Pricing on quantum computing cloud access is structurally heterogeneous. AWS Braket publishes per-shot and per-task fees, Azure Quantum publishes a per-program formula and a monthly subscription, IBM Quantum publishes a per-minute Pay-As-You-Go rate (Open / Flex / Premium tiers), and several providers remain quote-only. We summarise verified 2026 list prices across 20 cloud-accessible quantum offerings, document the formula-based pricing models that prevent simple cross-provider comparison, and report use-case costs for representative circuit sizes. Every row was re-verified on 2026-09-07: 17 of 20 entries are verified against the provider's primary pricing page, including IBM's four tiers read directly from ibm.com/quantum/pricing and the Braket rates cross-checked against the AWS Price List API; 2 are quote-only (Google Willow, D-Wave commercial Leap); 1 has been withdrawn by its cloud (IonQ Aria on AWS Braket) and is kept as a historical reference rather than a price.
1.Pricing models in 2026
Three pricing paradigms coexist. Per-shot models (AWS Braket across all providers) charge a flat task fee plus a per-shot fee, making a 10,000-shot IonQ Forte circuit cost approximately $800 and the equivalent Rigetti Cepheus circuit approximately $5 — a ratio of more than 175×, driven primarily by per-shot pricing differences across qubit technologies 1. Per-minute models (IBM Quantum) charge for QPU runtime in seconds, with effective rates of $96/min PAYG, $72/min Flex, $48/min Premium 34. Per-program models (Azure Quantum AQT formula) charge a minimum per execution plus separate fees for one-qubit and two-qubit gate shots, making minimum-charge floors load-bearing in cost estimation 2.
The implication for budget estimation: a headline shot rate cannot be compared meaningfully across Braket and Azure without computing the representative circuit. Where this paper cites a unit price, we additionally cite a representative circuit cost in Table 3.
2.Provider inventory
Table 1 — Cloud-accessible QPU offerings, 2026
| Provider | Hardware | Tech | Qubits | Price | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM Quantum — Open Plan | IBM Heron r2 / Eagle systems | superconducting | 156 | $0 free | verified primary |
| IBM Quantum — Pay-As-You-Go | IBM Heron r2 / r3 (156Q), Nighthawk r1 (120Q) | superconducting | 156 | $96 per QPU minute | verified primary |
| IBM Quantum — Flex Plan | IBM Heron r2 / r3 (156Q) | superconducting | 156 | $72 per QPU minute | verified primary |
| IBM Quantum — Premium | IBM Heron r2 / r3 (156Q), Nighthawk r1 (120Q) | superconducting | 156 | $48 per QPU minute | verified primary |
| AWS Braket — IonQ Forte | IonQ Forte (36 qubits, Yb-171+ trapped-ion) | trapped-ion | 36 | $0.08 per shot | verified primary |
| AWS Braket — IonQ Aria (withdrawn) | IonQ Aria (25 qubits, Yb-171+ trapped-ion) | trapped-ion | 25 | withdrawn n/a | retired |
| AWS Braket — Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q | Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q (12 × 9-qubit chiplets, Ankaa-class) | superconducting | 108 | $0.000425 per shot | verified primary |
| AWS Braket — QuEra Aquila | QuEra Aquila (analog Hamiltonian simulator, Rydberg) | neutral-atom | 256 | $0.01 per shot | verified primary |
| AWS Braket — IQM Garnet | IQM Garnet (20-qubit superconducting) | superconducting | 20 | $0.00145 per shot | verified primary |
| AWS Braket — IQM Emerald | IQM Emerald (54-qubit superconducting, Crystal 54) | superconducting | 54 | $0.0016 per shot | verified primary |
| AWS Braket — AQT IBEX-Q1 | AQT IBEX-Q1 (12-qubit trapped-ion, calcium-40) | trapped-ion | 12 | $0.0235 per shot | verified primary |
| Azure Quantum — IonQ Aria 1 (PAYG) | IonQ Aria 1 (25-qubit trapped-ion) | trapped-ion | 25 | $12.42-97.5 per program (minimum) | verified primary |
| Azure Quantum — IonQ Forte (PAYG) | IonQ Forte 1 / Forte Enterprise 1 (36-qubit trapped-ion) | trapped-ion | 36 | $25.79-168.2 per program (minimum) | verified primary |
| Azure Quantum — Quantinuum H2 Standard | Quantinuum H2 (56-qubit trapped-ion, QCCD) | trapped-ion | 56 | $125,000 per month | verified primary |
| Azure Quantum — Quantinuum H2 Premium | Quantinuum H2 (56-qubit trapped-ion, QCCD) | trapped-ion | 56 | $175,000 per month | verified primary |
| Azure Quantum — Rigetti Cepheus | Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q | superconducting | 108 | $0.02 per 10-ms | verified primary |
| Azure Quantum — Pasqal Fresnel | Pasqal Fresnel (Orion Beta generation) | neutral-atom | 100 | $3,487 per QPU hour | verified primary |
| Google Quantum AI — Willow | Willow (Sycamore-class successor) | superconducting | 105 | quote n/a | quote only |
| D-Wave Leap — Trial | Advantage2 (Zephyr topology) | annealer | 4400 | $0 free trial | verified primary |
| D-Wave Leap — Commercial | Advantage2 (4,400+ flux-qubit annealer) | annealer | 4400 | quote n/a | quote only |
Every row re-verified 2026-09-07 against its primary source, with the AWS Braket rates cross-checked against the AWS Price List API (publication 2026-08-31). Annealer paradigm (D-Wave) is included for completeness but pricing is not directly comparable to gate-model machines. Pasqal Fresnel is priced in EUR (3,000/QPU-hr), converted at the ECB reference rate of 1.1622 USD/EUR (2026-09-04). Google Willow is research-access only and carries no published price.
