Google BigQuery vs Amazon Redshift
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
4 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Google BigQuery 0
Amazon Redshift 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Google BigQuery | Amazon Redshift |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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 | ||
| 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- BigQuery pricing ↗
“The first 1 TiB per month is free.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon Redshift pricing ↗
“Once your two month free trial expires or your usage exceeds 750 hours per month”
Read 2026-09-15 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- BigQuery pricing ↗
“1 tebibyte and above $6.25 / 1 tebibyte, per 1 month / account”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon Redshift pricing ↗
“Redshift Provisioned starts at $0.543 per hour, while Redshift Serverless begins at $1.50 per hour.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- BigQuery pricing ↗
“On-demand pricing (per TiB). With this pricing model, you are charged for the number of bytes processed by each query.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon Redshift pricing ↗
“You pay for the workloads you run in RPU-hours on a per-second basis (with a 60-second minimum charge)”
Read 2026-09-15 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- BigQuery pricing ↗
“Active logical storage $0.000031507 / 1 gibibyte hour”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon Redshift pricing ↗
“Redshift Managed Storage can grow independently of compute resources, preventing over-provisioning.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.