Rent a quantum computer: what it costs in 2026
Renting a quantum computer means buying cloud access to someone else's machine, and the three public clouds bill it five different ways: free allowances, per shot, per minute of runtime, per hour of reserved access and per month of subscription. This page sets out each model with the provider's own published rate, works out what an hour costs under each so they can be compared, and links to the per-provider pages for detail. To buy a machine instead, see the quantum computer price list; to price a specific job, use the cost calculator.
1.Five ways to rent, and what each costs
Table 1 — Quantum computer rental models, October 2026
| How you rent | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier IBM Open Plan: real IBM hardware for up to 10 minutes of runtime per month. | $0 | verified primary |
| Per shot AWS Braket: $0.30 per task plus a per-shot rate set by the device. A 10,000-shot circuit on Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q is $0.30 + 10,000 x $0.000425. | $4.55 / 10k shots | verified primary |
| Per minute IBM Pay-As-You-Go: billed per second of QPU runtime, no commitment. Flex ($72/min, 400-minute annual minimum) and Premium ($48/min, 5,200-minute annual minimum) are cheaper per minute against a commitment. | $96 / minute | verified primary |
| Per hour (whole machine) AWS Braket Direct reservations: dedicated access to one device for a booked window, priced per hour by device. | $2,500-$7,000 / hour | verified primary |
| Per month (subscription) Azure Quantum: IonQ Aria-Forte plan at $25,000/month; Quantinuum H2 Standard at $125,000/month (10k HQCs) and Premium at $175,000/month (17k HQCs). Azure infrastructure costs are extra. | $25,000-$175,000 / month | verified primary |
Rates read on 8 October 2026 from ibm.com/quantum/pricing, aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing (cross-checked against the AWS Price List API offer file, publication 11 September 2026) and Microsoft Learn's Azure Quantum pricing page(doc updated 23 April 2026). The $4.55 figure is our arithmetic over Braket's published task and shot rates.
2.Renting a whole machine by the hour
If you need a machine to yourself for a scheduled block, for a workshop, a calibration-sensitive experiment or a deadline, AWS Braket Direct rents dedicated access to one device by the hour. You pay for the booked window, not for the shots you run inside it.
Table 2 — AWS Braket Direct reservation rates, per hour
| Device | Reserved, per hour | On demand, per shot |
|---|---|---|
| QuEra Aquila US East (N. Virginia) | $2,500 | $0.01000 |
| IQM Garnet EU (Stockholm) | $3,000 | $0.00145 |
| IQM Emerald EU (Stockholm) | $4,000 | $0.00160 |
| Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q US West (N. California) | $4,100 | $0.000425 |
| AQT IBEX-Q1 EU (Stockholm) | $4,800 | $0.02350 |
| IonQ Forte US East (N. Virginia) | $7,000 | $0.08000 |
Hourly and per-shot rates from aws.amazon.com/braket/pricing, read 8 October 2026. On-demand use also carries a $0.30 fee per task.
Reservations are about guaranteed access, not unit cost. An hour of reserved Rigetti Cepheus at $4,100 would pay for about 9.6 million shots at the on-demand rate of $0.000425 (our arithmetic), far more than most experiments run in an hour. Reserve when the schedule matters; pay per shot when it does not.
3.What one hour costs under each model
The models bill different things, so compare them on the same hour. These are our arithmetic over the published rates, so you can redo them:
- IBM Pay-As-You-Go: 60 minutes of QPU runtime x $96 = $5,760. On Flex, the same 60 minutes is $4,320 at $72, but Flex requires buying at least 400 minutes a year ($28,800).
- Azure Quantum, Rigetti Cepheus: $0.02 per 10 milliseconds of execution time is $2 a second, so 60 minutes of execution is $7,200.
- Azure Quantum, Pasqal Fresnel: EUR 3,000 per QPU-hour, plus Azure infrastructure costs.
- AWS Braket Direct: $2,500 to $7,000 for an hour of dedicated access, depending on the device (Table 2).