3.AWS Braket pricing: the full published rate card
AWS Braket charges $0.30 per task on every QPU, plus a per-shot rate that depends entirely on which machine you pick. The spread across devices is more than 180x per shot, so device choice, not shot count, is what actually sets a Braket bill. A 10,000-shot circuit is about $4.55 on Rigetti Cepheus and about $800.30 on IonQ Forte, from the same task fee and the same shot count.
Table 2 — AWS Braket published QPU rates, per shot and reserved
| Device | Per shot | 10,000-shot task | Reservation, per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigetti Cepheus | $0.000425 | $4.55 | $4,100.00 |
| IQM Garnet | $0.00145 | $14.80 | $3,000.00 |
| IQM Emerald | $0.00160 | $16.30 | $4,000.00 |
| QuEra Aquila | $0.01000 | $100.30 | $2,500.00 |
| AQT IBEX-Q1 | $0.02350 | $235.30 | $4,800.00 |
| IonQ Forte | $0.08000 | $800.30 | $7,000.00 |
Per-task fee and per-shot rates taken from aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing, verified 7 September 2026. The 10,000-shot column is our arithmetic over those rates: $0.30 task fee plus 10,000 x the per-shot price, so you can redo it. Reservation rates are Braket Direct dedicated-access hourly prices from the same page. On-demand simulators bill per minute of runtime in one-millisecond increments with a three-second minimum per simulation; embedded simulators inside Hybrid Jobs carry no separate charge.
The reservation column is the part most Braket comparisons miss. Dedicated access runs $2,500 to $7,000 an hour depending on the machine, which reframes the per-shot rates entirely: an hour of reserved Rigetti Cepheus at $4,100 buys roughly 9.6 million shots at the on-demand rate, so reservations are about guaranteed uninterrupted access and scheduling, not about unit cost. Reserve when the schedule matters. Pay per shot when it does not.
4.Use-case cost reference
We tabulate representative circuit costs to make the per-shot and per-program rates concrete. A 100-shot pilot circuit on IonQ Forte via Braket costs $8.30; the same circuit on Rigetti Cepheus costs $0.34. A 200,000-shot VQE optimisation, run as 200 tasks of 1,000 shots, costs $16,060 on IonQ Forte but $145 on Rigetti, illustrating the cost-vs-fidelity trade-off that determines hardware choice for variational workloads 1.
Table 3 — Representative circuit costs (USD)
| Use case | Shots | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 100-shot circuit on IonQ Forte (Braket, no mitigation) | 100 | 8.30 |
| 10,000-shot circuit on IonQ Forte (Braket) | 10,000 | 800.30 |
| 100-shot circuit on IQM Garnet (Braket) | 100 | 0.45 |
| 10,000-shot circuit on IQM Garnet (Braket) | 10,000 | 14.80 |
| 100-shot circuit on Rigetti Cepheus-108Q (Braket) | 100 | 0.34 |
| 10,000-shot circuit on Rigetti Cepheus-108Q (Braket) | 10,000 | 4.55 |
| VQE optimisation, ~200 iter × 1k shots on IonQ Forte | 200,000 | 16060.00 |
| VQE optimisation, ~200 iter × 1k shots on Rigetti | 200,000 | 145.00 |
| Single IonQ Aria 1 program on Azure (default mitigation on) | — | 97.50 |
| 1 minute IBM Heron r2 PAYG | — | 96.00 |
All Braket figures include the $0.30/task fee; the VQE rows carry it 200 times, once per iteration. Azure IonQ Aria minimum reflects error-mitigation-on default; mitigation-off floor is $12.42.
