Serverless GPUs Without Dockerfiles (RunPod Flash)

How We Generated 3,000 AI Images for $1 in Production

Maintaining CUDA base images and waiting 20 minutes for container registry pushes slows down iteration. Serverless GPU endpoints let you pay strictly per millisecond of active compute.

export async function invokeServerlessGpu(prompt: string, apiKey: string) {
  const res = await fetch("https://api.runpod.ai/v2/endpoint/runsync", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
      Authorization: `Bearer ${apiKey}`,
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ input: { prompt, steps: 4 } }),
  });
  return await res.json();
}

Production Architecture Takeaway

Persist generated media immediately to Sanity Media Library so you never pay to regenerate the same asset twice.