Beam vs Modal (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Modal is our pick, scoring 6.7/10 against 6.6/10 for Beam on our AI Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Analytics score (6/10 vs 4/10). For 10 users, Beam costs about $89/mo, against $250/mo for Modal; only Modal has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
Beam
6.6/10
Beam is a serverless cloud for AI teams and coding agents, offering sandboxes, persistent VMs, serverless GPU endpoints, task queues and on-demand GPU machines with per-second billing.
Modal
6.7/10
Modal is a serverless cloud platform that runs Python code on GPUs and CPUs with per-second billing, aimed at teams building and serving AI applications.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.6/10 | 6.7/10 |
| Integration | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Analytics | 4/10 | 6/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $20/mo Developer | $250/mo Team |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $89/mo Team | $250/mo Team |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Serverless Functions | ||
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
Beam vs Modal cost by team size
Modal costs less at 1 user; Beam costs less from 5 users.
| Team size | Beam | Modal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $20/moDeveloper | FreeStarter |
| 5 users | $89/moTeam | $250/moTeam |
| 10 users | $89/moTeam | $250/moTeam |
| 25 users | $89/moTeam | $250/moTeam |
| 50 users | $89/moTeam | $250/moTeam |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who Beam and Modal suit
Modal fits enterprise better than Beam.
| Audience | Beam | Modal |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 5/10Beam offers SOC 2 Type II, a Growth tier, clusters and bring-your-own-cloud, but the vendor is very small and publishes few details on regions. | 7/10The Enterprise plan adds SSO, audit logs, HIPAA support, volume discounts, and marketplace purchasing. |
| Startups | 8/10The $20 Developer plan includes matching credit, and scale-to-zero billing keeps costs low for small AI teams. | 9/10Scale to zero, monthly credits, and a startup credit program fit early AI companies. |
| Developers | 9/10Everything runs from a Python or TypeScript SDK and a CLI, with decorators that turn functions into endpoints and task queues. | 9/10It is built around a Python SDK and CLI, so infrastructure is defined in code. |
| SaaS Companies | 7/10Autoscaling GPU endpoints and sandboxes for agent code let SaaS products ship AI features without running GPU servers. | 7/10It works well for SaaS products that serve AI inference endpoints that scale with demand. |
| Education | Not rated | 6/10Academic credits of up to $10k support researchers and labs. |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Beam
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: $89/mo vs $250/mo
- Higher Cost score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Modal
- Has a free plan (Beam does not)
- Higher Analytics score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Scalability score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (7/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
Beam
Pros
- Billing is per second, or per millisecond for sandboxes, with no egress fees and no compute charge while VMs are stopped. Storage was not yet billed at the time of research.
- Beta9, the core runtime, is open source under AGPL-3.0, so teams can self-host it or add their own hardware using the same CLI across cloud, on-prem and hybrid setups.
- Agent-focused sandboxes start in about half a second and can be paused, snapshotted, forked and given a GPU. Paused VMs resume with RAM and processes intact.
- GetDeploying's comparison found Beam's H100, H200, B200, L40S, RTX PRO 6000 and A6000 machine prices cheaper than Runpod's.
- Beam publishes a SOC 2 Type II report, and GetDeploying lists GDPR coverage through a DPA and HIPAA availability on the enterprise tier.
Cons
- Beam lists 10 GPU models, compared with 34 on Runpod in GetDeploying's comparison, and Runpod is cheaper on A100 and RTX 4090.
- In GetDeploying's comparison, a medium always-on VM (4 vCPU, 8 GB) cost about $289 a month on Beam versus about $86 on Runpod.
- Beam does not publish a list of data center regions, so buyers with residency needs must ask sales.
- The entry Developer plan is capped at 1 seat and 5 concurrent GPUs, and live chat support starts only on the $89 Team plan.
- Independent user reviews are scarce, and the vendor is very small (YC lists a team of 5), which may concern buyers who need long-term support guarantees.
Modal
Pros
- GPUs from the T4 up to the B300 are available without quota requests or reservations, and workloads can burst to thousands of containers.
- Per-second billing and scale-to-zero mean idle bursty inference workloads cost nothing.
- Python developers define infrastructure in code and deploy with a single CLI command, with no Kubernetes or Dockerfiles needed.
- The free Starter plan includes $30 a month of compute, and startup and academic credit programs are available.
- Sandboxes support large numbers of concurrent isolated environments for AI agents and untrusted code.
Cons
- Always-on or steady workloads can cost more than reserved GPU rentals from providers such as RunPod or Lambda.
- Containers stay billable for 60 seconds after the last request by default, and keep-warm settings are a common source of bill surprises.
- Region pinning raises prices by 1.15 to 1.75 times, and non-preemptible execution by 3 times.
- SSO, audit logs, and HIPAA support are limited to the custom-priced Enterprise plan.
- Credits from AWS, GCP, or Azure cannot be applied to Modal usage.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Modal scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 6.7/10 against 6.6/10 for Beam. The largest gap is in Analytics: 4/10 for Beam and 6/10 for Modal.
Beam costs less for 10 users: about $89/mo on its Team plan, against about $250/mo on its Team plan for Modal, billed monthly.
Modal has a free plan; Beam does not list one.
Modal is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 5/10 for Beam.
