{"rid":"compute/paperspace-gradient-free-tier","card":{"rid":"compute/paperspace-gradient-free-tier","eid":"digitalocean","topic":"compute","slug":"paperspace-gradient-free-tier","provider":"Paperspace (DigitalOcean) Gradient free tier","url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/","domain":"digitalocean.com","category":"notebook","tier":"Gradient Free plan","verdict":"qualifies","vorder":0,"grp":"usable","confidence":"documented","binding":"retention-clamped","identity_kind":"email","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":0,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"ssh,rest","egress_metered":0,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-24T06:32:00.000Z","verified_basis":"live","checked_on":"2026-10-25","stale_on":"2026-11-24","n_evidence":10,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"Quoted from the machine table: 'GPU+ (M4000) | $0.45/hr | Free, Pro, Growth' and 'C4 | $0.04/hr | Free, Pro, Growth'. The Free plan row reads 'FREE GPU ... $...","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":0},"record":{"topic":"compute","slug":"paperspace-gradient-free-tier","provider":"Paperspace (DigitalOcean) Gradient free tier","url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/","category":"notebook","tier":"Gradient Free plan","free_tier":{"stated":"Quoted from the machine table: 'GPU+ (M4000) | $0.45/hr | Free, Pro, Growth' and 'C4 | $0.04/hr | Free, Pro, Growth'. The Free plan row reads 'FREE GPU ... $0 ... Plus utilization costs on paid instances' with 'Public projects', 'Auto-shutdown (12 hour limit)', '5GB storage', 'Basic instances'. No credit card is required for the free machine types.","unit":"hours","metered_on":"wall-clock","source_url":"https://www.paperspace.com/pricing","read_on":"2026-10-24"},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"Quoted: 'Notebook Limit: Only one notebook can use a free machine at a time.'"},"retention":{"stated":"Quoted: 'For your machine learning work on Free machines, you have 5GB of dedicated Persistent Storage.' The storage is per-region and is not shared with paid machine types."},"egress":{"terms":"Quoted: 'We do not charge for ingress or egress bandwidth for Paperspace Machines.' Free machines are not metered on traffic.","metered":false,"free_allowance":"unmetered","source_url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/"},"interface":["ssh","rest"],"interface_detail":"Jupyter notebooks in the browser, a terminal inside the notebook, and a public IP address on the machine for SSH. The Paperspace API and CLI drive machines programmatically.","tooling":"a browser for notebooks; any SSH client against the machine's public IP; the Paperspace CLI or REST API","chaining":"A free NVIDIA M4000 with 8 vCPU and 30 GiB of RAM behind it, no card, for six hours at a stretch: the best free GPU shape found that does not ask for an institution.","limits":[{"kind":"retention-clamped","value":"free machines auto-shutdown at 6 hours","source":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/machines/details/features/"},{"kind":"retention-clamped","value":"a notebook inactive for one hour is shut down","source":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/machines/details/features/"},{"kind":"volume-quota","value":"5 GB of persistent storage on the Free plan","source":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/"},{"kind":"volume-quota","value":"one notebook per user may hold a free machine at a time","source":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/machines/details/features/"},{"kind":"write-gated","value":"free machines are drawn from a limited pool and may sit Pending in a queue","source":"https://paperspace.gitbook.io/gradient/more/instance-types/free-instances"}],"binding":"retention-clamped","binding_note":"The six-hour auto-shutdown and the one-hour inactivity reap are what end a session, so this is a working machine for a run, not a host.","identity_cost":{"kind":"email","detail":"no card, no phone, no document. The signup page offers '1-click sign up ... Sign up with DigitalOcean, Sign up with GitHub, Sign up with Google' plus an email-and-password form, and carries no payment field. The vendor states it twice: 'Gradient includes a free tier that comes with no-cost CPU and GPU instance types (no credit card required!)' and 'While Gradient requires a subscription tier (and credit card) to enable paid instances, you can always use Free-tier CPU and GPU notebooks for free.'","country":null},"reliability_note":"No reliability event observed. Free machines come from a limited pool and can queue: 'your notebook may be Pending in the queue as you wait for a free machine to become available'.","confidence":"documented","confidence_note":"The free machine types, their shapes, the reaps, the storage and the no-card statement are quoted from DigitalOcean's Paperspace pricing and machine-type pages and Paperspace's own marketing pages read today. Whether a free machine can be reached over SSH on its public IP rather than only through a notebook is not stated on any page read, so inbound listening is recorded as unknown rather than yes.","evidence":[{"url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: '| GPU+ (M4000) | $0.45/hr | Free, Pro, Growth |' and '| C4 | $0.04/hr | Free, Pro, Growth |'"},{"url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: '### Free Machines ... | Free Machine | Available Plans | ... | Free CPU (C4) | Free, Pro, Growth | | Free GPU (M4000) | Free, Pro, Growth |'"},{"url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/pricing/","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: 'We do not charge for ingress or egress bandwidth for Paperspace Machines.'"