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Paid plans start at $1,110/mo. There's also a free plan.
IBM lists a $0 Lite / Free Trial tier with one user, 10–20 CUH and 50,000–300,000 inference tokens per month; usage is capped, and trial duration is not published. Beyond that, Essentials has no base fee but bills usage, while Standard and HIPAA-Ready charge monthly instance fees. Compute, text extraction and inference use separate rates, so the cost of a production workload depends on its mix of usage. Annual-billing prices are not published.
01Every plan, line by line
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite / Free Trial | — | $0 | Trying watsonx.ai with capped usage |
| Essentials | — | $0 | Pay-as-you-go teams |
| Standard | — | $1,110 | Teams needing included compute |
| HIPAA-Ready | — | $1,800 | Teams with HIPAA requirements |
Add-ons and overages
- Advanced support starts at $200/month for Essentials and Standard
- On-demand model hosting is billed hourly based on GPU configuration
- Standard CUH and runtime overages: $0.45 per CUH for machine learning, $0.0318 per page for text extraction, and $0.10–$0.106 per million inference tokens
- Essentials usage: $0.55 per CUH for machine learning, $0.0403 per page for text extraction, and $0.10–$0.106 per million inference tokens
- HIPAA-Ready usage is metered at Standard rates, including published per-million-token model rates
02What the plan grid doesn't tell you
Usage overages
Essentials bills machine learning at $0.55 per CUH, extraction at $0.0403 per page and inference at $0.10–$0.106 per million tokens.
Standard overages
After its 2,500 included CUH, Standard lists $0.45 per CUH for machine learning, $0.0318 per extraction page and $0.10–$0.106 per million inference tokens.
Advanced support
Advanced support starts at $200 per month for Essentials and Standard.
On-demand hosting
Model hosting is billed hourly based on GPU configuration; the pricing details do not give the hourly rates.
03Which plan should you buy?
| If you are… | Get | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Prototype or evaluation | Lite / Free Trial | It costs $0 and has capped monthly usage: 10–20 CUH and 50,000–300,000 inference tokens. |
| Variable-usage team | Essentials | There is no monthly base fee, but machine learning, extraction and inference are billed as used. |
| Team needing included compute | Standard | The $1,110 monthly instance price includes 2,500 CUH and unlimited users. |
04Is IBM watsonx.ai worth the money?
The free tier is useful for a capped evaluation, but its monthly usage ranges and trial duration leave planning questions to resolve. Essentials avoids a base fee, though its machine-learning and text-extraction rates are higher than Standard’s listed rates. Standard may make costs easier to estimate when its 2,500 included CUH fit the workload; HIPAA-Ready costs $1,800 monthly and has no bundled CUH. Compare expected usage, hosting and support charges before committing. Self-hosting is not established by the published pricing.
IBM watsonx.ai pricing FAQ
Is IBM watsonx.ai free?
IBM lists Lite / Free Trial at $0. It includes one user per instance or account, 10–20 CUH per month and 50,000–300,000 inference tokens per month. Usage is capped and an upgrade is required; the trial duration is not published.
What does Essentials cost?
Essentials has a $0 monthly base fee, but usage is billed separately. IBM lists machine learning at $0.55 per CUH, text extraction at $0.0403 per page and inference at $0.10–$0.106 per million tokens. Advanced support starts at $200 per month.
What happens when Standard usage exceeds its included CUH?
Standard includes 2,500 CUH monthly. The listed machine-learning overage is $0.45 per CUH. Text extraction costs $0.0318 per page and inference costs $0.10–$0.106 per million tokens. Check how your workload maps to each meter before estimating the monthly bill.
Does IBM publish annual-billing prices?
Annual-billing prices are not published in the pricing details. The listed prices are monthly: $1,110 per instance for Standard and $1,800 per instance for HIPAA-Ready. Essentials has a $0 base fee with usage billed separately.