# Cua Fleet

Official pricing: https://cua.ai/pricing  
Category: agent-sandbox · Isolation: gvisor

## Pricing regimes (raw)

- **Fleet Linux sandbox, Ubuntu 24.04 gVisor container (cloud default), rate not published** (resource)
- **Fleet Linux sandbox, Ubuntu 24.04 KubeVirt VM (kind="vm"), rate not published** (resource)
- **Fleet Windows Server 2022 KubeVirt VM, rate not published** (resource)

## Features

Yes: idle auto-stop, ≥24 h sessions, custom image (Docker or snapshot), your own Docker/OCI image, Docker inside, root, browser, desktop GUI, computer-use API, browser automation API, desktop control API, browser + desktop control, SSH, HTTPS preview URLs, self-hosting, BYOC, open source, SOC 2, Windows, Python, Node.js, MCP server, gVisor or VM (no shared kernel), inbound access rules, firewall inside (nftables)

No: snapshots, memory snapshots, fork/clone, pause/resume, persistent disk, whole disk survives a stop, volumes, start from your own snapshot, full VM (own kernel), anti-bot stealth, CAPTCHA solving, residential IPs, preinstalled agents, public IPv4, egress allowlist, static egress IP, HIPAA, SSO, GPU, arm64, macOS, GPU desktop, HTTP method/path egress rules, wake on request, live resize, live fork (no pause), memory fork, EU data residency, usage per sandbox (API), automatic snapshots, snapshots on demand, agent harness API, hosted agent API (their own agent), secret proxy, secret proxy for any API, extra volumes, shared volumes, FUSE mounts, kernel features (eBPF, mounts, cgroups)

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

## Company

- Ownership: independent
- Stage: pre-seed [source](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/cua)
- Accelerators: Y Combinator Spring 2025 [source](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/cua)
- Total raised: unknown
- Last round: unknown (unknown)
- Investors: Y Combinator
- Revenue: unknown

Cua (github.com/trycua, product site cua.ai, formerly branded 'c/ua'/trycua.com) is a Y Combinator Spring 2025 batch company (YC page lists it Active, team size 3, San Francisco, primary partner Diana Hu), confirming the hint: same company, same cua.ai domain. Founders are Francesco (frabonacci) and Alessandro per their April 2025 'Launch HN' post; the open-source core (Lume, cua/computer-use framework) predates and underlies the hosted Cua Fleet product this card prices. No publicly disclosed funding round, total raised, or revenue/ARR figure was found beyond YC's standard participation — treat funding stage, amount, and revenue as unknown rather than guessed. A buyer should independently verify current funding via Crunchbase/PitchBook (paywalled, inaccessible in this session) or direct company contact before relying on financial solidity claims.

## Caveats

- Unpriced since 2026-10-14: cua.ai/pricing now lists only Cua Spaces plans (Free $0, Pro $12/month, Teams $30/seat/month, billed on live sessions and relay hours) and says "Does Cua host or rent the machines? No." The Fleets docs still bill cloud usage ("Usage is billed while a sandbox runs; releasing it ends the charge.", https://cua.ai/docs/fleets/quickstart.md) and the app has an OUT_OF_CREDIT notice, but no vCPU, RAM, disk or egress rate is published. The former $0.044625/vCPU-h and $0.0223125/GiB-h are no longer used.
- Cloud isolation depends on the image: any OCI rootfs (including the default Image.linux()) runs as a gVisor container; a containerDisk (qcow2 at /disk/disk.img) runs as a KubeVirt VM; Windows Server 2022 is always a KubeVirt VM. amd64 only. Windows 11, macOS and Android are rejected in the cloud.
- Image layers (apt_install, pip_install, uv_install, app_install, run) are described in a cua.ai Image resource and built with `cua image build` on your machine, then pushed to a registry; cloud builds from layers are "not available yet" (a cloud sandbox with layers fails), per https://cua.ai/docs/fleets/guides/images.md and runtime-support.
- No cloud macOS: images.md lists the macOS (Lume) cloud runtime as "Not offered" and cloud.md says "No macOS."; macOS runs only locally with Lume on Apple silicon.
- Managed pools cap at 10 sandboxes per image and shape by default (raise with CloudOptions(max_pool_size=...)), are deleted after 30 minutes idle, and claims lapse 15 minutes after the process stops renewing them. "A released sandbox may be recycled, so copy results out first."
- Open source: SDK, Cua Driver and Lume are MIT; Cua Spaces is source-available under FSL-1.1-MIT (becomes MIT two years after each release).
- Region: the Fleets docs name no region; the Sandbox reference still defaults region to us-east-1 (https://cua.ai/docs/cua-sdk/reference/python/sandbox.md).
- Disk size per sandbox and any disk/storage price are unpublished (included_disk_gib and disk_gib_month null, unknown, not free). SSH is not documented for cloud sandboxes (control goes through cua-spacesd via the gateway).
- Pool-based billing: "Warm replicas consume capacity, and are billed, whether or not anything claims them" (https://cua.ai/docs/fleets/guides/warm-pools.md). If a rate is published again, session hours only match cost if the pool is scaled to demand (see warm_pool_overhead knob).
- SOC 2 Type I (not Type II). BYOC and on-prem available via sales.
- Legacy 2025 Cua Cloud Sandbox sizes (Small 1/4, Medium 2/8, Large 8/32) had no published prices; superseded by Fleet per-resource pricing.
- Third-party guides mention a free dev tier; not on the official pricing page (free credits set 0).
- No benchmark data in benchmarks.json.
- Windows: Cua images do not include a commercial Windows licence (BYOL); the estimate excludes licence cost. Source: https://cua.ai/docs/reference/sandbox-sdk/os-image-catalog
- Snapshots: older marketing said 'fork from snapshots', but cua-sandbox 0.9.0 docs say Sandbox.snapshot() is unimplemented for Fleet and Fleet rejects snapshot-derived images; card keeps snapshot 'none' per the versioned docs (conflict noted).
- Closing a connection, releasing a claim and deleting a pool are separate; warm pool capacity keeps billing until the pool is scaled down/deleted (keep_pool can preserve pools).

