Pricing snapshot
BigQuery pricing is based on compute, storage, additional services, and data ingestion and extraction. Queries use either on-demand pricing or capacity-based pricing; storage is billed separately.
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| Service | Published rate | Essential condition |
|---|---|---|
On-demand queries | Starting at $6.25 per TiB scanned | First 1 TiB of query data processed per month is free. |
Capacity compute | Starting at $0.04 per slot hour | Capacity is measured in slots over time; reservations enable this pricing model. |
Logical storage | Starting at $0.01 per GiB | Uncompressed bytes in tables or partitions modified in the last 90 days. First 10 GiB each month is free. |
Physical storage | Starting at $0.02 per GiB | Compressed bytes in tables or partitions modified for 90 consecutive days. First 10 GiB each month is free. A longer time-travel window can increase storage charges. |
Choose on-demand pricing when a per-byte query charge fits the workload and you want query costs tied to data processed.
On-demand pricing generally provides access to up to 2,000 concurrent slots shared by queries in one project; queries that retrieve cached results are not charged.
Consider capacity pricing when you need to manage query capacity with slot reservations; it offers pay-as-you-go pricing and optional one- or three-year commitments for Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions.
Billing details
You can try the BigQuery free tier in the BigQuery sandbox without a credit card.
Every capacity edition, including Standard, has a pay-as-you-go option charged in slot hours, and autoscaling reservations can use it.
On-demand charges are rounded up to the nearest MB, with a 10 MB minimum per referenced table and a 10 MB minimum per query.
Capacity is billed per second with a one-minute minimum by default; fluid scaling can provide per-second billing with no minimum duration.
Slot commitments are regional, can be shared across an organization, and are offered in 50-slot minimums and increments of 50.
Batch loading and batch export using the shared slot pool are free, although storage charges still apply after data is loaded and Cloud Storage charges can apply to exported data.
What drives the bill
On-demand query charges follow the data processed in selected columns, not merely the number of rows returned. A LIMIT clause does not reduce the data processed charge for a non-clustered table. Capacity costs instead reflect reservation capacity provisioned or autoscaled over time, so an exact individual-query cost cannot be estimated precisely before execution.
Comparing alternatives? Model this workload across BigQuery, Snowflake and Amazon Redshift Serverless. Preview cost comparison →
BigQuery pricing calculator
Estimate monthly on-demand query processing and active logical storage costs from your usage in Iowa (us-central1).
Modeled scope: Google Cloud · Iowa (us-central1) · On-demand analysis · Active logical storage
Use Google Cloud's official calculator for broader service coverage.
Example workload
Selected services
Checking current pricing…
Capacity and slot pricing, long-term or physical storage, streaming and Storage Write API charges, data transfer, other Google Cloud services, taxes, and negotiated discounts are excluded.
Estimate based on public list pricing. This is not an official vendor quote.
Published pricing reference
These published rates are the inputs to the calculator. Taxes and negotiated discounts are excluded.
| Component | Rate and unit | Commitment and region | Verified | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Query processing | $6.25 USD per 1 TiB | Google Cloud · Iowa (us-central1) · On demand | Nov 9, 2026 | Official source |
| Active logical storage | $0.023 USD per 1 GiB | Google Cloud · Iowa (us-central1) · On demand · Active logical storage | Nov 9, 2026 | Official source |
Estimate assumptions
Google Cloud · Iowa (us-central1) · On-demand analysis · Active logical storage
View assumptions and exclusions
- Query input is aggregate billed bytes after Google's per-query and per-table minimums and rounding, but before any remaining monthly allowance.
- Storage input is average active logical storage for the month. No remaining free allowance is assumed unless you enter it.
Capacity and slot pricing, long-term or physical storage, streaming and Storage Write API charges, data transfer, other Google Cloud services, taxes, and negotiated discounts are excluded.
Additional metered services
Show full plan details
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| Operation | Published rate | Condition |
|---|---|---|
Streaming inserts | $0.01 per 200 MiB | Only successfully inserted rows are charged; individual rows have a 1 KB minimum. |
BigQuery Storage Write API | $0.025 per 1 GiB | The first 2 TiB per month are free. |
Streaming reads | Starting at $1.10 per TiB read | Streaming reads of table data use the Storage Read API. |
- Vendor source · Observed · Stored official website capture for google-bigquery. Claim-focused literal span 16000:20000 of 58089 characters; omitted text is not evidence. Review retained billing conditions against these excerpts.
Buying take
For variable query workloads, start by estimating bytes read and use on-demand controls such as daily quotas and maximum bytes billed. If predictable capacity management is the priority, evaluate reservations and capacity pricing, and set a maximum slot count that fits the workload.