5.Two-qubit gate fidelity context
Headline shot prices conceal a fidelity-vs-cost trade-off. Per-shot superconducting access (Rigetti, IBM Heron) is cheaper but operates at ~99.1-99.7% two-qubit fidelity; trapped-ion access (IonQ, Quantinuum) operates at ~99.5-99.8% production fidelity, with research-grade demonstrations of 99.99% via electronic qubit control 8. For algorithms that require deep circuits, the higher-fidelity provider often produces useful results at fewer shots, partially offsetting the per-shot premium.
Table 4 — Reported two-qubit gate fidelities, production hardware
| Hardware | 2Q fidelity | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Oxford Ionics (now IonQ) electronic-control gate | 99.97% | 2024 |
| IonQ R&D prototype (electronic qubit control) | 99.99% | 2025 |
| Quantinuum H2 (production) | 99.80% | 2024 |
| IBM Heron r2 (ibm_kingston, 156Q) | 99.70% | 2024 |
| IonQ Forte (36Q production) | 99.60% | 2022 |
| IonQ Aria (25Q production) | 99.50% | 2022 |
| Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q (production, Apr 2026) | 99.10% | 2026 |
6.Notes on quote-only sources
IBM's own pricing page became fetchable again and was read directly on 2026-09-07, so IBM's rates are now primary-sourced rather than industry-reported. IBM publishes: Open Plan free for up to 10 minutes of runtime per month; Pay-As-You-Go $96/minute with a 1-second minimum purchase; Flex from $72/minute against a 400-minute annual minimum, a $28,800 annual floor; Premium from $48/minute against a 5,200-minute annual minimum, a $249,600 annual floor; On-Prem by quote. The two committed tiers are only cheaper above their break-even: 400 minutes at $72 equals 300 minutes at $96, so Flex loses to Pay-As-You-Go below 300 QPU-minutes a year. Production D-Wave Leap pricing has not been republished as a public list since 2023 industry coverage; we mark it quote-only rather than cite stale figures. Google Willow is accessible through a competitive early-access programme, selected by proposal (the latest cohort's submission deadline was 15 May 2026) 9, and is not commercially priced.
7.Re-verification cadence
Provider pricing pages are re-fetched every 90 days. The pre-deploy gate blocks publication of any change containing a stale dated row. AWS Braket's full rate card, per-task fee, per-shot device prices and Braket Direct reservation hourly rates, was re-read against aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing on 2026-09-07 and matches Table 2. IBM's four published tiers were read directly from ibm.com/quantum/pricing on the same date; the per-minute rates are unchanged from earlier industry corroboration, and the annual minimums behind Flex and Premium (400 and 5,200 minutes) are new to this page as a result. Azure Quantum was re-read on the same date: its pricing doc still carries a 2026-04-23 update stamp and every rate matches. The Braket figures were also cross-checked against the AWS Price List API (publication 2026-08-31), and IonQ Aria was confirmed withdrawn from the Braket device list.
8.Frequently asked questions
How much does a quantum computer cost in 2026?
There are two different questions. Renting cloud access to a quantum computer ranges from free (IBM's Open Plan, up to 10 minutes of runtime per month) to a few cents per shot (AWS Braket on Rigetti, $0.000425/shot) up to $96 per minute (IBM Pay-As-You-Go) or $125,000+ per month (Quantinuum subscription on Azure). Buying a physical quantum computer spans a huge range: about $8,700 for a SpinQ desktop teaching unit, about $2.85 million for a complete Rigetti Novera system, and $20 million for a D-Wave Advantage2 (Florida Atlantic University, 2026); IBM's utility-scale on-premise systems carry no published purchase price. That capital cost is why almost everyone accesses quantum through the cloud instead. Use the calculator to price a specific job.
What is the cheapest way to run a quantum circuit?
For shot-metered gate-model access, AWS Braket on the Rigetti Cepheus-108Q is the cheapest per-shot option at $0.000425/shot, so a 10,000-shot circuit costs about $4.55 including the $0.30 task fee. IBM's Open Plan is free for up to 10 minutes of QPU runtime per month. The trade-off with the cheapest superconducting hardware is lower two-qubit gate fidelity than trapped-ion machines, so deep circuits may need more shots.
