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Overview

Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) allows Organization Admins to purchase prepaid Credits for QPU usage directly from the IonQ Quantum Cloud Console using a credit or debit card. Purchased credit is added to your organization’s balance and consumed by jobs run on IonQ QPUs. Purchases are always paid in US dollars ($). However, your credit balance is displayed throughout the Console in the unit set by your organization’s billing model. This is usually set to Credits (❖).
Each PAYG purchase has a maximum limit that is shown during the purchase process. For larger amounts or high-volume credit contracts, contact us at support@ionq.com or reach out to your IonQ account representative.

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Before you begin

To purchase credit, you need:
  1. Organization Admin Role: The Spend page and purchasing tools are only available to Organization Admins.
  2. Tax Information on File (If Applicable): Registered businesses in countries with a Value-Added Tax (VAT) must provide a verified VAT ID before adding a card or purchasing credit. See Managing Tax Information for details on how to provide this information.
  3. Payment Method on File: You can add a credit or debit card during your first purchase.

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Add a payment method

Before you can purchase Credits, you must have a payment method (a credit or debit card) on file with IonQ. To add a new payment method to your organization:
  1. On the left navigation menu, under Organization, click Spend. Then, ensure the Prepaid Credit tab is selected.
  2. On the Payment Method card, click Add a Payment Method.
  3. In the modal, enter your credit or debit card information.
If your organization is in a country that requires a VAT ID and you do not have a validated one on file already, you must submit your VAT ID for verification on either the Settings or Spend page and wait for it to be verified before you can purchase credits.
  1. At the bottom of the modal, click Add a payment method to confirm.

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Purchase prepaid credits

Once you have a payment method and, when required, tax information on file, you can purchase credits. To purchase credits:
  1. On the Prepaid Credit tab, click Add Credit.
  2. On the modal, select a credit amount or enter a custom amount between 25 and 1000 credits.
  3. Review Summary & Estimates:
    • Total Cost: The total USD price charged to your card.
    • Estimated Usage: Estimated Quantum Compute Time (QCT) or gate throughput provided by the amount, based on current general-availability QPU pricing. (For actual job cost estimation, see Job Cost and Usage).
    • Credit Expiration: Purchased credit expires 365 days from the date of purchase. The exact expiration date is shown before confirmation.
  4. Confirm Purchase: Select Purchase.
Your card is charged in USD, the credit is added to your organization’s active balance, and you will receive a confirmation email.
Transaction Outcomes & Invoices
  • If the purchase fails: A “Credits transaction failed!” notification will appear and no charge is made. Check your card details and try again, or contact support@ionq.com.
  • Downloading an invoice: You can download a PDF invoice at any time from the Credit table on the Spend page by clicking Download invoice in the Details column.
Adding organization credit does not automatically permit your project to spend the funds. To run QPU jobs, a project must have backend access enabled and an available budget equal to or greater than the job’s predicted cost.After purchasing credit, review your project budgets and backend access on the Projects page so your team can submit jobs.

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Credit usage reports

You can view details about credit usage from the Spend page in the following ways:

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On the Credit Summary card

The Credit Summary card displays quick statistics about your organization’s active balance:
  • Current credit: The amount of unused credits currently available to your organization.
  • Used in last 30 days: The number of credits used by your organization in the last 30 days. If your organization has transitioned from USD to Credits within the last 30 days, this number reflects only Credit spend.
Click View usage reporting on the Credit Summary card to open the Reporting page for granular project and job breakdowns over time.

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On the Credits table

The Credits table lists your organization’s complete purchase history. The Credits table includes the following information:
Learn more about job cost and usage tracking on the Job Cost and Usage page.