitHub-hosted (ubuntu-latest) · Blacksmith vs GitHub-hosted (ubuntu-latest).
More: speed ranking · cost ranking · alternatives to GitHub-hosted · monorepo workload · self-hosted vs managed · list prices · free minutes · alternatives to Blacksmith, RunsOn, Ubicloud.
Maintained by Vitko, Inc., which sells one of the products measured. Measured October 7 to 11, 2026 (result set v1); page generated October 27, 2026. Every number comes from results.json; the workflows and every raw job record are in the repository, and the method says how the runs were made.