How much does AWS Braket cost?
Every QPU task on AWS Braket costs $0.30, plus a per-shot rate set by the device: Rigetti Cepheus $0.000425, IQM Garnet $0.00145, IQM Emerald $0.00160, QuEra Aquila $0.01000, AQT IBEX-Q1 $0.02350, IonQ Forte $0.08000. A 10,000-shot circuit therefore costs about $4.55 on Rigetti Cepheus and about $800.30 on IonQ Forte. Braket Direct reservations for dedicated hourly access run $2,500 an hour on QuEra Aquila up to $7,000 an hour on IonQ Forte. On-demand simulators bill per minute of runtime with a three-second minimum per simulation. Verified at aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing on 7 September 2026.
How much does IBM Quantum cost?
IBM bills QPU runtime by the minute. The Open Plan is free for up to 10 minutes of runtime per month. Pay-As-You-Go is $96 per minute with a 1-second minimum purchase. Flex starts at $72 per minute against a 400-minute annual minimum, a floor of $28,800 a year. Premium starts at $48 per minute against a 5,200-minute annual minimum, a floor of $249,600 a year. On-Prem is quoted. Flex only beats Pay-As-You-Go above 300 QPU-minutes a year, because 400 minutes at $72 costs the same as 300 minutes at $96. Verified at ibm.com/quantum/pricing on 7 September 2026.
Why is quantum computing so expensive?
Quantum processors need specialised, low-utilisation infrastructure: dilution refrigerators near absolute zero for superconducting qubits, or ultra-high-vacuum ion traps and laser systems for trapped-ion machines. Each job occupies the device exclusively, so providers meter access tightly, by shot, by QPU-minute or by monthly subscription. The result is a price span of more than 180x per shot between the cheapest and most expensive gate-model devices, which is why estimating a specific job matters more than a single headline rate.
References
- AWS Braket Pricing. Amazon Web Services. Accessed 2026-09-07, cross-checked against the AWS Price List API Braket offer file, publication 2026-08-31. https://aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing/
- Azure Quantum Pricing Plans. Microsoft Learn. Doc updated 2026-04-23, accessed 2026-09-07. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/quantum/pricing
- IBM Quantum Flex Plan. IBM Quantum Blog, Q1 2026. https://www.ibm.com/quantum/blog/flex-plan
- Anastasi, P. IBM's New Flex Plan Fills a Big Gap in Quantum Access Pricing. Moor Insights & Strategy, 2026. https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/research-notes/ibms-new-flex-plan-fills-a-big-gap-in-quantum-access-pricing/
- Acharya, R. et al. Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold. Nature, December 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08449-y
- Microsoft & Quantinuum. 12 logical qubits + hybrid end-to-end chemistry simulation. Azure Quantum Blog, September 2024. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/quantum/2024/09/10/microsoft-and-quantinuum-create-12-logical-qubits-and-demonstrate-a-hybrid-end-to-end-chemistry-simulation/
- Rigetti Computing. General Availability of 108-Qubit System. April 2026 press release. https://thequantuminsider.com/2026/04/08/rigetti-108-qubit-system-availability/
- IonQ. Accelerating Towards Fault Tolerance: 99.99% Two-Qubit Gate. October 2025. https://www.ionq.com/blog/accelerating-towards-fault-tolerance-unlocking-99-99-two-qubit-gate
- Google Quantum AI. Willow Early Access Program. Accessed 2026-09-07. https://quantumai.google/willowearlyaccess
- QuEra Computing. Aquila device on AWS Braket. arXiv:2306.11727. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.11727
- D-Wave Quantum. Advantage2 General Availability. Press release, 2025. https://www.dwavequantum.com/company/newsroom/press-release/d-wave-announces-general-availability-of-advantage2-quantum-computer-its-most-advanced-and-performant-system/
- Amazon Braket supported regions and devices. AWS Developer Guide. Accessed 2026-09-07; IonQ Aria is no longer on the supported-device list. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/braket/latest/developerguide/braket-devices.html
- AWS Price List API, Amazon Braket offer file. Publication 2026-08-31, retrieved 2026-09-07. https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonBraket/current/index.json
- D-Wave Quantum. Quantum Computing for Developers (Leap trial allowances). Accessed 2026-09-07. https://www.dwavequantum.com/solutions-and-products/developer/
Independent reference. No affiliate revenue. No vendor sponsorships. Corrections: oliver@digitalsignet.com.