# Google BigQuery vs MotherDuck

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/bigquery-vs-motherduck/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Google BigQuery | MotherDuck |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | Up to 3 internal active users and 2 service accounts, 10 GB of storage and 10 hours of Pulse compute a month, with community support and preset role-based access control. A standing plan rather than a trial. |
| 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. | $250 per organisation per month, plus usage. Priced on the organisation rather than on data or time — the only member here where adding a query, a gigabyte or an hour does not change the floor. |
| 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. | Per organisation per month plus usage, with seats rather than scans as the limiting dimension: up to 10 internal active users on Business against 3 on Lite, and unlimited service accounts. Five instance types and read-scaling replicas sit above that. |

## 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))
- MotherDuck: Up to 3 internal active users and 2 service accounts, 10 GB of storage and 10 hours of Pulse compute a month, with community support and preset role-based access control. A standing plan rather than a trial. ([source](https://motherduck.com/product/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))
- MotherDuck: $250 per organisation per month, plus usage. Priced on the organisation rather than on data or time — the only member here where adding a query, a gigabyte or an hour does not change the floor. ([source](https://motherduck.com/product/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))
- MotherDuck: Per organisation per month plus usage, with seats rather than scans as the limiting dimension: up to 10 internal active users on Business against 3 on Lite, and unlimited service accounts. Five instance types and read-scaling replicas sit above that. ([source](https://motherduck.com/product/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 MotherDuck if Analytics that fit on one machine, priced per organisation rather than per query: $250 a month flat plus usage, so adding a query, a gigabyte or an hour does not move the floor. A 99.9% SLA comes with it.

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: MotherDuck — You have more than ten people or need an SLA cheaply. Business caps internal active users at ten, and both the SLA and custom roles arrive only at $250 — the free Lite plan allows three users and publishes no availability commitment.

## Documented by only one

- Uptime SLA: MotherDuck: 99.9% availability on the Business plan. Nothing is published for Lite, so the SLA arrives with the $250 fee rather than with the product.
- 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.
- 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 MotherDuck?**

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.
MotherDuck: $250 per organisation per month, plus usage. Priced on the organisation rather than on data or time — the only member here where adding a query, a gigabyte or an hour does not change the floor.

**Should I choose Google BigQuery or MotherDuck?**

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 MotherDuck if Analytics that fit on one machine, priced per organisation rather than per query: $250 a month flat plus usage, so adding a query, a gigabyte or an hour does not move the floor. A 99.9% SLA comes with it.