# How rentals work

You're billed by the millisecond once it's ready. A start that never gets ready is not charged.

1. **Pick and quote.** Only offers whose measured GPU memory fits the template are selectable. A quote is immutable, expires after 60 seconds and must be re-accepted if the price changes.
2. **Fund and reserve.** Reserving holds your budget and the machine in one step. Two sessions racing for one offer produce one allocation and an explicit conflict; the losing session's credit is never spent.
3. **Verified start.** The meter starts at verified readiness, not when the container exists. Readiness is an external probe bound to your leased endpoint; for model templates, an HTTP check of the readiness path (for example `/health` answering 200). A start that never reaches readiness fails with a named reason and is not charged.
4. **Run.** Connect over SSH and check the host-key fingerprint shown on the rental page first. For models, `amplerun tunnel <job>` exposes the OpenAI-compatible endpoint on `http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1`. You can add time (a budget extension) without changing the agreed rate.
5. **Stop and retrieve.** After a confirmed stop, results stay readable for 30 minutes over read-only SFTP.
6. **Settle.** The final bill follows accepted meter evidence and the durable journal. Data erased at cleanup can't be recovered.

## Trust vocabulary

- Detected hardware, runtime, qualification and rentability are separate facts.
- "Verified" always pairs a color cue with the word.
- Unknown or missing evidence stays unavailable.

## Money

Spendable, held, pending, disputed and withdrawable balances are shown separately. Deposits are USDC or USDT on Base (chain 8453) and the other networks your deposit address lists, that network's own coin (credited in USD at the Chainlink price minus a spread), or USDC over x402. USD prices settle 1:1 in USDC; see https://amplerun.com/pricing.md for depeg risk.