# CodeSandbox SDK

Official pricing: https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/pricing  
Category: agent-sandbox · Isolation: firecracker

## Pricing regimes (raw)

- **VM credits, fixed sizes ($0.01486/credit, per started minute)** (sizes): Pico 2 vCPU/1 GiB $0.0743/h; Nano 2 vCPU/4 GiB $0.1486/h; Micro 4 vCPU/8 GiB $0.2972/h; Small 8 vCPU/16 GiB $0.5944/h; Medium 16 vCPU/32 GiB $1.1888/h; Large 32 vCPU/64 GiB $2.3776/h
- **Enterprise bulk VM credit packs (up to 50% off)** (sizes): Pico 2 vCPU/1 GiB $0.03715/h; Nano 2 vCPU/4 GiB $0.0743/h; Micro 4 vCPU/8 GiB $0.1486/h; Small 8 vCPU/16 GiB $0.2972/h; Medium 16 vCPU/32 GiB $0.5944/h; Large 32 vCPU/64 GiB $1.1888/h [sales]

## Features

Yes: snapshots, memory snapshots, fork/clone, pause/resume, persistent disk, idle auto-stop, ≥24 h sessions, custom image (Docker or snapshot), start from your own snapshot, your own Docker/OCI image, full VM (own kernel), Docker inside, root, code interpreter, HTTPS preview URLs, custom domains, SOC 2, SSO, Python, Node.js, Go, Rust, wake on request, live resize, live fork (no pause), memory fork, automatic snapshots, snapshots on demand, gVisor or VM (no shared kernel), inbound access rules, firewall inside (nftables)

No: volumes, nested virtualization, browser, desktop GUI, computer-use API, browser + desktop control, anti-bot stealth, CAPTCHA solving, residential IPs, preinstalled agents, SSH, public IPv4, raw TCP inbound, egress allowlist, static egress IP, self-hosting, BYOC, open source, HIPAA, GPU, arm64, Windows, macOS, GPU desktop, credential injection, HTTP method/path egress rules, webhooks, EU data residency, MCP server, agent harness API, hosted agent API (their own agent), fast boot (benchmarked), secret proxy, secret proxy for any API, extra volumes, shared volumes

Unknown: everything else. Evidence (source + quote) per feature: https://battleships.dev/data/providers/codesandbox-sdk.json → feature_evidence

## Caveats

- Credit price conflict: docs/FAQ $0.01486 vs pricing page $0.015 (0.94% higher); card uses $0.01486.
- Scale included credits conflict: pricing page '160 hours' (read as 1,600 credits = $23.78) vs SDK docs example 1,100 credits ($16.35) — the docs example is stale (also says 100 concurrent VMs; now 250).
- free.monthly_credit ($5.94) is the Build plan allowance (400 credits, no rollover). Build is a hard cap (no on-demand credits; VMs freeze), so the Build plan is marked trial_only and never auto-picked; workloads under $5.94/month are really free but the estimate prices them on Scale.
- Per-started-minute billing (min 60 s per run); short resume/exec/hibernate cycles are heavily rounded up.
- Pico spec conflict: SDK docs 2 cores/1 GB vs pricing page 1 core/2 GB.
- Hibernated/shut-down sandboxes consume no credits and no storage fee is documented (snapshot_gib_month 0 assumed from the documented 2-component billing model: credits + plan). Hibernated sandboxes are archived after ~7 days (resume 20-60 s).
- Idle tail billed at full rate until hibernationTimeoutSeconds (docs example 300 s); automatic wake-up on HTTP/WebSocket restarts billing.
- Egress not metered or published (null). No public IPv4.
- Enterprise-bulk mode uses the maximum published discount (50%); actual discount negotiated. Pro add-on pack discounts unpublished; legacy Pro fee unpublished.
- Regions not published / not selectable (features.regions null).
- perf from benchmarks.json providers.codesandbox (computesdk): cold start median 2,329 ms, burst 7,658 ms, dax 81.23 s (dax last run success rate 0; value from 2026-08-28 run). No hpc CPU benchmark.
- Verified 2026-09-28 by rendering https://codesandbox.io/pricing, /docs/sdk/pricing, /docs/learn/credit-usage/credits, /docs/learn/plans/subscriptions, /docs/learn/plans/pricing-faq in headless Chrome: size table, $0.01486 (docs) vs $0.015 (page), per-started-minute billing, 400 / 1,000 subscription credits, Scale $170 + 160 h credits + $0.15/h on-demand, 10/10/250 concurrency, Build 4/8, Pro/Scale 16/32, Enterprise 64/128 and up to 50% off packs all confirmed.
- Re-checked 2026-09-28 (docs/sdk/faq and docs/sdk/pricing via headless Chrome): no SSH access and no egress/bandwidth price documented for SDK VMs (access is via the SDK Terminals/Commands API). ssh stays null, egress null.
- Resume from an archived sandbox takes 10-60 s (resume docs) and archived forks 20-60 s (create docs); sandboxes are archived 'after period of inactivity' (no day count on current pages; the old ~7 days figure could not be re-verified: /docs/sdk/hibernate now shows the SDK intro).
- Pro and Scale fees are shown as 'From $12' / 'From $170' per month per workspace; the monthly-vs-annual split behind 'From' is not published on the page (annual plans exist per the Mar 2024 changelog). Card uses the 'From' price.

