# Azure NC A100 vs Thunder Compute (May 2026): Pricing, Billing, and Flexibility

Last update:

April 1, 2026

2 mins read

**Takeaways**

- **Cost:** Thunder Compute is ~4.4 times cheaper per GPU-hour.
- **Billing:** Thunder Compute bills **per second**; Azure rounds up to whole minutes.
- **Storage:** Thunder Compute 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 ND24ads A100 v4 | 1× A100 80 GB | $3.67 | per-minute (rounded) - see Azure VM pricing FAQ | $367.00 |
| 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 **$262 less per 100 GPU-hours** and bills per minute of usage. Unless you're already locked into Azure's ecosystem or require massive multi-GPU nodes, switching cuts spend and setup time.