# Google BigQuery vs Amazon Redshift

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/bigquery-vs-aws-redshift/

Every value below is read from Google BigQuery's and Amazon Redshift's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Google BigQuery | Amazon Redshift |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| What the free plan includes | 1 tebibyte of query data processed a month and 10 gibibytes of storage, both renewing monthly rather than expiring. The only standing free allowance of the four — the others offer a trial or a credit. | A two-month free trial for provisioned clusters, capped at 750 hours a month — so one cluster running continuously exhausts it almost exactly. Serverless is offered with a credit instead, drawn down at a rate that depends on the endpoint capacity. |
| Entry paid plan | Nothing until the second tebibyte. Queries are $6.25 per tebibyte scanned above the free tier, with no cluster, node or plan fee underneath — the only member here where a small workload genuinely costs zero. | $0.543 an hour for a provisioned cluster, or $1.50 an hour for serverless — about $391 and $1,080 a month if left running. Serverless shuts down when idle and bills per second with a 60-second minimum, so the higher hourly rate can be the cheaper one. |
| Pricing model | Two compute models. On-demand bills the bytes each query processes, at $6.25 per tebibyte. Capacity bills slot-hours — reserved virtual CPUs — regardless of what the queries read. The first model punishes unselective queries and the second punishes idle capacity, and the choice is made per account rather than per query. | Two deployment options priced on time rather than data. Provisioned bills per node-hour for a cluster you size yourself; Serverless bills Redshift Processing Unit hours per second, with a 60-second minimum and no charge for start-up time, shutting down when inactive. Managed storage is billed independently of compute in both. |
| Storage price | $0.000031507 per gibibyte-hour for active logical storage and $0.000021918 for long-term, with the first 10 GiB free each month. Quoted hourly to nine decimal places; the page does not convert it to a monthly figure and neither does this record. | Redshift Managed Storage grows independently of compute, so a cluster can be sized for query performance without over-provisioning disk. The page states the separation as the design point rather than quoting one rate for it. |

## Where they differ

### What the free plan includes

- Google BigQuery: 1 tebibyte of query data processed a month and 10 gibibytes of storage, both renewing monthly rather than expiring. The only standing free allowance of the four — the others offer a trial or a credit. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing))
- Amazon Redshift: A two-month free trial for provisioned clusters, capped at 750 hours a month — so one cluster running continuously exhausts it almost exactly. Serverless is offered with a credit instead, drawn down at a rate that depends on the endpoint capacity. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/pricing/))

### Entry paid plan

- Google BigQuery: Nothing until the second tebibyte. Queries are $6.25 per tebibyte scanned above the free tier, with no cluster, node or plan fee underneath — the only member here where a small workload genuinely costs zero. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing))
- Amazon Redshift: $0.543 an hour for a provisioned cluster, or $1.50 an hour for serverless — about $391 and $1,080 a month if left running. Serverless shuts down when idle and bills per second with a 60-second minimum, so the higher hourly rate can be the cheaper one. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/pricing/))

### Pricing model

- Google BigQuery: Two compute models. On-demand bills the bytes each query processes, at $6.25 per tebibyte. Capacity bills slot-hours — reserved virtual CPUs — regardless of what the queries read. The first model punishes unselective queries and the second punishes idle capacity, and the choice is made per account rather than per query. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing))
- Amazon Redshift: Two deployment options priced on time rather than data. Provisioned bills per node-hour for a cluster you size yourself; Serverless bills Redshift Processing Unit hours per second, with a 60-second minimum and no charge for start-up time, shutting down when inactive. Managed storage is billed independently of compute in both. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/pricing/))

### Storage price

- Google BigQuery: $0.000031507 per gibibyte-hour for active logical storage and $0.000021918 for long-term, with the first 10 GiB free each month. Quoted hourly to nine decimal places; the page does not convert it to a monthly figure and neither does this record. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/pricing))
- Amazon Redshift: Redshift Managed Storage grows independently of compute, so a cluster can be sized for query performance without over-provisioning disk. The page states the separation as the design point rather than quoting one rate for it. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Google BigQuery if Queries that are occasional or selective. Nothing is provisioned, the first tebibyte scanned each month is free, and a workload that runs twice a week costs nothing between runs — the only member here where a small warehouse genuinely bills zero.

Pick Amazon Redshift if Constant, predictable query load already inside AWS. At $0.543 an hour a provisioned cluster costs the same whether it serves one query or a million, so heavy continuous use is where the hourly model pays.

Consider something else: Google BigQuery — Your queries scan more than they return. Billing is on bytes READ, not rows produced, so $6.25 per tebibyte is a tax on unselective SQL and a dashboard refreshing every minute against a wide table is the expensive shape.

Consider something else: Amazon Redshift — The warehouse sits idle. A provisioned cluster bills around $391 a month doing nothing; serverless shuts down when inactive but starts at $1.50 an hour, so the cheaper rate and the cheaper bill are not the same option.

## Documented by only one

- Query price: Google BigQuery: $6.25 per tebibyte of data processed, after the first tebibyte each month. Charged on bytes READ, not rows returned, so the cost of a query is a property of the table scan rather than the result.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Google BigQuery or Amazon Redshift?**

Google BigQuery: Nothing until the second tebibyte. Queries are $6.25 per tebibyte scanned above the free tier, with no cluster, node or plan fee underneath — the only member here where a small workload genuinely costs zero.
Amazon Redshift: $0.543 an hour for a provisioned cluster, or $1.50 an hour for serverless — about $391 and $1,080 a month if left running. Serverless shuts down when idle and bills per second with a 60-second minimum, so the higher hourly rate can be the cheaper one.

**Should I choose Google BigQuery or Amazon Redshift?**

Pick Google BigQuery if Queries that are occasional or selective. Nothing is provisioned, the first tebibyte scanned each month is free, and a workload that runs twice a week costs nothing between runs — the only member here where a small warehouse genuinely bills zero.
Pick Amazon Redshift if Constant, predictable query load already inside AWS. At $0.543 an hour a provisioned cluster costs the same whether it serves one query or a million, so heavy continuous use is where the hourly model pays.