An estimated 95–99% of GPU deals price privately. The estimate is consistent with what the operators of the visible venues say about their own markets — the parties best placed to know how much of the flow they see:
“Unless you’re actually in the neocloud transactions, you probably do not know what’s the reserve price… three years, five years on deal.”
The exchange-traded and index-published prices that do exist are real — The Grid cites them daily — but they cover the publicly visible sliver: marketplace spot and posted list rates. The negotiated majority — reserved terms, committed capacity, multi-year structures — prices off the record.
Venues publish marks on their own book — the index describes the market the venue operates. Brokers answer pricing questions and earn a spread on the flow they route. Comparison sites are paid on the switch click. Negotiation benchmarkershold deal data and keep it private by construction — the data is the product. None of these is dishonest; each is structural. “Your deal is fine, stay put” is a revenue-negative sentence for every one of them, which is why nobody with a position publishes it.
The Grid holds no position: no inventory, no brokerage, no referral payment, no investment book. That posture is published and practised — the methodology states it, and the record of withheld prints, suspensions and dated corrections shows the rules holding when fudging would have been invisible.
A headline $/GPU-hour is not what a buyer signs. The priced unit is a specific commitment — accelerator and memory configuration, quantity, term, region, delivery schedule, SLA, prepay and the terms negotiated alongside price. Two deals with the same headline rate can differ by hundreds of thousands of dollars in effective cost. Nothing independent prices that unit — which is exactly the unit the check reads.
The check. Paste a quote at /check and get back only what The Grid actually holds: the bookable-ask panel (dated, evidence-tiered), an assessed range where the minimum-observation rules allow one, the terms customarily negotiated alongside price, and what is missing from yours. Where The Grid holds nothing comparable, it says so — no number is invented, at any n.
The record. A daily print, unbroken since 5 May 2026, with permanent print URLs, dated corrections, and suspensions and withholdings rendered in place of numbers when the rules require — the behaviour is the credential. Start at the archive or the methodology.
The rules. Evidence is ranked (concluded transactions above signed terms, firm quotes, bookable asks, list prices, commentary), submissions are confidential by structure with published floors, and the participation terms — including the carve-out clause for counterparty counsel — are at /standards/participate.