Is Azure NC A100 cheaper than Thunder Compute?

No. As of August 2025 Azure NC24ads A100 v4 costs $3.673 per GPU-hour, while Thunder Compute’s A100 80 GB is $0.78—about 4.7× cheaper.

Does Azure bill per second like Thunder Compute?

Azure rounds usage to full minutes. Thunder Compute meters true per-second, saving money on short jobs.

Can I resize an Azure NC A100 VM without downtime?

No. Azure requires shutting down and redeploying the VM. Thunder Compute lets you adjust RAM, vCPUs, and disk live from the dashboard.

Do I need a quota request for Thunder Compute GPUs?

No. Thunder Compute grants GPU access instantly, while Azure subscriptions start with zero N-series quota and require a support ticket.

Back

Azure NC A100 vs Thunder Compute (September 2025): Pricing, Billing, and Flexibility Compared

One-page snapshot of how Microsoft Azure’s NC A100 instances stack up against Thunder Compute’s pay-as-you-go A100 80 GB GPUs.

Published:

Aug 7, 2025

Last updated:

Sep 16, 2025

TL;DR

Cost: Thunder Compute is ~4.7 × cheaper per GPU-hour.
Billing: Thunder bills per second; Azure rounds up to whole minutes.
Storage: Thunder persistent volumes start at $0.15/GB/mo; Azure Premium SSD is $0.18/GB/mo.
Ease of use: One-click VS Code workspace, no quota tickets, swap CPU/RAM on the fly.

1. Raw GPU pricing

Provider	SKU	GPUs	On-demand $/hr	Billing granularity	100 GPU-hr cost
Azure	Standard NC24ads A100 v4	1× A100 80 GB	$3.673	per-minute (rounded) – see Azure VM pricing FAQ	$367.30
Thunder Compute	A100 80 GB	1× A100 80 GB	$0.78	true per-second	$78.00

Azure Spot for the same SKU averages $1.145/hr (Vantage), but interruptions revoke your GPU with <30 s notice—unsuitable for fine-tuning runs that aren’t checkpoint-safe.

2. Hidden line items

Cost item	Azure	Thunder Compute
Persistent storage	Premium SSD $0.18/GB/mo	$0.15/GB/mo
Snapshots	Incremental snapshots billed separately	Snapshots built-in, same $0.15/GB rate
Data egress	from US regions $0.087/GB after first 100 GB	First 3 TB per month free, then same $0.087/GB¹

¹Thunder matches Azure’s public egress rate only beyond the free tier.

3. Quotas and setup friction

New Azure subscriptions start with 0 N-series vCPUs; you must file a GPU quota increase request.
Availability is region-limited—East US 2 and West Europe frequently show capacity errors.
Thunder Compute accounts spin up instantly with $10 free credit, no GPU quota tickets.

4. Developer experience

Feature	Azure NC A100	Thunder Compute
IDE integration	Use VS Code Remote-SSH or Azure ML Studio	One-click VS Code in browser
Instance re-sizing	Must redeploy VM; storage detach/attach required	Live RAM, vCPU, and disk tweaks without reboot
API	Azure Resource Manager	Simple REST & Terraform module
Pricing transparency	Calculator + separate disk/network pricing	All-in dashboard; per-second metering

5. When is Azure still a fit?

Multi-GPU scale (>8 A100s) in a single VM via NC96ads A100 v4.
Co-locating with other Azure PaaS services for low-latency data pipelines.

For individual fine-tunes, model inference endpoints, and bursty hackathon workloads, Thunder Compute’s pay-as-you-go model wins on both price and friction.

Conclusion

If you need a single A100 80 GB quickly, Thunder Compute costs $289 less per 100 GPU-hours and bills down to the second. Unless you’re already locked into Azure’s ecosystem or require massive multi-GPU nodes, switching cuts spend and setup time.

Carl Peterson

Try Thunder Compute

Start building AI/ML with the world's cheapest GPUs