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Index · updated 2026-10-22

Cost of capital

What money costs a builder, and what that money buys in compute. Four benchmark rates from FRED, read daily and monthly, with every move since the 2021 lows.

Prime rate · 3.25% to 7.00%

+375 bp

Rise from its low in this window: 2021-10-26 to 2026-10-21. FRED DPRIME

Four benchmark rates

Prime rate

What banks charge their best borrowers. Small business loans price above it.

7.00%

2026-10-21

low 3.25% · 2021-10-26
+375 bp
12 months
−25 bp
trend, last 12 months
−8 bp a year
FRED DPRIME

Baa corporate bonds

What a medium grade company pays to borrow for decades.

6.47%

2026-09-01

low 3.28% · 2021-11-01
+319 bp
12 months
+64 bp
trend, last 12 months
+66 bp a year
FRED BAA

10-year Treasury

What the US government pays. Long loans price from it.

4.96%

2026-10-22

low 1.35% · 2021-12-03
+361 bp
12 months
+99 bp
trend, last 12 months
+105 bp a year
FRED DGS10

Fed funds

The overnight rate the Federal Reserve steers.

3.75%

2026-09-01

low 0.08% · 2021-10-01
+367 bp
12 months
−47 bp
trend, last 12 months
−28 bp a year
FRED FEDFUNDS

Benchmark rates · percent a year

The price of money since the 2021 lows

Each line is a FRED series. Point at the chart, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to read every line on one date. Gold diamonds are dated events from the Chronicle.

2021-10-01 to 2026-10-22

Overview of the whole window. Drag across it to zoom, drag the box to pan, drag an edge to resize.

Chronicle events in this range

Chips show or hide a line; double-click a chip to show only that line. Rate shows the level; Change shows basis points since the start of the range.

Embed or cite this chart

Every move

Each step up and down

Every move of 25 basis points or more from the last listed level, from the first observation in the window.

Moves of 25 basis points or more: Prime rate (DPRIME). Select a column header to sort. Select a date to show it on the chart.
7.00%+25 bp+375 bp
6.75%−25 bp+350 bp
7.00%−25 bp+375 bp
7.25%−25 bp+400 bp
7.50%−25 bp+425 bp
7.75%−25 bp+450 bp
8.00%−50 bp+475 bp
8.50%+25 bp+525 bp
8.25%+25 bp+500 bp
8.00%+25 bp+475 bp
7.75%+25 bp+450 bp
7.50%+50 bp+425 bp
7.00%+75 bp+375 bp
6.25%+75 bp+300 bp
5.50%+75 bp+225 bp
4.75%+75 bp+150 bp
4.00%+50 bp+75 bp
3.50%+25 bp+25 bp
3.25%start0 bp

19 rows · FRED DPRIME

Moves of 25 basis points or more: Baa corporate bonds (BAA). Select a column header to sort. Select a date to show it on the chart.
6.47%+37 bp+312 bp
6.10%+27 bp+275 bp
5.83%−25 bp+248 bp
6.08%+48 bp+273 bp
5.60%−40 bp+225 bp
6.00%+36 bp+265 bp
5.64%−65 bp+229 bp
6.29%−34 bp+294 bp
6.63%+61 bp+328 bp
6.02%+43 bp+267 bp
5.59%−67 bp+224 bp
6.26%+57 bp+291 bp
5.69%+57 bp+234 bp
5.12%+46 bp+177 bp
4.66%+37 bp+131 bp
4.29%+32 bp+94 bp
3.97%+62 bp+62 bp
3.35%start0 bp

