2 min read

ONT Cost Summary

2022/07/11

Oxford Nanopore Technologies' sequencing costs are all available on their store website. Here's a summary, to save you a bit of clicking:

  • MinION Mk1C [sequencer + display + GPU/CPU]: $4900 + $300/yr
  • MinION Mk1B [sequencer only]: $1000 [no yearly cost]
  • GridION [5x MinION flow cell slots + GPU/CPU]: $49,955 + $12,500/yr
  • Flongle [1x Flongle flow cell slot; adapter for MinION/GridION]: $1,460 [no yearly cost]
  • PromethION P2 Solo [2x PromethION flow cell slots]: $10,455 + $1,000/yr
  • PromethION P2 [2x PromethION flow cell slots + display + GPU/CPU]: $59,955 + $12,500/yr
  • PromethION P24 [24x PromethION flow cell slots + GPU/CPU]: $225,000 + $35,000/yr
  • PromethION P48 [48x PromethION flow cell slots + GPU/CPU]: $310,000 + $45,000/yr

Prices in USD. These costs generally include additional flow cells and reagents that have a commercial value greater than the cost of device purchase. First year's worth of service charges are included in the cost.

  • Flongle flow cell yield: about 0.2-1.5 Gb per run [with good sample/prep]; $67.50 each, pack of 12 [$810]
  • MinION flow cell yield: about 5-20 Gb per run; $475-$900 each, depending on bulk purchases
  • PromethION flow cell yield: about 50-200 Gb per run; $600-$1400 each, depending on bulk purchases [minimum purchase of 4 flow cells]

Those yields are based on my observations of the current user experience; some experienced users can exceed these yields on good samples, and yields will probably increase over time with improvements in technology. ONT's reported yields on their website represent the maximum theoretical yield, assuming about 90% pore occupancy over the course of the entire run.

Sequencing kits are approximately $100 per run for MinION and PromethION flow cells, and $50 per run for Flongle flow cells. Multiplexing samples together on the same run is possible, costs are a little bit higher.

So the minimum run cost [on a Flongle flow cell] is about $120 (i.e. $10 per sample, with 12 samples multiplexed), and the minimum price per Gb [on a PromethION flow cell] is $3.50/Gb.