A Snowflake credit is the unit Snowflake uses to measure compute. On demand in AWS US East, one credit costs $2.00 on Standard Edition, $3.00 on Enterprise and $4.00 on Business Critical. Warehouses, serverless features and cloud services all use credits; storage and data transfer do not. This guide covers what a credit costs, what uses credits, how to turn credits into dollars, and how to see where yours go. Every fact and figure in this guide was checked against Snowflake’s documentation.
This article is part of our Snowflake pricing guide, which explains every part of a Snowflake bill.
What is a Snowflake credit?
A Snowflake credit is a unit of compute. Snowflake measures the work done by warehouses, serverless features and cloud services in credits, then charges you a dollar price for each credit. Snowflake’s price list now calls them Platform Credits, to tell them apart from the AI Credits used for its AI features.
Not everything on a Snowflake bill is paid in credits:
| Paid in credits | Not paid in credits |
|---|---|
| Virtual warehouses running queries | Storage (billed per TB per month) |
| Serverless features such as Snowpipe, clustering and tasks | Data transfer out of your region or cloud (billed per TB) |
| Cloud services above 10% of daily warehouse use | AI features (billed in AI Credits) |
How much does a Snowflake credit cost?
The price of a credit depends on your edition, your cloud and region, and whether you pay on demand or through a capacity contract. These are Snowflake’s on-demand list prices in AWS US East:
| Edition | Price per credit, on demand, AWS US East |
|---|---|
| Standard | $2.00 |
| Enterprise | $3.00 |
| Business Critical | $4.00 |
| Virtual Private Snowflake | $6.00, plus an annual fee per deployment |
- Region and cloud change the price. The same edition costs more in some regions; Standard costs $2.60 per credit in AWS EU (Frankfurt) on demand.
- A capacity contract sets its own rate. If you buy capacity, the credit rate in your order form replaces the list price.
- AI Credits are priced separately. An AI Credit costs $2.00 with global routing and $2.20 with regional routing, the same in every edition.
All prices come from Snowflake’s Service Consumption Table, effective 15 October 2026.
Does a credit cost more on a higher edition?
Yes. A warehouse uses the same number of credits per hour on every edition, but each credit costs more on a higher edition. The same workload that uses 1,000 credits costs $2,000 on Standard, $3,000 on Enterprise and $4,000 on Business Critical at list price in AWS US East.
What uses Snowflake credits?
Three things use credits: virtual warehouses, serverless features and cloud services.
- Virtual warehouses use credits for every second they run, at a rate set by their size. An X-Small uses 1 credit per hour and each size up doubles it.
- Serverless features run on compute that Snowflake manages, and each has its own rate. Snowpipe, for example, uses 0.0037 credits per GB loaded, and classic Automatic Clustering uses 2 credits per compute-hour. See what Snowflake serverless features cost.
- Cloud services (metadata, query compilation, logins) use credits too, but you are billed only for the part of each day’s use above 10% of that day’s warehouse credits.
How many credits does a warehouse use per hour?
An X-Small warehouse uses 1 credit per hour, and each size up doubles that, up to 512 credits per hour for a 6X-Large. Gen2 warehouses, now the default for new standard warehouses, use 1.35 times as many credits per hour on AWS and GCP and 1.25 times as many on Azure.
| Size | Gen1 | Gen2, AWS and GCP |
|---|---|---|
| X-Small | 1 | 1.35 |
| Small | 2 | 2.7 |
| Medium | 4 | 5.4 |
| Large | 8 | 10.8 |
| X-Large | 16 | 21.6 |
The full table, from X-Small to 6X-Large, is in Snowflake warehouse sizes and credits per hour.
How are credits billed?
Warehouse credits are billed per second, with a 60-second minimum each time a warehouse starts or resumes. A warehouse keeps using credits while it is running, even when no query is running, until it suspends.
Two examples at Gen1 rates:
- An X-Small that resumes for a 5-second query is billed for 60 seconds: 1 credit per hour x 60 seconds = 0.017 credits.
- A Medium that runs for 30 minutes and then sits idle for the default 10 minutes before it suspends is billed for 40 minutes: 4 credits per hour x 40 minutes = 2.67 credits.
The idle minutes cost the same as the busy ones. That is why the AUTO_SUSPEND setting matters as much as warehouse size.
How do you convert Snowflake credits to dollars?
Multiply your credits by the price per credit for your edition, region and contract:
Cost in dollars = credits used x price per credit
For example, 1,000 credits on Enterprise Edition, on demand in AWS US East, cost 1,000 x $3.00 = $3,000.