18 rows · FRED BAA

Moves of 25 basis points or more: 10-year Treasury (DGS10). Select a column header to sort. Select a date to show it on the chart.
4.96%−28 bp+333 bp
5.24%+29 bp+361 bp
4.95%+28 bp+332 bp
4.67%+26 bp+304 bp
4.41%−26 bp+278 bp
4.67%+28 bp+304 bp
4.39%+35 bp+276 bp
4.04%−26 bp+241 bp
4.30%+29 bp+267 bp
4.01%−25 bp+238 bp
4.26%−27 bp+263 bp
4.53%+28 bp+290 bp
4.25%−27 bp+262 bp
4.52%−25 bp+289 bp
4.77%+27 bp+314 bp
4.50%+26 bp+287 bp
4.24%+26 bp+261 bp
3.98%+25 bp+235 bp
3.73%−26 bp+210 bp
3.99%−34 bp+236 bp
4.33%−28 bp+270 bp
4.61%+25 bp+298 bp
4.36%−31 bp+273 bp
4.67%+25 bp+304 bp
4.42%+25 bp+279 bp
4.17%+30 bp+254 bp
3.87%−31 bp+224 bp
4.18%+26 bp+255 bp
3.92%−30 bp+229 bp
4.22%−27 bp+259 bp
4.49%−32 bp+286 bp
4.81%+32 bp+318 bp
4.49%+29 bp+286 bp
4.20%+25 bp+257 bp
3.95%+30 bp+232 bp
3.65%+26 bp+202 bp
3.39%−31 bp+176 bp
3.70%−38 bp+207 bp
4.08%+27 bp+245 bp
3.81%+26 bp+218 bp
3.55%−29 bp+192 bp
3.84%+31 bp+221 bp
3.53%−29 bp+190 bp
3.82%−40 bp+219 bp
4.22%+26 bp+259 bp
3.96%−28 bp+233 bp
4.24%+27 bp+261 bp
3.97%+25 bp+234 bp
3.72%−25 bp+209 bp
3.97%+27 bp+234 bp
3.70%+33 bp+207 bp
3.37%+25 bp+174 bp
3.12%+25 bp+149 bp
2.87%+27 bp+124 bp
2.60%−28 bp+97 bp
2.88%−28 bp+125 bp
3.16%−27 bp+153 bp
3.43%+39 bp+180 bp
3.04%+26 bp+141 bp
2.78%−27 bp+115 bp
3.05%+26 bp+142 bp
2.79%+31 bp+116 bp
2.48%+29 bp+85 bp
2.19%+26 bp+56 bp
1.93%+30 bp+30 bp
1.63%+28 bp0 bp
1.35%−28 bp−28 bp
1.63%start0 bp

68 rows · FRED DGS10

Moves of 25 basis points or more: Fed funds (FEDFUNDS). Select a column header to sort. Select a date to show it on the chart.
3.63%−25 bp+355 bp
3.88%−34 bp+380 bp
4.22%−26 bp+414 bp
4.48%−35 bp+440 bp
4.83%−50 bp+475 bp
5.33%+25 bp+525 bp
5.08%+25 bp+500 bp
4.83%+26 bp+475 bp
4.57%+47 bp+449 bp
4.10%+32 bp+402 bp
3.78%+70 bp+370 bp
3.08%+75 bp+300 bp
2.33%+65 bp+225 bp
1.68%+47 bp+160 bp
1.21%+44 bp+113 bp
0.77%+44 bp+69 bp
0.33%+25 bp+25 bp
0.08%start0 bp

18 rows · FRED FEDFUNDS

What compute costs a builder today: rented GPU hours and model API list prices, next to what money costs.

One snapshot each, no price history yet

GPU rental, per GPU-hour

Snapshot from Vast.ai, 2026-10-25 3:56 PM ET

Verified on-demand marketplace offers listed at fetch time, total price per hour divided by GPU count. A snapshot of listings, not a market average.

  • RTX 5060$0.11 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX 3080$0.14 / hr · 3 offers
  • RTX 5060 Ti$0.15 / hr · 3 offers
  • RTX 3090 Ti$0.22 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX A5000$0.23 / hr · 3 offers
  • RTX 5070$0.23 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX 3090$0.25 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX 4080$0.30 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX PRO 4000$0.34 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX 5070 Ti$0.34 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX 5080$0.34 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX 5000Ada$0.36 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX PRO 4500$0.38 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX A6000$0.40 / hr · 1 offers
  • L40$0.46 / hr · 1 offers
  • A800 PCIE$0.53 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX 4090$0.54 / hr · 5 offers
  • CMP 170HX$0.54 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX 5090$0.71 / hr · 3 offers
  • RTX PRO 5000$0.75 / hr · 4 offers
  • RTX 6000Ada$0.79 / hr · 1 offers
  • L40S$0.80 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX 5880Ada$0.80 / hr · 2 offers
  • A100 PCIE$0.87 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX PRO 6000 Max-Q$1.07 / hr · 3 offers
  • A100 SXM4$1.14 / hr · 1 offers
  • RTX 6000D$1.26 / hr · 3 offers
  • RTX PRO 6000 S$1.68 / hr · 2 offers
  • RTX PRO 6000 WS$2.27 / hr · 1 offers
  • H100 NVL$3.49 / hr · 2 offers
  • H200 NVL$4.17 / hr · 2 offers
  • H200$5.01 / hr · 2 offers
  • B200$7.50 / hr · 1 offers

median offerlowest to medianSorted by median. Offers are listings seen at fetch time.

Model API list prices, per 1M tokens

Snapshot from OpenRouter, 2026-10-25 3:56 PM ET

Blended price: three input tokens for every output token. Paid on-demand models only; batch and free variants are left out.

