Blender cloud costs 2026: RebusFarm, GarageFarm, RunPod vs. ZER0ONE Lab — real numbers
We ran three typical Blender jobs through four providers: 240-frame turntable, 4K cinema loop, 100-frame product batch. Honest numbers including point systems and self-setup time — no marketing. Result: no provider wins all three scenarios, but one cost factor is regularly overlooked.
On zer0onelab.com you see our vendor comparison table on /render. But a table doesn't explain where the numbers come from. This post runs three real Blender jobs through four vendors — with public pricing, no marketing discounts, no "from-price" fine print.
We compare:
- ZER0ONE Lab (transparent per-second in €)
- RebusFarm (RenderPoints, ~$1.18/point)
- GarageFarm (Renderbeamz, similar point system)
- RunPod (raw compute at $ per second, but you bring your own Blender container)
And for each vendor we factor in setup time per job — the factor most price comparisons ignore and the one that often flips the winner.
Scenario 1 — Solo artist: turntable loop
Job: 240-frame turntable animation, 1920×1080, Cycles OptiX 128 samples, RTX A4000.
Why this is the standard example: classic product-beauty and portfolio render. We measured the same job on our own A4000: 3 min 18 s pure compute (Cycles OptiX, denoise off on GPU side).
| Vendor | Calculation | Total | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZER0ONE Lab — Pod A4000 | 198 s × $0.69/h + 240 × 5 ¢ denoise | $14.05 | 0 min |
| ZER0ONE Lab — denoise off | 198 s × $0.69/h + min-charge $1.99 | $1.99 | 0 min |
| RebusFarm | ~20 RenderPoints × $1.18 (vendor calculator) | ~$23.60 | ~10 min (plugin) |
| GarageFarm | ~18–22 Renderbeamz equivalent | ~$21–26 | ~10 min (plugin) |
| RunPod Community A4000 | 198 s × $0.28/h + container setup 30 min | $0.02 compute | 30–45 min |
Intermediate takeaway: with denoise on, ZER0ONE isn't the price king but sits just under RebusFarm/GarageFarm. With denoise off (often enough for Cycles OptiX) we beat every classic farm and only lose to RunPod — until we factor in setup time.
Scenario 2 — Small studio: 4K cinema loop
Job: 24 frames 4K (3840×2160), Cycles 512 samples, RTX 4090.
Higher resolution, higher sample count, shorter frame count. Perfect for the short cinema loops studios post on LinkedIn/IG.
Compute time on 4090: ~8 minutes.
| Vendor | Calculation | Total | Auto-backend |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZER0ONE Lab — Pod 4090 | 480 s × $0.89/h + 24 × 5 ¢ denoise | $1.32 | Pod (>300 s) |
| ZER0ONE Lab — Serverless 4090 | 480 s × $2.75/h + 24 × 5 ¢ | $1.57 | Serverless routes ≤300 s |
| RebusFarm | ~6 RenderPoints × $1.18 | ~$7 | Plugin install |
| GarageFarm | ~6 Renderbeamz | ~$7 | Plugin install |
| RunPod 4090 Community | 480 s × $0.34/h + setup | $0.05 compute | Container setup |
ZER0ONE wins with a wide margin here — the point systems have minimum-package charges that make an 8-minute job disproportionately expensive. RunPod setup time on an 8-minute job is pro-rata absurd.
Scenario 3 — E-commerce/product viz: 100-frame still batch
Job: 100 single renders (different cameras/colors), 2K (2560×1440), Cycles 256 samples, RTX A6000 (48 GB VRAM for heavy product assets).
A6000 compute time: ~30 minutes for the full batch (~18 s/frame × 100 frames).
| Vendor | Calculation | Total |
|---|---|---|
| ZER0ONE Lab — Pod A6000 | 1800 s × $1.99/h + 100 × 5 ¢ denoise | $5.99 |
| RebusFarm A6000-eq. | ~15 RenderPoints × $1.18 | ~$17.70 |
| GarageFarm | ~14 Renderbeamz | ~$16.50 |
| RunPod A6000 Secure | 1800 s × $0.79/h + setup | $0.39 compute |
Here the point-system markup becomes obvious: RebusFarm and GarageFarm charge nearly 3× our price for the same job because their volume-discount structures don't kick in for small batches.
The meta-lesson: setup time is cost
The mistake in "RunPod is cheapest" is ignoring setup time per job. Concretely:
A solo artist with 20 jobs per month spends:
- ZER0ONE / RebusFarm / GarageFarm: 20 × 0–5 min = ~1.5 hours setup total
- RunPod (self-hosted Blender container): 20 × 30 min = 10 hours setup
At a self-hourly rate of $50/h (low for a Blender freelancer) that's $425 setup overhead per month on RunPod. That compensates a $0.50/job price difference 40-fold.
Put differently: RunPod is only cheaper if you value your own time at $0/h, or if you build the setup automation once and run tens of thousands of jobs per month afterwards.
Where we stand (honest)
Clear recommendation per segment — even when it's not us:
- Solo artist with <5 jobs/month and setup-tinkering interest: RunPod. Setup cost pays off if you want to learn it anyway.
- Solo artist with >5 jobs/month or no setup time: ZER0ONE Lab or Drop & Render. Point systems (RebusFarm/GarageFarm) are structurally expensive for small batches.
- Small studio with predictable render load: ZER0ONE Lab Pro (€99/mo Multi-GPU + OptiX denoise + priority slot). Multi-GPU-auto-split is the differentiator; competitors expose it as manual plugin config.
- Large studio on Multi-DCC (V-Ray, Corona, Cinema 4D, Houdini): RebusFarm or GarageFarm. We're Blender-only by design — a niche, not a replacement for 20-year farm operations.
What's NOT in this table
- Multi-GPU splitting at competitors: RebusFarm and GarageFarm offer it, but configured manually in the plugin. At ZER0ONE the router decides automatically (Pro: 2× or 4× parallel per job size).
- OptiX denoise as its own price line: at the farms you activate it in Blender and pay the CPU time. With us it's a job-form toggle at +5 ¢/frame — you typically save 30–50% compute because sample count can drop by half to a quarter.
- Cloud workstation: browser-based Blender IDE on the same account. No competitor in this table has that.
If you want to run the numbers yourself
All figures in this post come from:
- Our own pricing (zer0onelab.com/render) — transparent, second-precise
- RebusFarm cost calculator (rebusfarm.net/cost-calculator)
- GarageFarm cost calculator (garagefarm.net/calculator)
- RunPod pricing (runpod.io/pricing) for compute; setup time from hands-on experience
If you want to check against your real workflow — send us a sample scene or a .blend with 5 test frames, and we'll run the cost delta with your actual numbers.