## How this provider charges


CodeSandbox (a Together AI company) bills SDK sandboxes in **VM credits**. Each fixed VM size burns a set number of credits per hour, metered **per started minute**, on top of a per-workspace plan. The docs say billing has only two components: VM credits (runtime) and VM concurrency (set by the plan).

- One credit costs **$0.01486** (docs, FAQ). The marketing page rounds this to $0.015.
- Every plan pays the same credit price. On-demand credits are "not subject to discount".
- The only published discounts are bulk packs: Pro add-on packs ("savings included", amounts unpublished) and Enterprise packs ("up to 50% off").

## Regime table

| # | Regime | When it applies | How billed | Numbers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VM size table (all plans) | Every running SDK sandbox (Firecracker VM) | Credits/h by fixed size on **allocated** size, wall-clock while running. CPU utilisation is not considered. Price is linear from Nano up (10 credits per 2 cores + 4 GB) | Pico 5 cr/h $0.0743, Nano 10 $0.1486, **Micro (4c/8GB) 20 $0.2972**, Small 40 $0.5944, Medium 80 $1.1888, Large 160 $2.3776, XLarge (64c/128GB) 320 $4.7552 | https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/pricing, https://codesandbox.io/docs/learn/credit-usage/credits |
| 2 | Per-started-minute rounding | Every run period | The smallest unit is 1 minute, rounded **up**. The docs' example is 3m25s billed as 4 min. So there is a 60 s minimum per run, and each resume starts a new run | Up to +59 s per run | /docs/sdk/pricing |
| 3 | Credit price conflict | Any | The docs and FAQ say $0.01486/credit. The pricing page says "$0.015 each", lists sizes at $0.075/$0.15/$0.30/…/$4.80, and describes Scale on-demand as "$0.15 per hour" (a Nano-hour) | 0.94% gap | https://codesandbox.io/pricing, /docs/learn/plans/pricing-faq |
| 4 | **Build (free)** | Default workspace | $0 fee. **400 credits/month** (= $5.94, 40 Nano-h), which don't roll over. **No on-demand credits**: when the 400 are gone, all VMs go **frozen** until the next cycle. 10 concurrent VMs, 20 new sandboxes/h, 1,000 SDK req/h, max 4 vCPU/8 GiB (Micro), 5 members | $0 fee, $5.94 included (hard cap) | /pricing, /docs/learn/plans/subscriptions |
| 5 | **Scale** | Paid self-serve SDK plan | **$170/month per workspace**. The fee is a platform fee, not credit. It bundles a small credit allotment, and on-demand credits at $0.01486 are billed at month end. 250 concurrent VMs, 1,000 new sandboxes/h, 10,000 req/h, max 16 vCPU/32 GiB, 20 members | Included credits conflict: pricing page says "**160 hours** of monthly VM credits" (= 1,600 credits = $23.78 if Nano-hours). The SDK docs' worked example says "**1,100** free VM credits" ($16.35) and "up to 100 concurrent VMs" (stale: concurrency was raised 2.5x from 100 to 250) | /pricing, /docs/sdk/pricing |
| 6 | Pro (legacy editor plan; also the legacy per-user Pro) | Existing Pro workspaces | 1,000 base credits/month. Add-on credit packs with bulk savings. On-demand credits at the standard rate. A **spending limit is mandatory**. Pro-column limits: 10 concurrent VMs, 20 new sandboxes/h, 16 vCPU/32 GiB. **Fee not shown** on the current page. Legacy per-user Pro can be kept "until further notice" (2 months' notice before changes) | fee null, 1,000 credits ($14.86) | /docs/learn/credit-usage/credits, /docs/learn/plans/pricing-faq, /pricing |
