> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.boxlite.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What a box costs > The three metered rates, the formula they combine into, what the standard sizes come to per hour and per month, and exactly which hours are counted. A box rents three things by the hour: vCPU, memory, and disk. This page turns those rates into the numbers you can plan against. ## Rates | Resource | Unit | Rate | | -------- | ------------- | ------------- | | vCPU | per vCPU-hour | **\$0.0504** | | Memory | per GiB-hour | **\$0.0144** | | Disk | per GiB-hour | **\$0.00018** | A box's hourly price is the plain sum, with no tiers and no rounding: ``` hourly = vCPU × $0.0504 + memory_GiB × $0.0144 + disk_GiB × $0.00018 ``` Nothing else is metered. There is no charge for network traffic, API requests, mounted volumes, preview URLs, or the time a box spends booting. ## What the standard sizes cost The three sizes in the **New Box** dialog, plus the largest box your organization can request: | Size | vCPU / memory / disk | Per hour | 30 days running | 30 days stopped | | -------------------- | -------------------- | -------- | --------------- | --------------- | | **Small** | 1 / 1 GiB / 10 GiB | \$0.0666 | \$47.95 | \$1.30 | | **Medium** | 2 / 4 GiB / 20 GiB | \$0.1620 | \$116.64 | \$2.59 | | **Large** | 4 / 8 GiB / 50 GiB | \$0.3258 | \$234.58 | \$6.48 | | Organization ceiling | 4 / 32 GiB / 120 GiB | \$0.6840 | \$492.48 | \$15.55 | Two readings of that table matter. **Per invocation, boxes are almost free.** A 30-second code-interpreter run on a Small box costs $0.00056 — ten thousand of them come to $5.55. Per-run cost is not where Cloud bills get large. **Per month left running, they are not.** The gap between the last two columns is the whole cost story, and the next section is why it exists. [Cost controls](/cloud/cost-controls) is how you close it. To make a box cheaper, cut vCPU first: one vCPU-hour costs as much as **3.5 GiB-hours of memory** or **280 GiB-hours of disk**. Trimming disk is not worth the thought — it is 2–3% of a running box. ## What each box state costs | Box state | vCPU | Memory | Disk | | -------------------- | ------- | ------- | ----------- | | **Running** | charged | charged | charged | | **Stopped** | — | — | **charged** | | Creating or starting | — | — | — | | **Deleted** | — | — | — | A stopped box has given back its compute but still occupies its disk, and it is billed for that disk until the box is deleted. One forgotten box is loose change. A hundred of them is $130–$650 a month for nothing, and nothing clears them for you. ### How the hours are counted Compute and disk are charged over different intervals. The two clocks start together and stop at different moments: | Moment | vCPU + memory | Disk | | ----------------------------- | --------------- | --------------- | | Box created but never started | not charged | not charged | | Box reaches **running** | clock starts | clock starts | | You **request a stop** | **clock stops** | keeps running | | Box is stopped, however long | not charged | keeps running | | You **request deletion** | not charged | **clock stops** | Two of those moments are earlier than you might expect, and both are in your favor: * **Compute stops billing when the stop is requested**, not when the box has finished shutting down. You do not pay vCPU or memory for the shutdown itself. * **Disk stops billing when deletion is requested**, not when teardown completes. There is **no minimum billable duration and no rounding up to a whole hour**. The platform records the exact moment of each transition, so a box that runs for four minutes is charged for four minutes at the hourly rate. A box you create and never start costs nothing at all. ## Estimates and settlement The **New Box** dialog quotes what your chosen size costs to run for one hour. Treat it as an estimate — your actual charge is settled from recorded usage, and the **Usage** tab is the authority on what you were charged. See [Managing billing](/cloud/billing#read-the-usage-chart). ## Troubleshooting | Situation | Why it happens | What to do | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | A box you stopped days ago is still adding to your bill | A stopped box keeps its disk and is charged for it until deleted | Delete it, or set `auto_delete` so it clears itself. See [Cost controls](/cloud/cost-controls) | | Cost is far higher than the size suggests | Something keeps the box busy, so it never goes idle and `auto_stop` never fires. A busy box is not an idle box | Check what is running inside it, or stop the box explicitly when the work finishes | | Creation fails with `auto_delete must be greater than auto_stop` | Both are non-zero but `auto_delete` is not larger | Raise `auto_delete` above `auto_stop`, or set `auto_delete=0` to disable deletion | | A request for more than 4 vCPU, 32 GiB of memory, or 120 GiB of disk is rejected | Those are per-box ceilings for the whole organization, enforced before the box is created | Lower the request or split the work across boxes. See [Per-box resource ceilings](/cloud/billing#per-box-resource-ceilings) | ## Next steps The two lifecycle controls that stop a finished box from charging you. The usage level at which a subscription starts costing less.