# Google Colab

Official pricing: https://developers.google.com/colab  
Category: dev-env · Isolation: vm

## Pricing regimes (raw)

- **On-demand** (sizes):  [alt]
- **Colab Enterprise (GCP, us-central1)** (resource): $0.026173908/vCPU-h, $0.003508236/GiB-h [alt]

## Features

Yes: pause/resume, persistent disk, volumes, idle auto-stop, full VM (own kernel), code interpreter, HTTPS preview URLs, egress allowlist, open internet, SOC 2, HIPAA, SSO, GPU, Python, EU data residency, MCP server, gVisor or VM (no shared kernel), inbound access rules, secret proxy, extra volumes

No: snapshots, memory snapshots, fork/clone, ≥24 h sessions, start from your own snapshot, your own Docker/OCI image, Docker inside, nested virtualization, browser, desktop GUI, computer-use API, browser + desktop control, anti-bot stealth, CAPTCHA solving, residential IPs, preinstalled agents, SSH, public IPv4, static egress IP, self-hosting, BYOC, open source, arm64, Windows, macOS, Node.js, HTTP method/path egress rules, wake on request, live resize, live fork (no pause), memory fork, automatic snapshots, snapshots on demand, agent harness API, hosted agent API (their own agent), firewall inside (nftables), secret proxy for any API, shared volumes

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

## Caveats

- Notebook execution backend discovered inDatalayer code-sandboxes; not a provisioned general-purpose sandbox API. Free/Pro/Pro+ hardware capacity andcomputeunit economics are not arbitrary4/8 VM-hours.
- Not fully priceable in ENGINE_CARD: unknown USD resource rates or machine shape. Null is not zero; do not rank as a free provider.
- Features set to null were not verified. No sandbox was purchased or tested; feature/performance statements are documentation claims. Null maximums are unknown unless a cited note explicitly states unlimited.
- A complete monthly bill requires known snapshot/egress/plan limits; do not silently treat missing ancillary charges as free.
- Consumer Colab plans (US, 2026-09-27): Free $0 (no guaranteed GPU, 12 h max); Pay As You Go $9.99 per 100 compute units or $49.99 per 500 (EU EUR 11.10 / 50.70); Colab Pro $9.99/month = 100 CU; Colab Pro+ $49.99/month = 600 CU with background execution up to 24 h. CU expire after 90 days, non-refundable. Per-runtime CU burn rates are unpublished, so consumer Colab stays unpriced; plans not encoded because included CU would wrongly discount the Colab Enterprise mode.

## How this provider charges


As of 2026-09-28. Prices are USD unless explicitly labelled otherwise. Source type: official published list/promo or unknown, never a fabricated quote.

Notebook execution backend discovered inDatalayer code-sandboxes; not a provisioned general-purpose sandbox API. Free/Pro/Pro+ hardware capacity andcomputeunit economics are not arbitrary4/8 VM-hours.

| Regime | When it applies | How billed / numbers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free notebook | Interactive quota | Free access is capacity-limited, not guaranteed50way hosting. | https://developers.google.com/colab |
| Pro/Pro+ | Notebook subscriptions | Computeunits, variablehardware; dollar-rate conversion not established. | https://developers.google.com/colab |

## Gotchas

- Notebook execution backend discovered inDatalayer code-sandboxes; not a provisioned general-purpose sandbox API. Free/Pro/Pro+ hardware capacity andcomputeunit economics are not arbitrary4/8 VM-hours.
- Not fully priceable in ENGINE_CARD: unknown USD resource rates or machine shape. Null is not zero; do not rank as a free provider.
- Features set to null were not verified. No sandbox was purchased or tested; feature/performance statements are documentation claims. Null maximums are unknown unless a cited note explicitly states unlimited.
- A complete monthly bill requires known snapshot/egress/plan limits; do not silently treat missing ancillary charges as free.

## Worked workload

4 vCPU / 8 GiB; 50 simultaneous instances × 8 h/day × 22 days = **8,800 instance-hours**, **35,200 vCPU-hours**, **70,400 GiB-hours**. At 30% observed CPU:10,560 active-vCPU-hours only where the meter actually uses utilization. Assume one start/instance/day:1,100starts. Retain50GiB snapshots for a month;100GiB outbound. Active disk capacity was not specified.

No guaranteed50concurrent4/8runtimes or50GiBVM snapshots. Notebook service quotas/acceptable-use andhardware variability prevent a valid machinebill. Do not rank free quota aszero-cost cloudVMS.

## Sources

- https://developers.google.com/colab
- https://github.com/datalayer/code-sandboxes/tree/d9c39925d87447dab5f3f7f1bdf9451ec4ebca2a/code_sandboxes/sandboxes/google_colab