## How this provider charges


Cua is an open-source (MIT) computer-use sandbox framework plus a hosted service, **Cua Fleet**, that runs GUI
desktop VMs (Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows Server 2022 in the cloud today). The only published price is one per-resource
card: **$0.044625/vCPU-h** and **$0.0223125/GiB-h** (1 vCPU + 2 GiB = $0.08925/h). 4 vCPU / 8 GiB =
0.1785 + 0.1785 = **$0.357/h**. No plan fees, storage, egress, OS surcharge or free credits are published.

The key billing trap is structural: Fleet is **pool-based**. A pool keeps N warm replicas that "continue to consume
capacity until it is scaled down or deleted"; a claim merely borrows one warm computer. You pay for warm replica
uptime, not for claimed/active time.

## Regime table

| Regime | When it applies | How billed | Numbers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local open-source Cua Sandbox | Run on your own machine (Docker, QEMU, Apple VZ/Lume, Android emulator) | Free (MIT); you pay your own hardware | $0 | https://cua.ai/pricing, https://cua.ai/docs/reference/sandbox-sdk/runtime-support.md |
| Cua Fleet usage-based (Linux) | Hosted Ubuntu 24.04 VM pools | Allocated vCPU + memory per hour of replica uptime | $0.044625/vCPU-h + $0.0223125/GiB-h | https://cua.ai/pricing |
| Cua Fleet usage-based (Windows) | Hosted Windows Server 2022 VM pools | Same published rates; no Windows licence surcharge listed (unverified) | same | https://cua.ai/pricing, https://cua.ai/docs/reference/sandbox-sdk/runtime-support.md |
| Warm pool capacity | Pool created with `replicas=N` | Each warm replica bills from creation until scale-down/delete, **claimed or not**; "cloud resources can incur usage charges after your workload finishes" | N × size × rate | https://cua.ai/docs/how-to-guides/sandbox/create-fleet-capacity.md, https://cua.ai/docs/cloud-fleets.md |
| Claim | `claim` one computer from a pool | No separate claim fee documented; released on context exit | $0 extra (unpublished) | https://cua.ai/docs/cloud-fleets.md |
| TTL expiry | `ttl_seconds_after_created` on pools/claims | Deletes resource N s after **creation** (not idle); no default TTL = pool bills until deleted | 0–4,294,967,295 s | https://cua.ai/docs/how-to-guides/sandbox/expire-pools-and-claims, https://cua.ai/docs/reference/sandbox-sdk/pool.md |
| macOS / Android cloud | Marketed on homepage | **Not accepted by Fleet** in SDK 0.7.0 (local only) | n/a | https://cua.ai/, https://cua.ai/docs/reference/sandbox-sdk/runtime-support.md |
| BYOC / on-prem (Enterprise) | Run Fleet in your cloud or datacenter | Contact sales | null | https://cua.ai/pricing |
| Storage / snapshots / egress | — | Not published | null | https://cua.ai/pricing |
| Legacy Cua Cloud Sandbox (2025) | Launch 2025-05-28: Small 1 vCPU/4 GB, Medium 2/8, Large 8/32 | "pay only for compute time"; prices never published in the post; superseded by Fleet per-resource pricing | null | https://cua.ai/blog/introducing-cua-cloud-containers |

No dated price change with numbers found. Third-party guides mention a free development tier; not on the official page (unverified).

## Gotchas

1. **You pay for warm pool replicas, not claims.** A pool of 50 kept up 24/7 costs 50 × 730 h regardless of how many agent runs happen. Scale replicas to 0/delete the pool between shifts.
2. **TTL counts from creation, not last use**, and there is no default TTL — forgotten pools bill forever.
3. **Windows costs the same as Linux** on the published card; no licence surcharge is listed (confirm before relying on it).
4. **macOS and Android are marketing, not Fleet reality** in SDK 0.7.0 (local only).
5. RAM is priced at half the vCPU rate per GiB — memory-heavy desktops (1:4 ratios like the old Small 1/4 size) cost more per vCPU than E2B-style 1:2 shapes.
6. Storage, egress, IPv4, granularity, minimums, concurrency limits and free credits are all unpublished.

## Worked example

4 vCPU / 8 GiB, 50 concurrent × 8 h/day × 22 days, 30% CPU, 50 GiB snapshots, 100 GiB egress.

| Regime | Feasible? | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|
| Fleet pool scaled to 50 replicas only during shifts (8,800 replica-h) | Yes (limits unpublished) | 8,800 × $0.357 = **$3,141.60** + unknown storage/egress |
| Fleet pool of 50 left warm 24/7 | Yes | 50 × 730 × $0.357 = **$13,030.50** |
| Fleet on Windows Server 2022 | Yes | same as Linux at published rates ($3,141.60) |
| BYOC / on-prem | Enterprise | unpublished Cua fee + own infrastructure |
| Local OSS | Your hardware | $0 to Cua |

30% CPU does not matter (allocation billing). Snapshot and egress costs unknown (null).