If your organization has access to the ORGANIZATION_USAGE views, Snowflake does the conversion for you. The USAGE_IN_CURRENCY_DAILY view shows each day’s usage in your billing currency, at your actual rates:
-- Daily spend in your currency, by account and service type
SELECT usage_date,
account_name,
service_type,
SUM(usage_in_currency) AS spend
FROM snowflake.organization_usage.usage_in_currency_daily
WHERE usage_date >= DATEADD(day, -30, CURRENT_DATE())
GROUP BY 1, 2, 3
ORDER BY 1, 4 DESC;Querying it needs the GLOBALORGADMIN role in the organization account, or ACCOUNTADMIN in an account with ORGADMIN enabled. Customers who buy Snowflake through a reseller cannot query it, and its data can be up to 72 hours behind.
How many Snowflake credits do you need?
Add up the hours each warehouse runs, multiply by its credits per hour, and add serverless features on top. For example, a Gen2 Medium warehouse that runs 6 hours a day, 22 working days a month, uses:
6 hours x 22 days x 5.4 credits per hour = 712.8 credits a month, or about $2,140 a month on Enterprise at list price.
Include idle time up to each warehouse’s AUTO_SUSPEND setting, and the extra clusters of any multi-cluster warehouse. Our Snowflake pricing guide walks through three full example bills.
How do you see where your credits go?
The METERING_DAILY_HISTORY view shows the credits you were billed each day, split by type of service. It is the fastest way to see whether warehouses, serverless features or cloud services are using your credits:
-- Credits billed by service type, last 30 days
SELECT service_type,
SUM(credits_billed) AS credits_billed
FROM snowflake.account_usage.metering_daily_history
WHERE usage_date >= DATEADD(day, -30, CURRENT_DATE())
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 2 DESC;To see which warehouses use the most credits:
-- Credits by warehouse, last 30 days
SELECT warehouse_name,
SUM(credits_used) AS credits_used
FROM snowflake.account_usage.warehouse_metering_history
WHERE start_time >= DATEADD(day, -30, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP())
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 2 DESC;WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY reports credits before the cloud services adjustment, so its totals can be slightly higher than what you are billed. For the cost of individual queries, see our cost per query guide.
Do Snowflake credits expire?
It depends on how you got them.
- Trial credits expire. The Snowflake free trial lasts 30 days or until the free balance runs out, whichever comes first, and Snowflake advertises it as $400 of free credits.
- On-demand usage is simply billed each month in arrears, so there is nothing to expire.
- Capacity contracts are bought for a term. Snowflake says customers may be able to roll unused capacity over to a new contract, generally when they buy additional capacity at renewal. Usage beyond your capacity is billed at on-demand prices. The exact terms are in your order form.
If you are on a capacity contract, the useful question is how much you will have used by the end of the term. Our contract planning guide covers how to answer it before renewal.
How do you use fewer Snowflake credits?
Most wasted credits come from warehouses that run longer or bigger than the work needs.
- Suspend warehouses sooner. Lower AUTO_SUSPEND on warehouses with bursty use, so they stop billing soon after the last query.
- Right-size warehouses. Move workloads that do not need a large warehouse to a smaller one, and resize back after temporary spikes. See warehouses that never got resized back.
- Check serverless features. Clustering, materialized views and search optimization keep using credits on tables nobody queries any more.
- Set budgets and resource monitors. Resource monitors can suspend warehouses at a credit limit; budgets cover serverless features too.
For the full list, see our complete guide to Snowflake cost optimization.
How Seemore helps you track credit use
Seemore’s Contract Utilization shows how much of your Snowflake contract you have used, where your current usage is projecting you to land, and whether that means overage, so you can act before the invoice arrives. See the Seemore platform.
Frequently asked questions
How much is 1 Snowflake credit in dollars?
On demand in AWS US East, one credit costs $2.00 on Standard, $3.00 on Enterprise and $4.00 on Business Critical. Some regions cost more, and a capacity contract sets its own rate.
What is a Snowflake credit?
A unit of compute. Warehouses, serverless features and cloud services use credits, and you pay a dollar price per credit set by your edition, region and contract. Storage and data transfer are not paid in credits.
How many Snowflake credits does an X-Small warehouse use?
1 credit per hour for a Gen1 X-Small, billed per second with a 60-second minimum each time it starts or resumes. A Gen2 X-Small uses 1.35 credits per hour on AWS and GCP.
Is Snowflake storage paid in credits?
No. Storage is billed per terabyte per month, about $23 per TB in AWS US East. Credits pay for compute.
What are Snowflake AI Credits?
The unit Snowflake uses to bill its AI features, separate from the credits warehouses use. An AI Credit costs $2.00 with global routing and $2.20 with regional routing, in every edition.
Do Snowflake credits expire?
Trial credits expire after 30 days or when used up. On a capacity contract, Snowflake says unused capacity may roll over, generally when you buy additional capacity at renewal; the terms are in your order form.
