# Meta vs Crusoe

> Meta's preview API sells Muse Spark 1.3 at $1.25 in, with a near-free tier for data sharers. Crusoe serves other labs' open weights on its own hardware.

Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/meta-vs-crusoe · By The Subconscious Team · Updated September 30, 2026

## How they compare

Meta's Model API is still in public preview. Muse Spark 1.3 has a 1M context and costs $1.25 in and $4.25 out per million, with cached input at $0.15, and the endpoint speaks OpenAI Chat Completions, Anthropic Messages and a stateful agentic format. Muse Spark 1.3 runs around 145 to 233 tokens per second. The Contributor tier drops prices to $0.10 in and $0.20 out if Meta can train on your prompts and completions, with rate limits cut from 3,000 to 100 requests per minute. Crusoe serves DeepSeek, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6, Gemma, gpt-oss and Nemotron from $0.05 in and $0.20 out per million, and bills cached input well below list.

Meta bundles more modalities. The same API serves Muse Image at $0.01 per image, Muse Voice Transcribe at $0.18 per hour and web search grounding at $2.50 per 1,000 queries. For self-hosting, Meta ships open-weight Muse Glimmer, which runs on vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp or ExecuTorch. Crusoe is the infrastructure side. It offers serverless LoRA fine-tuning, dedicated endpoints with SLAs and raw GPU clusters, plus MemoryAlloy, a cluster-wide KV cache that Crusoe claims gives up to 9.9x faster time to first token versus vLLM on prefix-heavy work. Its downsides are a small serverless catalog and vendor-run benchmarks. Pick Meta for a cheap agentic model with image and speech on one key, and Crusoe for open models from several labs and dedicated capacity.

## What each one does

### Meta

Meta has moved from open Llama releases toward its own closed API. Meta Superintelligence Labs builds the Muse family, and in July 2026 Meta opened a public preview of the Meta Model API with Muse Spark 1.1, a multimodal reasoning model aimed at agentic coding, tool use and computer use. The current lineup runs through Muse Spark 1.3 with a 1M token context. Standard pricing is $1.25 in and $4.25 out per million tokens, with cached input at $0.15, and the endpoint speaks OpenAI Chat Completions, Anthropic Messages and a stateful agentic format.

### Crusoe

Crusoe started in 2018 turning wasted natural gas into power for computing and has since become a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company: it sources energy, builds data centers and rents GPUs through Crusoe Cloud. It designed and built the Abilene, Texas campus behind the OpenAI and Oracle Stargate project, planned at 1.2 GW, and in March 2026 announced an adjacent 900 MW campus for Microsoft. On September 17, 2026 it closed the first part of a $3.9B Series F at a $30.9B post-money valuation, and it reports over 6 GW of contracted capacity. Crusoe Cloud lists GB200 NVL72, B200 and AMD MI355X by quote, with H100 at $3.90 and H200 at $4.29 per GPU-hour on demand.

## Which is best, and when

### Choose Meta for

- Cheap prototyping on the Contributor tier
- Coding agents using OpenAI or Anthropic formats
- Image generation and transcription on the same key

### Choose Crusoe for

- Prefix-heavy agents on a cluster-wide KV cache
- Choosing among DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi
- Fine-tuning and dedicated endpoints with SLAs

## At a glance

| Attribute | Meta | Crusoe |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Closed API; open Muse Glimmer | Open weights |
| Flagship models | Muse Spark 1.3, Muse Glimmer | DeepSeek V4, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6, Nemotron 3 |
| Speed | ~145–233 tok/s on Muse Spark 1.3 | Up to 9.9x faster TTFT vs vLLM (vendor claim) |
| Price | $1.25 in, $4.25 out; Contributor tier cheaper | $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M |
| Customization | Open Muse Glimmer weights to fine-tune | Serverless LoRA fine-tuning |
| Deployment | Meta Model API (preview) | Serverless, self-serve and tailored dedicated, raw GPUs |
| Long context | 1M | Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache |

## FAQ

### What is the difference between Meta and Crusoe?

Meta's preview API sells Muse Spark 1.3 at $1.25 in, with a near-free tier for data sharers. Crusoe serves other labs' open weights on its own hardware.

### When should I choose Meta over Crusoe?

Cheap prototyping on the Contributor tier; Coding agents using OpenAI or Anthropic formats; Image generation and transcription on the same key.

### When should I choose Crusoe over Meta?

Prefix-heavy agents on a cluster-wide KV cache; Choosing among DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi; Fine-tuning and dedicated endpoints with SLAs.

### Is Meta or Crusoe cheaper?

Meta: $1.25 in, $4.25 out; Contributor tier cheaper. Crusoe: $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.

### Which has more context, Meta or Crusoe?

Meta: 1M. Crusoe: Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache.

## Running long-horizon agents?

If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious: [Subconscious vs Meta](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-meta.md), [Subconscious vs Crusoe](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-crusoe.md).

Full profiles: [Meta](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/meta.md), [Crusoe](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/crusoe.md).