> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.salad.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Salad Container Engine Billing

> Understand how Salad Container Engine billing works, including per-second usage tracking, priority pricing, and cost examples.

*Last Updated: April 09, 2026*

# Salad Container Engine Billing

For information on options for purchasing SaladCloud credits visit our
[SaladCloud billing documentation](/general/explanation/billing).

Salad Container Engine (SCE) is billed based on the time container group instances are running on one of our machines.
No charges are incurred while your container group is allocating or downloading. The price per hour is based on the
hardware resources and [priority level](/container-engine/explanation/billing-pricing/priority-pricing#priority-levels)
you select. Prices are available on our [pricing page](https://salad.com/pricing) and listed in the SaladCloud Portal
when creating a container group. Usage is tracked per second.

<img src="https://mintcdn.com/salad/4KO858akQWmRXuML/container-engine/images/deployment-map.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=4KO858akQWmRXuML&q=85&s=04e3d3853f227e1f2bc0439f75fb3447" width="1668" height="354" data-path="container-engine/images/deployment-map.png" />

<Tip>
  **Never Pay for Cold Boot Time Again**

  You only pay for the time that the hardware is available to be used by your application, you will never pay for Cold
  Boot time.
</Tip>

## How Billing Rates are Calculated

When creating a Container Group in SCE, you select the required hardware that will be dedicated to your application when
it runs on SaladCloud. For GPU container groups, there are no additional charges for RAM and vCPU.

### Example 1 - CPU only Container Group

You create a Container Group with 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, no GPU, and 10 replicas

Per Instance Cost = 1 vCPU x \$0.004 per vCPU + 2 GB x \$0.001 per GB = \$0.006/hr

**Total Cost** = \$0.006/hr (per Instance) x 10 replicas = \$0.06/hr

### Example 2 - GPU Container Group

You create a Container Group with 4 vCPU, 6 GB RAM, RTX 3060 GPU at "Low" priority, and 5 replicas. GPU rates include
vCPUs and RAM.

Per Instance Cost = 1 RTX 3060 at "Low" Priority x \$0.047 = \$0.047/hr

**Total Cost** = \$0.047/hr (per Instance) x 5 replicas = \$0.235/hr