| 7 | Pro add-on credit packs | Pro workspaces | Prepaid packs "with savings included for bulk purchases" | **Unpublished** | /docs/learn/plans/subscriptions |
| 8 | **Enterprise** bulk credit packs | Contact Together sales | "**Up to 50% off** bulk VM credit packs". Custom concurrency and request limits, VMs up to 64 vCPU/128 GiB, unlimited members, dedicated support | Best case $0.00743/credit (Micro $0.1486/h). Fee unpublished | /pricing, /docs/sdk/pricing |
| 9 | Enterprise optional extras | Enterprise | SSO. **Your own dedicated cluster** | Unpublished | /pricing |
| 10 | Hibernated (memory + disk snapshot) | `hibernate()`, or idle `hibernationTimeoutSeconds` | **No credits**. The documented billing has no storage component. On disk for about 7 days, then archived (still resumable, 20-60 s) | $0 (no storage fee published) | /docs/sdk/hibernate, /docs/sdk/create, /docs/sdk/resume |
| 11 | Idle-but-running tail | Until the hibernation timeout fires. Automatic wake-up on HTTP/WebSocket re-starts billing | Full credit rate. The docs example uses `hibernationTimeoutSeconds: 300`. Best practice is 86400 plus manual hibernate | 5 min idle on Micro = $0.0248 | /docs/sdk/create, /docs/sdk/lifecycle |
| 12 | Shutdown / delete | `shutdown()` keeps /project/workspace without a memory snapshot. Delete removes it | No credits. No storage fee published | $0 | /docs/sdk/restart-shutdown |
| 13 | Live tier change | `updateTier()` while running (upgrade only recommended) | Billed at the new tier's credits/h from the change (per-minute accounting presumed) | Size table | /docs/sdk/specs |
| 14 | SDK tier cap | `vmTier` parameter | Only up to Small (8c/16GB) unless you build a custom template. Above that, "only the core count will increase" | — | /docs/sdk/specs |
| 15 | Templates / public template runtime | Editor VM Sandboxes set as templates | "VM runtime for templates is covered by CodeSandbox" (editor context; SDK template builds presumably included) | $0 | /docs/learn/credit-usage/controlling-usage |
| 16 | Browser Sandboxes | Non-VM editor sandboxes | Run in the browser. **No credits**. Not SDK | $0 | /pricing-faq |
| 17 | Storage | Per VM | 20 GB disk per VM on Build/Pro/Scale ("more on demand" on paid plans, price unpublished). Enterprise custom | Extra disk price null | /pricing, /docs/learn/plans/usage-based-billing |
| 18 | Spending-limit freeze | Pro/Scale on-demand spend hits the limit | VMs **frozen** until credits are added or the cycle resets. Never billed above the limit | — | /docs/learn/credit-usage/controlling-usage |
| 19 | Egress / IPv4 | Any | Not metered in the documented billing model and not published. Preview hosts are `*.csb.app` HTTPS only. No public IPv4 | null | /docs/sdk/pricing |
| 20 | Education / OSS / non-profit | Application | "free or low-cost access" | Unpublished | /pricing |
| 21 | Regions | Clusters chosen by CodeSandbox. No region selection | No regional pricing | multiplier 1 | features/codesandbox-sdk.json |