Paid models listed
347
median blended $0.78 per 1M
Cheapest blended
$0.029
Mistral: Mistral Nemo
Priciest blended
$263
OpenAI: o1-pro
Model API list prices, per 1M tokens
ProviderCheapestMedian
openai · 63$0.036$4.00
qwen · 42$0.055$0.40
google · 28$0.042$1.13
mistralai · 20$0.029$0.43
z-ai · 16$0.15$0.93
anthropic · 15$0.20$10.00
deepseek · 14$0.067$0.32
minimax · 9$0.26$0.52
meta-llama · 8$0.058$0.15
meta · 8$0.13$2.00
moonshotai · 8$1.00$1.21
tencent · 7$0.077$0.14
x-ai · 7$1.25$1.56
aion-labs · 6$0.87$1.00
bytedance-seed · 6$0.13$0.69
nvidia · 6$0.10$0.22
amazon · 5$0.061$0.85
cohere · 5$0.066$0.60
perplexity · 5$1.00$3.50
xiaomi · 5$0.15$0.38

Capital to compute

What a year of interest buys in GPU hours

Pick an amount and a rate. The interest is priced in rented GPU hours at the median Vast.ai offer.

Borrow calculator

Amount borrowed$100,000
$1,000$1,000,000

Rate

Interest for one year

$7,000

$100,000 at Prime rate 7.00% (2026-10-21). At its low of 3.25% (2021-10-26): $3,250.

The same interest in GPU hours

  • 13,060 hRTX 4090$0.54/h median · 544 days nonstop
  • 9,887 hRTX 5090$0.71/h median · 412 days nonstop
  • 6,162 hA100 SXM4$1.14/h median · 257 days nonstop
  • 1,398 hH200$5.01/h median · 58 days nonstop
  • 933 hB200$7.50/h median · 39 days nonstop

Median on-demand offer per GPU-hour, one snapshot from Vast.ai · 2026-10-25

Method

How the figures are made

Rates are the raw FRED observations, as published: 10-year Treasury and prime are daily, Baa and Fed funds are monthly averages. Nothing is smoothed or filled in. Where a series has no reading on a date, the last reading before it is used and the readout shows its date.

Low and peak are the lowest and highest readings in the fetched window. The 12 month change compares the latest reading with the one in force a year earlier. The trend is a least squares line through the last 12 months of readings, in basis points a year. GPU hours are one year of simple interest divided by the median per GPU-hour Vast.ai price.

The trend line is a least squares fit through the readings inside the range on screen, so it changes when the range does. The log axis spaces rates by ratio, so a move from 0.5% to 1% looks as big as one from 4% to 8%. Chronicle markers are the real, dated Chronicle events inside the range, placed on the first day of the month or year they are dated to.

The cost of building tab reads one Vast.ai listing snapshot and one OpenRouter price list, both fetched by the pipeline. API prices are blended at three input tokens to one output token.

2,640 observations across 4 series

FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis · fetched 2026-10-25

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Cite and embed

Use this chart

Free to cite and embed with a link back. The figures come from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Key figures

  • Prime rate (FRED DPRIME) was 7.00% on 2026-10-21, +375 bp from its 3.25% low on 2021-10-26, −25 bp over 12 months.
  • Baa corporate bonds (FRED BAA) was 6.47% on 2026-09-01, +319 bp from its 3.28% low on 2021-11-01, +64 bp over 12 months.
  • 10-year Treasury (FRED DGS10) was 4.96% on 2026-10-22, +361 bp from its 1.35% low on 2021-12-03, +99 bp over 12 months.
  • Fed funds (FRED FEDFUNDS) was 3.75% on 2026-09-01, +367 bp from its 0.08% low on 2021-10-01, −47 bp over 12 months.

Chart image

Open
Line chart of four US benchmark interest rates from FRED, 2021-10-01 to 2026-10-22

Vector image, rebuilt from the data on every deploy.

Live chart (iframe)

<iframe src="https://i-acc.si/embed/cost-of-capital" title="Cost of capital, live chart" width="100%" height="760" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Embed

<a href="https://i-acc.si/indices/cost-of-capital"><img src="https://i-acc.si/indices/cost-of-capital/chart.svg" alt="Line chart of four US benchmark interest rates from FRED, 2021-10-01 to 2026-10-22" width="1200" height="630" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>

Citation

i/acc. (2026). Cost of capital index [Data set]. Data from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Retrieved 2026-10-25, from https://i-acc.si/indices/cost-of-capital

Limits

What this page does not claim

  • These are nominal rates. Inflation is not taken out, so a higher rate is not always a higher real cost.
  • Prime, Baa and Treasury yields are benchmarks. What a small company pays sits above them and depends on the lender.
  • Daily and monthly series are drawn on one axis. Monthly lines step once a month and hide moves inside it.
  • The window is the five years the pipeline fetches. Lows and multiples are lows in that window, not all time.
  • GPU and API prices are one snapshot each, not a price history or a market average.
  • Trend lines describe the readings in the range. They are not forecasts of where rates go next.

Not financial, legal or tax advice.