The catch is what counts as an hour. IBM and Azure bill the time your jobs actually run on the processor, so an hour of runtime can take far longer than an hour of your day. A Braket reservation bills the booked wall-clock window whether you fill it or not.
4.Monthly subscriptions
Azure Quantum sells quantum access as monthly plans. IonQ's Aria-Forte plan is $25,000 a month for access to Aria 1, Forte 1 and Forte Enterprise 1, with usage above the subscription value billed at pay-as-you-go rates. Quantinuum's H2 Standard plan is $125,000 a month for 10,000 HQCs (Quantinuum's usage credit) and Premium is $175,000 a month for 17,000 HQCs. Both add Azure infrastructure costs. IBM's nearest equivalent is the Premium plan, $48 a minute against a 5,200-minute annual minimum, a floor of $249,600 a year. See the Azure Quantum pricing and IBM Quantum pricing pages for the full rate cards.
5.Renting versus buying
Buying is a different order of magnitude. The cheapest research-grade machine on sale, a complete 9-qubit Rigetti Novera system, went for about $2.85 million each in Rigetti's September 2025 orders, and a D-Wave Advantage2 annealer was bought by Florida Atlantic University for $20 million in January 2026. The full list is in the quantum computer price list, and what it takes to assemble one is on the cost to build a quantum computer page. For a single experiment, the rental bill is usually a few dollars.
6.Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to rent a quantum computer?
It depends on how you rent it. IBM's Open Plan is free for up to 10 minutes of runtime per month. On AWS Braket you pay $0.30 per task plus a per-shot rate, so a 10,000-shot circuit on Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q costs about $4.55 and the same circuit on IonQ Forte about $800.30. IBM Pay-As-You-Go is $96 per minute of QPU runtime. Reserving a whole machine on Braket Direct costs $2,500 to $7,000 an hour, and Azure Quantum subscriptions run from $25,000 a month (IonQ) to $125,000 or $175,000 a month (Quantinuum). Rates read from IBM, AWS and Microsoft pricing pages on 8 October 2026.
Can you rent a quantum computer for free?
Yes. IBM's Open Plan gives up to 10 minutes of runtime per month on real IBM quantum hardware at no cost. AWS Braket's free tier covers one hour of on-demand simulation time per month for the first twelve months, but that is simulators only: every task on real Braket hardware is billed.
How much does it cost to rent a quantum computer per hour?
On AWS Braket Direct, an hour of dedicated access to one machine costs $2,500 (QuEra Aquila), $3,000 (IQM Garnet), $4,000 (IQM Emerald), $4,100 (Rigetti Cepheus-1-108Q), $4,800 (AQT IBEX-Q1) or $7,000 (IonQ Forte). For comparison, 60 minutes of QPU runtime on IBM Pay-As-You-Go at $96 a minute comes to $5,760, and Pasqal's Fresnel on Azure Quantum is EUR 3,000 per QPU-hour. IBM and Pasqal bill the time your jobs actually run; a Braket reservation bills the booked window whether or not you fill it.
Where can I rent time on a quantum computer?
The three public routes are IBM Quantum (IBM's own superconducting systems, free Open Plan then per-minute plans), AWS Braket (IonQ, Rigetti, IQM, QuEra and AQT hardware, billed per task and per shot, or per hour reserved) and Azure Quantum (IonQ, Quantinuum, Pasqal and Rigetti, billed by each provider's own formula or a monthly subscription). Google's Willow is not rented commercially; access is by research proposal.
Is it cheaper to rent or buy a quantum computer?
Renting, for almost everyone. The cheapest research-grade machine you can buy, a complete 9-qubit Rigetti Novera system, went for about $2.85 million each in Rigetti's September 2025 orders, before facilities and staff. At $96 a minute, that money buys roughly 29,700 minutes of IBM Pay-As-You-Go runtime, and a typical small experiment costs a few dollars on Braket. Buying only makes sense when you need dedicated, always-on, on-site hardware.
See also: AWS Braket pricing · IBM Quantum pricing · Azure Quantum pricing · cost calculator · quantum computer price list · methodology. Corrections: oliver@digitalsignet.com.