## Gotchas

1. **The per-started-minute rounding bites short agent runs.** A 10 s code execution bills a full minute. A pattern of 5,000 tiny resume→exec→hibernate cycles a day bills about 83 VM-hours a day regardless of the real work.
2. **The Scale fee is not credit.** $170 buys concurrency (250) and rate limits, plus only about $16-24 of credits. Two official pages disagree on the credits (1,600 vs 1,100), and the docs example is visibly stale.
3. **The free plan has a hard wall.** Build cannot buy on-demand credits. At 400 credits (40 Nano-hours, or just **20 Micro-hours**) every VM freezes for the rest of the month.
4. **4 vCPU/8 GiB is the ceiling on Build.** Medium and larger need Scale, and above Small needs a custom template even on Scale.
5. **Pico spec conflict:** the SDK docs say 2 cores/1 GB, the pricing page says 1 core/2 GB.
6. **Automatic wake-up** (HTTP/WebSocket to a preview URL) silently restarts billing. Bots crawling a public preview URL can keep VMs awake. The docs recommend disabling it.
7. **Utilisation is irrelevant.** You pay the full tier while running, and fixed 2 GB/core bundles (from Nano up) mean no custom ratios.
8. **Hibernation is free, but archival costs latency.** After about 7 days a hibernated sandbox is archived: resume becomes 20-60 s and forks from an archived parent are slow. Live forks of a running parent are capped at 5.
9. **Legacy Pro**'s fee isn't shown on the current pricing page. Pro's concurrency is only 10, the same as Build.

## Worked example

Workload: 4 vCPU / 8 GiB = **Micro** (exact fit), 50 concurrent × 8 h/day × 22 days = **8,800 VM-hours** = **176,000 credits**. Also 30% CPU util, 50 GiB snapshots retained, 100 GiB egress.

Assumptions:
- Continuous 8 h sessions, so there is no per-minute rounding loss.
- Hibernated overnight at $0.
- Build and Pro are excluded because both have 10-VM concurrency, and Build has no on-demand credits.

| Regime | Plan fee | Credits billed | Compute $ | Snapshots (hibernated, 50 GiB) | Egress 100 GiB | **Monthly total** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scale, 1,600 included (pricing page, $0.01486) | $170 | 174,400 | $2,591.58 | $0 (unmetered) | null (unpublished) | **$2,761.58** |
| Scale, 1,100 included (docs example) | $170 | 174,900 | $2,599.01 | $0 | null | **$2,769.01** |
| Scale at marketing $0.015/credit, 1,600 included | $170 | 174,400 | $2,616.00 | $0 | null | **$2,786.00** |
| Enterprise, best-case 50% off bulk packs | unpublished | 176,000 | $1,307.68 | $0 | null | **$1,307.68 + Enterprise fee (unknown)** |
| Build / Pro | — | — | — | — | — | **Not possible** (10 concurrent VMs max) |

Other effects on the total:
- **30% CPU utilisation** saves nothing.
- **Idle tail:** leaving each VM to a 300 s hibernation timeout adds 5 min × 50 × 22 = 91.7 h, or **+$27.24**. A 24 h timeout without manual hibernation would bill the whole night: 16 h × 50 × 22 × $0.2972 = **+$5,230.72**.
- **Rounding sensitivity:** splitting the same 8,800 h into 30 s runs would bill double (each 30 s run bills 60 s).

Sources: https://codesandbox.io/pricing · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/pricing · https://codesandbox.io/docs/learn/credit-usage/credits · https://codesandbox.io/docs/learn/credit-usage/controlling-usage · https://codesandbox.io/docs/learn/plans/subscriptions · https://codesandbox.io/docs/learn/plans/usage-based-billing · https://codesandbox.io/docs/learn/plans/pricing-faq · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/faq · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/create · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/resume · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/lifecycle · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/specs · https://codesandbox.io/docs/sdk/hibernate · https://www.codesandbox.community/c/api-billing-updates/upcoming-pricing-billing-changes