Quantum cloud cost estimator
Estimate what one program execution and a month of usage cost on a real quantum processing unit. Pick a QPU on AWS Braket, Azure Quantum or IBM Quantum Platform, then enter shots, gate counts or runtime. All prices come from the providers' published pages, fetched 2026-11-01.
How we calculated this
AWS Braket on-demand: $0.30 per task plus a per-shot price that varies by QPU: Rigetti Cepheus $0.000425, IQM Garnet $0.00145, IQM Emerald $0.0016, QuEra Aquila $0.01, AQT IBEX-Q1 $0.0235, IonQ Forte $0.08. IonQ QPUs require at least 2,500 shots per task when using error mitigation. Source: https://aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing/ fetched 2026-11-01.
AWS Braket Direct reserved access is priced per reserved QPU-hour: Rigetti Cepheus $4,100, IQM Garnet $3,000, IQM Emerald $4,000, QuEra Aquila $2,500, AQT IBEX-Q1 $4,800, IonQ Forte $7,000. Same page, fetched 2026-11-01.
Azure Quantum IonQ bills in Azure Quantum Tokens: cost per program execution = minimum m plus per-gate-shot terms. Aria 1: $0.000220 per 1q gate-shot and $0.000975 per 2q gate-shot, minimum $97.50 with error mitigation or $12.4166 off. Forte 1: $0.0001645 and $0.001121, minimum $168.195 with error mitigation or $25.7899 off. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/quantum/pricing fetched 2026-11-01.
Azure Quantum Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q bills $0.02 per 10-millisecond increment of job execution time, which is $2 per second. Same Microsoft page, fetched 2026-11-01.
IBM Quantum Platform bills per second of QPU time: Pay-As-You-Go from $96 per minute, Flex Plan from $72 per minute with a 400 minutes-per-year minimum, Premium Plan from $48 per minute with a 5,200 minutes-per-year minimum. The Open Plan is free for 10 minutes per month. Source: https://www.ibm.com/quantum/pricing fetched 2026-11-01.
Excluded on purpose: Azure Pasqal FRESNEL bills EUR 3,000 per QPU-hour (a EUR figure, not mixed into a USD estimate) and Azure Quantinuum pay-as-you-go pricing needs a sales quote. Classical compute, storage, data transfer, notebook instances and support plans are excluded everywhere.
Prices are published list prices. Volume commitments, credits and enterprise agreements can change them. Confirm current rates with the provider before purchasing.
Method checked on 2026-11-01.
Estimates only, in USD, from published list prices. Real bills add classical compute, storage, data transfer, notebook time and support. Azure Pasqal bills in EUR and Quantinuum pay-as-you-go needs a sales quote, so both are excluded. Confirm current rates with the provider before you buy.
Questions
- Is this a quote?
- No. It multiplies published list prices by your inputs. Taxes, credits, enterprise discounts and classical-side costs are not included.
- Which QPU is cheapest per shot?
- On AWS Braket, Rigetti Cepheus has the lowest published per-shot price ($0.000425) and IonQ Forte the highest ($0.08). Price is not capability: compare modality, fidelity, connectivity and queue time before choosing.
- Why is my Azure IonQ estimate high at low shot counts?
- IonQ on Azure charges a minimum per program execution ($12.42-$168.20 depending on QPU and error mitigation) plus per-gate-shot terms. Few shots and few gates still pay the minimum.
- Can I estimate Pasqal or Quantinuum on Azure?
- Not in USD here. Pasqal publishes EUR 3,000 per QPU-hour and Quantinuum pay-as-you-go requires a sales quote per HQC. Ask Azure Quantum for both figures.
- Is IBM's free plan included?
- The Open Plan is free for up to 10 minutes of runtime per month. This tool estimates paid usage; an Open Plan month that stays under 10 minutes costs $0.
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