{
  "name": "BigQuery",
  "slug": "bigquery",
  "pricingModel": "paid",
  "normalized": {
    "currency": "USD",
    "entry": {
      "plan": "Editions",
      "perMonth": 0.04,
      "unit": "unknown",
      "unitNoun": null,
      "billing": "unknown",
      "free": false,
      "contactSales": false
    },
    "plans": [
      {
        "plan": "Free Tier",
        "perMonth": null,
        "unit": "unknown",
        "unitNoun": null,
        "billing": "unknown",
        "free": false,
        "contactSales": true
      },
      {
        "plan": "On-Demand",
        "perMonth": 6.25,
        "unit": "unknown",
        "unitNoun": null,
        "billing": "unknown",
        "free": false,
        "contactSales": false
      },
      {
        "plan": "Editions",
        "perMonth": 0.04,
        "unit": "unknown",
        "unitNoun": null,
        "billing": "unknown",
        "free": false,
        "contactSales": false
      }
    ],
    "hasFreePlan": false,
    "hasFreeTrial": true,
    "contactSalesOnly": false
  },
  "pricingDetails": {
    "notes": "Long-term storage 50% cheaper after 90 days",
    "tiers": [
      {
        "name": "Free Tier",
        "price": null,
        "features": [
          "10 GiB storage/month",
          "1 TiB queries/month",
          "All core features",
          "No credit card"
        ],
        "description": "Usage-based pricing"
      },
      {
        "name": "On-Demand",
        "price": 6.25,
        "period": "per TB",
        "features": [
          "First 1 TB free",
          "2,000 concurrent slots",
          "Standard support",
          "No commitment"
        ],
        "description": "Pay-as-you-go",
        "highlighted": true
      },
      {
        "name": "Editions",
        "price": 0.04,
        "period": "per slot-hour",
        "features": [
          "Predictable costs",
          "Reserved capacity",
          "Up to 3-year discounts",
          "Enterprise features"
        ],
        "description": "Capacity pricing"
      }
    ],
    "currency": "USD",
    "hasFreeTrial": true,
    "billingPeriod": "usage",
    "startingPrice": 0,
    "pricingPageUrl": "https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing"
  },
  "costFacts": null,
  "pricesByRegion": null,
  "verdict": "BigQuery's on-demand pricing ($6.25/TiB queried) with 1 TiB free per month is one of the most generous free tiers in cloud data warehousing. For small-to-medium analytics workloads, you can genuinely run BigQuery for free or near-free. The Editions model (Standard/Enterprise/Enterprise Plus) with slot-based pricing offers predictability for teams running consistent workloads. Storage is cheap ($0.02/GB active, $0.01/GB long-term). The biggest cost trap: streaming inserts at $0.05/GB and queries scanning more data than expected because of schema design.",
  "bestFor": "On-Demand ($6.25/TiB, 1 TiB free/mo): No upfront commitment, no slots to manage, 1 TiB free queries per month. A startup querying 500GB/mo pays exactly $0. Best for unpredictable, bursty query patterns. 100 baseline slots handle most mid-size data teams. Auto-scaling available for burst capacity. No per-TiB surprises. | Enterprise Edition ($0.06/slot-hour, with commitment discounts): Column-level security, customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), BigQuery ML, BI Engine for fast dashboards. 1-year and 3-year commitments reduce per-slot cost by 20-37%. | Enterprise Plus ($0.10/slot-hour): Data residency guarantees, VPC Service Controls, advanced governance, and 99.99% SLA (vs 99.9% on Standard/Enterprise).",
  "hiddenCosts": [
    "Streaming inserts cost $0.05/GB, separate from query costs.",
    "Storage costs are per-GB: active storage at $0.02/GB-month, long-term at $0.01/GB.",
    "Slot auto-scaling can spike costs: Enterprise auto-scaling allocates additional slots on demand at the standard hourly rate.",
    "BI Engine (in-memory acceleration) costs $0.04/GB-hour for reserved capacity.",
    "Data transfer egress: querying BigQuery from outside GCP (e.g., Looker Studio on another cloud) incurs standard GCP egress fees ($0.08-0.12/GB). Cross-region queries within GCP also have transfer costs",
    "Minimum 10MB billed per table referenced: a query touching 50 small tables is billed for at least 500MB even if actual data scanned is 1MB",
    "Flat-rate (Edition) pricing requires commitment slots that are billed 24/7 whether used or not."
  ],
  "recentChanges": [],
  "priceHistory": [
    {
      "date": "2024-11-01",
      "entryPrice": null,
      "plans": [
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (AWS North Virginia)",
          "price": "$7.82/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (Azure North Virginia)",
          "price": "$9.13/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (AWS Seoul)",
          "price": "$10.00/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (AWS Oregon)",
          "price": "$7.82/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (AWS Ireland)",
          "price": "$8.60/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (AWS Sydney)",
          "price": "$10.55/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "On-Demand (AWS Frankfurt)",
          "price": "$10.16/TiB"
        }
      ],
      "source": "archive",
      "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20241101185147id_/https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing"
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-05-06",
      "entryPrice": null,
      "plans": [
        {
          "name": "On-Demand compute pricing",
          "price": "$7.82/TiB"
        }
      ],
      "source": "archive",
      "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250506203133id_/https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing"
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-11-02",
      "entryPrice": null,
      "plans": [
        {
          "name": "Queries (on-demand)",
          "price": "$6.25 / tebibyte/month"
        },
        {
          "name": "Standard Edition",
          "price": "$0.04 / slot/hour"
        },
        {
          "name": "Enterprise Edition",
          "price": "$0.06 / slot/hour"
        }
      ],
      "source": "archive",
      "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251102104000id_/https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing"
    },
    {
      "date": "2026-05-04",
      "entryPrice": null,
      "plans": [
        {
          "name": "On-demand (per TiB)",
          "price": "$6.25/TiB"
        },
        {
          "name": "Standard Edition",
          "price": "$0.04/slot/hour"
        },
        {
          "name": "Enterprise Edition",
          "price": "$0.06/slot/hour"
        }
      ],
      "source": "archive",
      "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260504104549id_/https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing"
    }
  ],
  "partnerLink": false,
  "provenance": {
    "lastVerifiedAt": "2026-10-30",
    "sourceUrl": "https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing",
    "confidence": "high"
  },
  "source": "Toolradar",
  "citation": "Toolradar, verified 2026-10-30, https://toolradar.com/tools/bigquery/pricing",
  "affiliateUrl": "https://toolradar.com/api/go/bigquery?ref=mcp&key=json",
  "toolradarUrl": "https://toolradar.com/tools/bigquery/pricing"
}