},{"url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/machines/details/features/","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: 'Auto-shutdown: The auto-shutdown limit for free machines is six hours.', 'Inactivity: Notebooks that are inactive for one hour are automatically shut down.', 'Notebook Limit: Only one notebook can use a free machine at a time.'"},{"url":"https://paperspace.gitbook.io/gradient/more/instance-types/free-instances","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: 'For your machine learning work on Free machines, you have 5GB of dedicated Persistent Storage.' and 'Note: We are currently offering a limited pool of free machines so your notebook may be Pending in the queue'"},{"url":"https://ml-showcase.paperspace.com/guide","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: 'Gradient includes a free tier that comes with no-cost CPU and GPU instance types (no credit card required!)'"},{"url":"https://blog.paperspace.com/sagemaker-studio-notebooks-alternative-comparison/","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: 'While Gradient requires a subscription tier (and credit card) to enable paid instances, you can always use Free-tier CPU and GPU notebooks for free.'"},{"url":"https://console.paperspace.com/signup","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"the form carries 'Sign up with DigitalOcean', 'Sign up with GitHub', 'Sign up with Google', 'Email address', 'Password' and no payment field"},{"url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/paperspace/machines/details/machine-types/index.html.md","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: '| C4 | 2 | 4 | Linux |' and '| GPU+ (M4000) | 8 | 8 | 30 | Linux |' (GPU memory GB, vCPU, RAM GB)"},{"url":"https://www.paperspace.com/pricing","date":"2026-10-24","proved":"quoted: 'FREE GPU ... $0 ... Public projects, Auto-shutdown (12 hour limit), 5GB storage, Basic instances'. Note the marketing card says 12 hours where the documentation says 6; the documentation is recorded and the disagreement is kept"}],"verdict":"qualifies","verified_at":"2026-10-24T06:32:00.000Z","price_per_tb_month":null,"notes":"The best free GPU that needs no institution and no card: an M4000 with 8 vCPU and 30 GiB of RAM for six-hour stretches, on 5 GB of persistent storage, with unmetered egress. Three caveats. First, the marketing card says a 12-hour auto-shutdown while the documentation says 6; the documentation is recorded and the conflict is left visible rather than resolved. Second, free machines come from a limited pool and can queue, so availability is the real constraint on a busy day. Third, the free plan forces public projects, so a notebook's contents are visible. Whether the machine exposes a reachable SSH port on its public IP, as opposed to notebook-only access, is not stated on any page read. This record adds the shape and the free-GPU row that `paperspace` lacks; the two are different records because `paperspace` prices the C-series hourly and this one prices the free plan.","extras":{"shape":{"vcpu":8,"ram_gib":30,"disk_gib":5,"gpu_class":"NVIDIA Quadro M4000","gpu_count":1,"note":"the M4000 row is 8 GB GPU memory, 8 vCPU, 30 GB RAM; the CPU-only alternative C4 is 2 vCPU and 4 GB RAM; disk is the 5 GB persistent allocation, not an instance disk"},"billing_model":"free","term":"per session; persistent storage survives","m10h_usd":0,"m24h_usd":0,"price_arithmetic":"USD 0.00 for the free machine types; the published USD 0.45/hr for the M4000 is the paid Core rate and is not charged on the Free plan","free_tier_kind":"always-free","network_out":{"allow_outbound":true,"allow_inbound_listen":null,"ports":"a public IP is assignable to Paperspace machines; whether a free machine gets one is not stated","static_ip":null,"ipv6":null,"per_session_bytes":null},"session_cap":{"wall_clock_min":360,"idle_reap_s":3600,"restart_required":true,"note":"6 h auto-shutdown and 1 h inactivity reap per the documentation; the marketing card says 12 h"},"signup_url":"https://console.paperspace.com/signup","credit_usd":null,"credit_hours_at_shape":null,"card_hold_usd":null,"payment_methods":"none for the free machine types; a card is required only for paid instances"}},"claims":[{"path":"$.extras.m10h_usd","kind":"price","num":0,"unit":null,"per":"month","currency":"USD","usd":0,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.extras.m24h_usd","kind":"price","num":0,"unit":null,"per":"month","currency":"USD","usd":0,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":12,"unit":"hour","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:retention-clamped","num":6,"unit":"hours","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[1].value","kind":"limit:retention-clamped","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[2].value","kind":"limit:volume-quota","num":5,"unit":"GB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[3].value","kind":"limit:volume-quota","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[4].value","kind":"limit:write-gated","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"}],"unknown":[],"history":[],"drift":[{"kind":"duplicate-disagrees","subject":"compute/paperspace","other":"compute/paperspace-gradient-free-tier","field":"verdict","a":"qualifies-with-caveat","b":"qualifies","detail":null}]}