# Sail Research > Slow inference for very cheap: pick a completion window and save 30 to 80%. Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/sail-research · By The Subconscious Team · Updated September 30, 2026 - Founded: 2026, per Tracxn - Example models: Kimi K2.6, GLM-5 - Website: https://www.sailresearch.com ## Overview Sail Research sells throughput over latency. Founders Neil Movva and Samir Menon built a serving stack that packs as much work as possible into every GPU, and customers state how long they can wait through completion windows. The priority window targets about a one-minute turn for roughly 30 to 50% off the immediate asap price. The default standard window targets about five minutes for 45 to 65% off. The flex window runs off-peak for 60 to 80% off. The company launched its API in March 2026 and emerged from stealth in June with $80M in seed and Series A funding at a $450M valuation, led by Kleiner Perkins with Sequoia and Redpoint participating. It reports trillions of tokens a week and claims 3x to 10x cost savings over comparable hosts. The catalog covers open models like Kimi K2.6, GLM-5, GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 and Gemma 4, plus customer LoRA fine-tunes, over OpenAI and Anthropic-compatible APIs. Sailboxes give agents persistent compute that can run indefinitely, and code-review startup Detail.dev uses Sail for agents that scan a codebase for three to four hours. ## Upsides - Deep discounts for workloads that can tolerate minutes of delay per turn. - Built specifically around long-running async agents, with sandboxes on the same platform. ## Core use cases - Background agents that run for hours without a human in the loop. - Evals, batch processing and offline research on open models. ## Downsides - Explicitly unsuited to voice, live chat or any interactive UI. - Open models only, so teams that need GPT or Claude quality have to look elsewhere. ## At a glance | Attribute | Value | |---|---| | Model access | Open weights | | Flagship models | Kimi K2.6, GLM-5, GPT-OSS 120B | | Speed | Minutes per turn by design | | Price | 30–80% off by completion window | | Customization | Customer LoRA fine-tunes | | Deployment | API plus Sailboxes | | Long context | Varies by model | ## FAQ ### What is Sail Research? Sail Research sells throughput over latency. Founders Neil Movva and Samir Menon built a serving stack that packs as much work as possible into every GPU, and customers state how long they can wait through completion windows. The priority window targets about a one-minute turn for roughly 30 to 50% off the immediate asap price. The default standard window targets about five minutes for 45 to 65% off. The flex window runs off-peak for 60 to 80% off. ### What is Sail Research best for? Background agents that run for hours without a human in the loop; Evals, batch processing and offline research on open models. ### How much does Sail Research cost? Sail Research pricing at a glance: 30–80% off by completion window. Rates change often, so check Sail Research's pricing page before committing. ### How much context does Sail Research support? Sail Research's long-context support: Varies by model. ### What are the downsides of Sail Research? Explicitly unsuited to voice, live chat or any interactive UI; Open models only, so teams that need GPT or Claude quality have to look elsewhere. ### What are the best alternatives to Sail Research? Common alternatives include Subconscious, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Vertex AI, Amazon Bedrock. Each has a head-to-head comparison with Sail Research on this site. ## Comparisons - [Subconscious vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-sail-research.md) - [OpenAI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/openai-vs-sail-research.md) - [Anthropic vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/anthropic-vs-sail-research.md) - [Google Vertex AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/google-vertex-vs-sail-research.md) - [Amazon Bedrock vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/aws-bedrock-vs-sail-research.md) - [Together AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/together-ai-vs-sail-research.md) - [Fireworks AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/fireworks-vs-sail-research.md) - [Baseten vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/baseten-vs-sail-research.md) - [Groq vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/groq-vs-sail-research.md) - [Cerebras vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/cerebras-vs-sail-research.md) - [DeepInfra vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/deepinfra-vs-sail-research.md) - [Modal vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/modal-vs-sail-research.md) - [xAI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/xai-vs-sail-research.md) - [DeepSeek vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/deepseek-vs-sail-research.md) - [Moonshot AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/moonshot-ai-vs-sail-research.md) - [Z.ai vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/z-ai-vs-sail-research.md) - [Alibaba Cloud vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/alibaba-cloud-vs-sail-research.md) - [Meta vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/meta-vs-sail-research.md) - [SambaNova vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sambanova-vs-sail-research.md) - [Nebius vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/nebius-vs-sail-research.md) - [fal vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/fal-vs-sail-research.md) - [Novita AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/novita-ai-vs-sail-research.md) - [Parasail vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/parasail-vs-sail-research.md) - [Inference.net vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/inference-net-vs-sail-research.md) - [GMI Cloud vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/gmi-cloud-vs-sail-research.md) - [Sail Research vs Morph](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-morph.md) - [Sail Research vs Relace](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-relace.md) - [Sail Research vs TypeSafe AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-typesafe-ai.md) - [Sail Research vs StepFun](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-stepfun.md) - [Sail Research vs Runware](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-runware.md) - [Sail Research vs StreamLake](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-streamlake.md) - [Sail Research vs Wafer](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-wafer.md) - [Sail Research vs RunInfra](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-runinfra.md) - [Sail Research vs Particle.AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-particle-ai.md) ## Sources - [Sail completion windows](https://docs.sailresearch.com/completion-windows) - [Fortune on Sail](https://fortune.com/2026/06/25/exclusive-sail-apple-kleiner-perkins-gpu-token-nvdia-sequoia-80-million/) - [Kleiner Perkins on Sail](https://www.kleinerperkins.com/perspectives/sail-the-inference-platform-for-long-horizon-agents/) Pricing and model lineups change often; figures are a snapshot.