MacStadium pricing, trial and terms, and when a single Mac fits better

What MacStadium sells today

We read MacStadium's pricing page on October 17, 2026. It lists three products. Mac Cloud Compute is dedicated bare metal Macs. Orka runs macOS virtual machines for CI. Remote desktops give staff a Mac desktop from any device.

Orka, remote desktops and custom bare metal show "Contact sales" and no price. Only single hosted Macs have public prices. You can buy those online through the MacStadium portal. Its hosting sites are in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Dublin.

MacStadium pricing in October 2026

Read 2026-10-17 on macstadium.com/pricing. Monthly, USD.

Plan    Chip               RAM      Storage   Price
M2.S    M2, 8 core         8 GB     256 GB    $109
M4.S    M4, 10 core        16 GB    256 GB    $149
M2.M    M2, 8 core         16 GB    1 TB      $199
M4.M    M4, 10 core        24 GB    512 GB    $249
M2.L    M2 Pro, 10 core    16 GB    1 TB      $249
M4.L    M4 Pro, 12 core    48 GB    1 TB      $349
M2.XL   M2 Pro, 12 core    32 GB    2 TB      $349
S1.M    M1 Max, 10 core    64 GB    2 TB      $249  Mac Studio
S2.M    M2 Ultra, 24 core  64 GB    2 TB      $369  Mac Studio
S2.L    M2 Ultra, 24 core  128 GB   2 TB      $449  Mac Studio

M5 and M6 minis    through sales, no price shown
Orka               through sales, no price shown

Every plan includes root access and a dedicated IPv4 address. It also includes 1GB internet with no bandwidth cap. The page says new M5 and M6 minis are available, but only through a sales engineer. Support above the free Basic plan costs 10% or 20% of annual spend. It is only sold on annual terms.

Is there a MacStadium free trial?

No. The pricing page says every Mac is dedicated to one customer, so it does not offer free trials. Teams moving a large build setup can ask sales about a proof of concept before an annual commitment.

Three MacStadium things are free. Orka Desktop is a free app that runs macOS virtual machines on your own Apple silicon Mac. The open source program lends Mac minis to over 100 free software projects. New projects join a waitlist. Basic support is free with every plan.

MacStadium billing and cancellation

Hosted Macs bill on the first day of the month for the next 30 days. They renew month to month until you cancel. Card payment is due at purchase. Orders over $1,000 can pay by Net 15 invoice. All billing is in US dollars.

You can cancel anytime with a button in the portal. Read the fine print first. The Mac goes offline and its data is destroyed within 24 hours. MacStadium does not refund or prorate the rest of the month. Its docs suggest cancelling near the end of the month for that reason.

Uptime, support and reliability

MacStadium's SLA guarantees 99.9% uptime each month. Below that, you get a credit of 10% of the monthly fee. It rises to 25% below 99% and 50% below 98%. You must claim it by ticket within 7 days.

The pricing page says its redundant network and power deliver 99.99% uptime. Free Basic support runs 9am to 5pm local time, by ticket and email. It answers general questions within 2 business days. Its legal page lists a SOC 3 report and ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018. We do not summarize review sites here. Ask MacStadium for customer references.

MacStadium with GitHub Actions, Xcode and Orka

A MacStadium bare metal Mac comes with macOS and SSH. You install Xcode yourself. Its docs suggest Xcodes.app or Apple's developer site. You then register the GitHub Actions runner and keep it running. Screen Sharing is blocked from the internet, so you reach it through an SSH tunnel or a VPN.

Orka is the scale option. It runs macOS virtual machines on Kubernetes, across MacStadium Macs, AWS EC2 Macs or your own. Its open source GitHub runner, on github.com/macstadium, starts a fresh VM for each job. It needs a GitHub App and an Orka 3.0 or newer cluster. The older GitHub integration was deprecated on May 6, 2024. Our MacStadium vs GitHub Actions guide covers when each makes sense.

Who should choose MacStadium

• You need tens or hundreds of Macs. MacStadium is built for fleets.
• You want macOS virtual machines and fresh runners per job. Orka does that, and MacRun does not.
• You need an SLA, a static IP, SOC 3 or ISO reports, or a custom contract.
• You need a large Mac. MacStadium rents Mac Studios with up to 128 GB.
• You want hosting in Europe or the western US.
• You run an open source project and can wait for a free Mac.

Where MacRun is different

MacRun rents one whole M6 Mac mini per customer. It is never shared and never virtualized. It has a 12-core CPU, 16 GB and 256 GB, with full admin access. The runner plan is $139 a month, and the first month is $104. MacStadium's nearest public plan, the M4.S with 16 GB and 256 GB, listed at $149.

Xcode 27.1 and Xcode 26.6 come installed. So does the iOS 27.1 simulator, with iPhone Duo. The GitHub Actions runner is set up for you. A free Mac is ready in under 5 minutes. You reach it by SSH and screen sharing over a private Tailscale network.

The agent plan is $169 a month, $127 for the first month. It keeps Claude Code and Codex running on an always-on Mac. Billing is monthly with no long contract. A day pass costs $15, and a week pass costs $59. That is the closest thing to a trial. A new lease can also get a full refund within 3 days.

In our benchmark, a clean build of the Wikipedia iOS app took 86 seconds on the M6. A GitHub-hosted macos-26 runner took 183 seconds. For a side by side table, see MacRun vs MacStadium. Our MacinCloud vs MacStadium post compares MacStadium with its best known rival.

Who should not use MacRun

• You need more than a few Macs. We run 11, in one location.
• You need an SLA, a static IP, or compliance reports.
• You need more than 16 GB of memory or a Mac Studio.
• You want macOS virtual machines or a Mac outside the US.

Our Macs sit in our own private facility in New Jersey. Compare tiers on our pricing page, or check the math with the cost calculator.