How to Estimate Snowflake Pricing in PostgreSQL

What drives Snowflake pricing?

Snowflake charges for two items: compute credits consumed by virtual warehouses and data storage billed per terabyte per month. Optional features like Snowpipe or Search Optimization Service add extra credits.

How many credits does a warehouse consume?

Credits depend on warehouse size. XS uses 1 credit/hour, S = 2, M = 4, L = 8, XL = 16, 2XL = 32. Suspended warehouses stop charging instantly.

How to calculate credits in SQL?

Query SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE.WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY to sum credits by warehouse, day, or SQL role.

SELECT DATE_TRUNC('day', start_time) AS usage_day,
warehouse_name,
SUM(credits_used) AS daily_credits
FROM snowflake.account_usage.warehouse_metering_history
WHERE start_time >= DATEADD(day,-30,CURRENT_DATE)
GROUP BY 1,2
ORDER BY 1;

How to translate credits to dollars?

Multiply total credits by your contracted per-credit rate (e.g., US $2.90).

SELECT daily_credits,
daily_credits * 2.90 AS daily_cost_usd
FROM (
-- query above
) q;

How to estimate storage cost?

Storage is billed on average compressed bytes. Use ACCOUNT_USAGE.STORAGE_USAGE.

SELECT usage_date,
average_bytes/POWER(1024,4) AS avg_tb,
avg_tb * 23 AS storage_cost_usd -- $23/TB/mo
FROM snowflake.account_usage.storage_usage
WHERE usage_date >= DATE_TRUNC('month',CURRENT_DATE);


How to allocate cost to ecommerce customers?

Tag queries or warehouses with customer IDs and join to Orders for show-back.

-- Tag warehouse for customer A
ALTER WAREHOUSE wh_cust_a SET TAG customer_id = 'A';

-- Monthly cost per customer via tags
SELECT t.value::text AS customer_id,
SUM(m.credits_used)*2.90 AS cost_usd
FROM snowflake.account_usage.warehouse_metering_history m
JOIN snowflake.account_usage.tag_references_all t
ON m.warehouse_id = t.object_id
WHERE t.tag_name = 'customer_id'
GROUP BY 1;


Best practices to reduce spend?

Auto-suspend warehouses after 60 seconds; auto-resume on demand. Use multi-cluster only for bursty loads. Size down warehouses when queries finish in <10 seconds. Purge unused stages. Compress staged files with GZIP or PARQUET.