[pico_creator]

I actually signed up for separate new account, to double check that my business account was not being favored or rigged in "private beta"

Its really not that hard to validate this claim, you can just rent for 4 hours at $1.50 - which is under $50

Also like I said, they are *not* the only one, shop around

[ipsum2]

I signed up and don't have access currently. My point that the prices are low because demand is limited because of lack of users still stands. Once people sign up and hear about it, the price will increase substantially.

[qeternity]

We are actively using sfcompute at the moment. It's a great product for us where we have a backlog of R&D workloads that can be incrementally run in short bursts.

I think you're right about the small private beta resulting in relatively low demand. But it's also a different value prop. If you need a large cluster for a reasonable period of time, you're not paying $1/hr. But if you can use the remnants of someone who contracted for a large allocation, but doesn't need part of it, they can offer it into the market and recoup what would otherwise just be wasted hours.

Currently they have some issues around stability, and spin up times are longer than ideal (ca. 15 min), but the team is super responsive and all of these are likely to be resolved in the near future. (No affiliation, just happy users rooting for the sfcompute team).