PRICING IN SNOWFLAKE
Snowflake pricing and cost are based on the actual usage. You pay for what you use and scale
storage and compute independently. we are going to be charged individually for the compute
and the storage.
Storage Costs
All customers are charged a monthly fee for the data they store in Snowflake. Storage cost is
measured using the average amount of storage used per month, after compression, for all
customer data stored in Snowflake. remember that it’s the average amount after compression.
Storage Costs will be charged on the basis average storage used per month
On average for TB usage it will be 23$ per month if opted for prepaid capacity
The Storage includes:
Data stored in tables, including historical data for Time Travel.
Fail-Safe historical data.
Internal Stages
It’s important to know that Storage cost is not just the data in the tables.
Compute Costs
Customers pay for virtual warehouses using Snowflake credits.
The cost of these credits depend on the Snowflake edition that you are using:
Cost per credit depending on the Snowflake edition we choose.
Apart from the Snowflake edition that we are using, the number of credits that a Warehouse
consumes is determined by:
The warehouse size
The number of clusters (for multi-cluster warehouses).
The length of time each server in each cluster runs → They are billed by
seconds with a one-minute minimum. For example, if our Warehouse runs
for 20 seconds, it will be billed as 1 minute; whereas if it runs for 1.20
minutes, it will be billed for this exact time.
If warehouse was active for 30 seconds => billed for 60 seconds
If warehouse was active for 61 seconds => billed for 61 seconds
If warehouse was active for 90 seconds => billed for 90 seconds
If warehouse was active for 59 seconds => billed for 60 seconds
Credits consumed per hour by different sizes Warehouses.
Cloud Services Costs
Customers pay for cloud services using Snowflake credits. Typical utilization of cloud services
(up to 10% of daily compute credits) is included for free, which means most customers will not
see incremental charges for cloud services usage.
Data Transfer Costs
Customers who wish to move or copy their data between regions or cloud providers will incur
data transfer charges. Features such as External Tables, External Functions, and Data Lake
Export may incur data transfer charges. Here we can see some examples for AWS:
Data Transfer Costs of some AWS regions.
If you want to examine a little more in depth everything related to pricing , you can access the
following links: https://www.Snowflake.com/pricing/pricing-guide/.
https://www.Snowflake.com/pricing/
CAPACITY OPTIONS
There are two different ways to buy the Snowflake Service: On Demand or pre-paid Capacity.
On-Demand → Customers are charged a fixed rate for the services that are
consumed and are billed in arrears every month.
Pre-paid → Pre-purchase Capacity, which involves commitment to
Snowflake. The Capacity purchased is then consumed on a monthly basis,
and it provides lower prices and and a long-term price guarantee among
other advantages.
Capacity Credit Pricing And Usage
For a capacity purchase, the price of Snowflake credits is determined at the time the order is
placed and is based on the size of the total committed customer purchase. For more
information about the discounts available for capacity purchases, please talk to a Snowflake
sales representative.
Capacity Usage
Capacity usage is determined on a monthly basis as follows:
The average storage is measured and the total storage cost is determined.
The total data transfer cost is determined.
The total amount of Snowflake credits for all virtual warehouses is calculated, and this is
multiplied by the price of the Snowflake credits.
The total amount of Snowflake credits for all cloud services minus the 10% of the virtual
warehouse credits that are included for free (daily) is calculated, and this is multiplied by the
price of the Snowflake credits.
The total amount of Snowflake credits consumed by serverless features is calculated, and this is
multiplied by the price of Snowflake credits.
The sum of the dollar cost of the storage, data transfer, and Snowflake credit usage is deducted
from the remaining capacity balance.
Customers are notified when they have used 70% of their capacity balance. As customers
approach the end of their capacity consumption, they are contacted by Snowflake.
Customers may continue using the Snowflake service after their purchased capacity is
consumed or their term ends. If this happens, they will be charged the corresponding price for
their Snowflake On Demand edition. For example, in the US West region, the price is $2.00 per
credit for the Snowflake On Demand Standard edition or $2.25 per credit for the Standard
edition with Premier Support plus $40 per TB per month for storage.
Recommended Approach:
Start with On Demand and once you are sure about your usage use Capacity Storage
TYPICAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ABOUT PRICING
What influences Snowflake pricing?
1. Amount of data queried from Snowflake.
2. Amount of data scanned from Snowflake.
3. Snowflake pricing is based on usage & storage.
Solution: 3.
Compute cost in Snowflake depends on…
1. The query execution time.
2. The query execution time and the waiting query time.
3. The WareHouse size and how long the WareHouse runs.
Solution: 3. The cost does not depend on how many queries you run in the warehouse. It
depends on which warehouse size and how long the warehouse runs.
What are the two major cost categories in Snowflake? (SELECT TWO)
1. Storage.
2. Compute.
3. Cloud Service.
4. Data Transfers.
Solution: 1, 2. These are the main costs in Snowflake, and it’s always a good idea to build
solutions trying to reduce these costs, like using caches as we will see in the next chapters.
How is the data storage cost computed for Snowflake?
1. Based on the daily average amount of uncompressed data stored.
2. Based on the daily average amount of compressed data stored.
3. Based on the amount of uncompressed data stored on the last day of the
month.
4. Based on the amount of compressed data stored on the last day of the
month.
Solution: 2.
Which type of data incur in Snowflake storage cost?
1. Data Stored in permanent tables.
2. Data Stored in temporal tables.
3. Cache results.
4. Data retained for Fail-Safe & Time-Travel.
Solution: 1, 2, 4. It also includes data stored in Snowflake locations (i.e. user and table stages or
internal named stages).
Tables with Fail-Safe turned on incurs additional storage costs compared to tables where Fail-
Safe is turned off?
1. True
2. False
Solution: 1.
Does data stored in a temporary table not contribute to Snowflake storage cost?
1. True
2. False
Solution: 2.
Which factors influence the unit cost of Snowflake credits and data storage?
1. Snowflake Edition.
2. Region of the Snowflake account.
3. On-Demand or Pre-Paid account.
4. Users on Snowflake.
Solution: 1, 2, 3.
