For hosts · Updated October 13, 2026

How much can you earn renting out your GPU? Honest 2026 numbers

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Short answer: rented half the time at today's market prices, an RTX 4090 keeps about $97 a month and an RTX 5090 about $118, after a 20% platform fee and electricity at 15¢ per kWh. An RTX 3090 keeps about $23. An RTX 3070 keeps little after power (and KernelMachine rents only cards with 16 GB or more). Renting beats crypto mining on every card we checked. These are estimates from October 2026 prices, not promises.

Plenty of sites say a gaming GPU can be a money machine. For most cards, it isn't. Here is the working, with every assumption shown, so you can redo it with your own power price.

What renters pay, and what other platforms pay hosts

Per card-hour, from public data feeds on 6 October 2026:

Sources: Vast.ai offers feed (top 64 offers per card), Salad demand feed, Nosana markets feed. Salad and Nosana pay only while a job runs.

What a card keeps each month on KernelMachine

A kWh (kilowatt-hour) is the unit on your power bill. US home prices are often around 15 to 20¢; much of Europe pays more.

How we worked it out

• Price: what we expect to charge at launch, based on the October 2026 median for each card on Vast.ai.
• Fee: 20%, so you keep 80%. Other platforms take 5 to 25% (below).
• Rented time: half of a 730-hour month. This is a guess. No platform publishes how busy consumer cards are. The two public claims we found say 40% and 60 to 75%, and neither shows its method (one, two).
• Power: the card working hard, from reviews' measured figures, plus 60 watts for its share of the rest of the PC, at 15¢ per kWh, counted only while it's rented. If your PC would otherwise be switched off, add its idle power too.
• Not counted: wear on the card and fans, and your internet.

An independent check lands lower for the 4090: about $50 to $60 a month at $0.12 per kWh after fees and wear, from a writer who read a live Vast.ai host dashboard. The same source calls consumer cards "unviable" above $0.25 per kWh (Endless Mining, May 2026, a secondary source).

If power costs more, or it's rented less

• Power at 30¢ per kWh: double the Power column. For an RTX 3070 or 3090 that wipes out most or all of the earnings (and on KernelMachine, cards under 16 GB such as the 3070 can't be rented at all). An RTX 4090 or 5090 still clears roughly $70 to $85 a month.
• Rented a quarter of the time: every number in the table halves, because power is only counted while the card is rented.

Renting versus crypto mining

Mining income per day from NiceHash's own public data on 6 October 2026, before its fee and before power, against what renting earns a host at half the time at our expected prices:

Sources: NiceHash price data and card profiles. Both columns are before electricity.

WhatToMine shows $1 to $5 a day for the same cards, but only by mining brand-new coins whose prices may not hold. At NiceHash's own power figures and $0.10 per kWh, mining established coins loses money on a 3090, 4090 or 5090. So the honest line for ex-miners is: renting beats mining.

Renting a card in order to mine is worse still: a day's rental costs 5 to 17 times what the card earns mining. That's why KernelMachine forbids mining on rentals.

Fees and payouts compared

Sources: TensorDock, Nosana, Clore.ai, Vast.ai update, Vast.ai payouts.

Token payouts add a second risk: the token's price can fall before you sell it.

What makes a card earn more

• More memory. 24 GB and 32 GB cards fit the models renters want most.
• Reliability. Renters come first, so machines that fail them lose their listing, and top hosts are offered rentals first. A wired connection and "power on after power loss" in your PC's startup settings both help.
• Upload speed. Renters pull results through your connection. Slow upload means slow downloads for them.
• A machine that's on anyway. Then idle power costs you nothing extra.

Who should host

• RTX 4090 and 5090 owners: worth it at most power prices.
• Gaming PCs that are on all day: worth trying, even with a 3090.
• Ex-miners with 3060 to 3080 rigs: beats mining, but expect little profit after power.
• Anyone paying 30¢ per kWh or more with a 3090 or smaller: probably not worth it.

How KernelMachine pays hosts

You keep 80% of what renters pay. Payouts go to your bank through Stripe or Wise, monthly once you have $25 ready, or to PayPal every Friday from $20. Top hosts (20 good rentals from at least 5 renters, 50 hours online a week, at most one unannounced drop in 30 days, and 20 Mbps upload) keep 85% and get jobs first. New earnings wait 7 days first (14 for new hosts or new renters, 30 when the renter used free credit) so refunds and card disputes can be settled fairly. If your machine drops mid-rental, the renter can recover from their last complete save when another card of the same model is available, and you aren't paid for the few minutes of work lost since then. Before planned downtime, press Pause and wait for running rentals to end, and it never happens. Your dashboard shows what each card keeps per hour after power. How hosting works · What you need to host

Read next

• What you need to rent out your GPU: hardware, internet and safety
• How to rent a GPU in 2026: what to check before you pay
• Renting a GPU vs buying one: a simple way to decide