Pricing
How the index is priced
The Quantum Compute Index is an indicative view of normalized quantum-compute pricing across its configured data basket.
01
Observe the rate
Published hourly reservation rates, read from the sellers' own live rate cards. A machine with no published hourly rate does not enter the headline index — per-shot prices are never converted, because that conversion needs an assumption.
02
Deflate by capability
Each rate is divided by what the hardware can actually do, from the two numbers every vendor publishes: qubit count and median two-qubit error. Price is deflated by quality, not weighted by it, so a machine getting better reads as a price fall.
03
Chain-link the move
Only machines observed on both days are compared, and the index moves on their shared move. Adding or dropping a provider changes the basket without moving the level — a composition change is not a price change.
The index, in one line
ln(It / It−1) = Σ w̄d · ln(πd,t / πd,t−1)
A matched-sample Törnqvist chain index over quality-deflated hourly rates. The sum runs only over machines observed on both days. This is not an audited transaction benchmark.
What it represents
What an hour of quantum computing costs across every machine on the market with a published hourly rate — one QPU-hour being one hour of exclusive access to one processor.
Data sources
The sellers’ own published rate cards and the operators’ own calibration data. Every figure carries the tier it came from; nothing is ever simulated to fill a gap.
Update cadence
One point per day. A day with thin coverage is published as provisional and marked as such on the chart rather than quietly smoothed.
Limitations
Per-shot pricing is deliberately not converted into an hourly rate, so machines sold only per shot are outside the headline. Published list rates are not negotiated prices.
$ / QPU-hour
$5,317
Measured across 9 machines from 5 providers. One point per day, drawn only from what was measured.
Provider inputs
Priced from the sellers’ own published rate cards and the operators’ own calibration data. Nothing is charted that was not measured.
IBM Quantum
Heron · Eagle
IonQ
Aria · Forte
Rigetti
Ankaa
IQM
Garnet · Emerald
AWS Braket
Rigetti · QuEra · AQT
Quandela
Belenos · photonic