Is BigQuery Free?

Is BigQuery free?

Google BigQuery offers a perpetual free tier that grants 1 TB of query processing and 10 GB of active storage each month at no cost.

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Description

Example H2

Example H3

What does the BigQuery free tier include?

The always-on free tier gives every Google Cloud project 1 TB of query processing and 10 GB of table storage per calendar month. These limits reset on the first day of each month and apply automatically—no credit card is required as long as you stay inside them.

How long does the free tier last?

The free tier is permanent for all projects. You only start paying when either your on-demand query bytes exceed 1 TB or your active storage exceeds 10 GB within a calendar month.

How do I monitor my free-tier usage?

Open BigQuery › Admin › Query Stats or create a Billing export to BigQuery, then run queries on gcp_billing_export_v1_* to track bytes processed and storage used. Set budget alerts to trigger emails when you approach the limits.

How can I stay within the free limits?

Use partitioned tables

Partition by date so BigQuery reads only the partitions you need, drastically cutting scanned bytes.

Prune unnecessary columns

Select only required columns instead of SELECT *. Columnar storage ensures unselected columns are not scanned.

Sample large tables

Apply TABLESAMPLE SYSTEM (10 PERCENT) or a WHERE clause with RAND() to explore data without scanning full tables.

What happens if I exceed the free tier?

BigQuery bills on-demand query bytes at USD $5 per TB and active storage at USD $0.02 per GB-month (US region) once you pass the free quota. To avoid charges, cap your project daily spend or disable billing.

Why Is BigQuery Free? is important

Is BigQuery Free? Example Usage


-- Check how many query bytes your project has used this month
SELECT
  SUM(total_bytes_billed)/1e12 AS tb_scanned
FROM   `region-us`.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.JOBS_BY_PROJECT
WHERE  creation_time >= DATE_TRUNC(CURRENT_DATE, MONTH);

Is BigQuery Free? Syntax


-- On-demand query within free tier
SELECT
  c.name,
  SUM(oi.quantity * p.price) AS total_spent
FROM `project.dataset.Customers`   AS c
JOIN `project.dataset.Orders`      AS o  ON o.customer_id = c.id
JOIN `project.dataset.OrderItems`  AS oi ON oi.order_id   = o.id
JOIN `project.dataset.Products`    AS p  ON p.id          = oi.product_id
WHERE _PARTITIONTIME BETWEEN '2023-10-01' AND '2023-10-31'
GROUP BY c.name
ORDER BY total_spent DESC;

-- Syntax recap
SELECT [DISTINCT] <column_list>
FROM   `<project>.<dataset>.<table>`
[WHERE <condition>]
[GROUP BY <columns>]
[ORDER BY <columns>]
[LIMIT <n>];

Common Mistakes

Scanning entire tables with SELECT * wildly exceeds the 1 TB query limit. Always project only the columns you need or BigQuery will count every byte in the column set toward billing.
Ignoring partition pruning makes BigQuery read full tables. Create date-partitioned tables and filter on the partition column (_PARTITIONDATE) to restrict scanned bytes.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does the free tier reset every month?

Yes. On the first of each month, your 1 TB of query processing and 10 GB of storage quotas return to zero usage.

Are data loads and exports free?

Loading data into BigQuery and exporting query results to Cloud Storage are both free. Only query processing and active storage count against the free tier.

Can I disable billing to guarantee zero cost?

You can remove the billing account from a project or set a zero-dollar daily spend cap. Queries beyond the free tier will then fail instead of incurring charges.