Pricing Calculator Help, Feedback and FAQs

Snowflake uses a consumption-based (usage-based) pricing model where you pay only for what you use. You're primarily charged for three things: data storage, compute resources and data transfer. This gives you flexibility to scale up and down based on demand, with clear visibility into usage and costs.

Snowflake pricing has three main elements:

• Compute: Customers provision compute upfront and then use it on-demand based on a given customer's workloads. All processing activity, including loading, transforming and querying data. Snowflake credits measure a customer’s usage serving as the unit of compute, across virtual warehouses, tokens, and serverless features.
• Storage: Snowflake bills compressed data storage per terabyte (TB) per month for standard storage.
• Data Transfer: Snowflake meters data transfer by the volume of data moved into or out of Snowflake. Rates vary by destination and cloud provider.

Snowflake charges storage per terabyte (TB) per month (after compression) for standard storage. Rates vary by cloud provider and region. Snowflake includes automatic compression and performance optimizations that help reduce storage costs. Features like Zero-Copy Cloning let you create database copies without duplicating data or consuming extra storage.

There's no charge for data transfer within the same cloud provider and region. You're only charged when you transfer data to a different region or cloud provider. These rates match CSP list pricing and are considered “pass through” costs.

A Snowflake credit is the unit of measure consumed only while a customer uses compute resources (e.g., loading, transforming, or querying data). Credit consumption automatically stops when compute is suspended or idle, ensuring you pay only for what you use.

Credit consumption varies by intensity and feature type:

• Virtual Warehouses: Larger warehouses consume proportionally more credits per hour than smaller ones.

• Serverless Features: Features like Snowpipe, Snowpipe Streaming, and Cortex charge credits based on the specific work performed (e.g., data volume processed or tokens used).

Your total cost equals the number of credits consumed multiplied by the price per credit specified in your Snowflake agreement.

Virtual Warehouses come in T-shirt sizes from XS to 6XL. Each size consumes a specific number of credits per hour. For example, a Standard Warehouse consumes:

• XS: 1 credit/hour

• S: 2 credits/hour

• M: 4 credits/hour

• L: 8 credits/hour

And so on, typically doubling with each size increase.

You're billed by the second (60-second minimum) with automatic start/stop features to prevent paying for unused resources. For up to date information on Warehouse costs, see Table 1 in the Snowflake Service Consumption Table.

These are specialized warehouses for memory-intensive workloads like machine learning. They consume more credits per hour than standard warehouses.

Gen2 standard warehouses are built on top of faster underlying hardware and more intelligent software optimizations than Gen1 and generally lead to faster query performance. They consume more credits per hour than Gen1 warehouses, but should complete your jobs faster in most cases.

Snowflake offers four editions:

• Standard: Introductory offering with core functionality

• Enterprise: Adds multi-cluster compute and extended governance controls

• Business Critical: For full featured Enterprise readiness and select industry compliance requirements

• Virtual Private Snowflake: Custom pricing (completely isolated environment)

_{*Prices may vary by CSP and region. See Snowflake Service Consumption Table.}

Start with Standard for basic needs, upgrade to Enterprise for large-scale initiatives requiring advanced controls, choose Business Critical for highly regulated industries or extensive Enterprise features such as private connectivity, disaster recovery, business continuity or customer managed encryption keys, and consider VPS for maximum isolation requirements.

You receive one consolidated monthly bill covering all usage. The bill includes separate line items for storage, compute and any applicable cloud services charges. You can pay on demand with a credit card or through a Capacity Agreement for volume commitments.

Key optimization strategies include:

• Right-sizing warehouses for your workloads
• Using auto-suspend/resume features
• Leveraging storage compression and optimization features
• Monitoring usage patterns and adjusting accordingly
• Benefiting from automatic platform optimizations that Snowflake continuously adds

For more detailed recommendations on managing costs in Snowflake, review the Cost Optimization Pillar of the Snowflake Well-Architected Framework.

Actually, Snowflake regularly adds automatic optimizations that help reduce spend for the same amount of work. The value of a Snowflake credit increases, improving your total cost of ownership over time.

Yes, Snowflake provides multiple cost control features, including:

• Auto-suspend and auto-resume for warehouses
• Budgets and alerts
• Detailed usage monitoring and reporting
• Resource monitors to track spending by user, team, or workload

The Snowflake Pricing Calculator provides estimated costs only. Estimates will vary depending on region, workload and other variables. For the most current pricing information and detailed calculations, always refer to the official Snowflake Service Consumption Table. For help with your specific requirements, consult with a Snowflake sales team.

Yes! You can create a 30-day free trial account which includes $400 worth of free usage. Start your 30-day free trial.

Select the “Share Estimate” button in the “Estimated Cost” section. This will copy the unique URL of your saved cost estimate  to share with others.

The Snowflake account team would be happy to help you explore solutions and build a detailed cost estimate. Contact Sales

All prices in the Snowflake Pricing Calculator are in USD.