Snowflake vs Redshift: Pricing, Architecture, and Which Data Warehouse to Choose
A straight comparison of Snowflake and Amazon Redshift, the two cloud warehouses most teams weigh against each other, with prices we verified. We connect to Snowflake, so we are upfront below about where that colors the view.
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Direct answer
Snowflake is a multi-cloud warehouse that fully separates storage from compute and bills per-second credits, from $2 per credit on Standard to $4 on Business Critical, plus about $23 per TB per month for storage. Redshift is AWS-native and gives you a choice: serverless at about $0.375 per RPU-hour, or provisioned RA3 clusters from about $0.543 an hour that you size and run. Snowflake suits teams that want near-zero management, elastic concurrency and the option to run on any cloud; Redshift suits teams already deep in AWS who want tight S3 and Glue integration and, for steady workloads, a right-sized cluster that can undercut per-query billing. Choose by your cloud, your workload shape and how much infrastructure you want to manage.
Last updated July 2026
›_ side by side
Snowflake vs Redshift, honestly.
| Dimension | Snowflake (Snowflake) | Redshift (AWS) |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud | Runs on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud with the same pricing on each. | AWS only. Native to the Amazon stack. |
| Architecture | Storage and compute fully separated. Spin up independent virtual warehouses per workload, auto-suspend when idle. | Serverless option, or provisioned RA3 clusters you size, run and tune. |
| Compute price | Per-second credits: $2 (Standard), $3 (Enterprise), $4 (Business Critical) per credit. | Serverless about $0.375 per RPU-hour (US East); RA3 clusters from about $0.543/hour. |
| Storage price | About $23 per TB per month (AWS US East), billed separately from compute. | Redshift Managed Storage $0.024 per GB per month (US East), about $24 per TB. |
| Billing granularity | Per second with a 60-second minimum each time a warehouse resumes. | Per second with a 60-second minimum on serverless; per hour on provisioned. |
| Concurrency | Multi-cluster warehouses scale out automatically to handle many concurrent users. | Concurrency Scaling adds temporary capacity; provisioned clusters can queue under load. |
| Management | Near-zero. No indexes or vacuuming; the platform handles tuning. | Serverless is low-touch; provisioned RA3 needs sizing, monitoring and pausing. |
| Who it suits | Teams wanting hands-off ops, elastic concurrency, data sharing, or multi-cloud freedom. | AWS shops with steady workloads who want deep S3/Glue integration and a tunable cluster. |
Comparison reflects our understanding of publicly available information and is meant to be fair, including where each tool beats us. Vendors evolve; verify the latest before deciding.
›_ what it costs
Snowflake vs Redshift pricing.
| Plan | Snowflake | Redshift |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 30-day trial with credits; no ongoing free tier | No ongoing free query tier; trial credits for new accounts |
| Compute (entry) | $2 per credit on Standard, per-second billing | Serverless about $0.375 per RPU-hour (US East) |
| Compute (higher tier) | $3 Enterprise, $4 Business Critical per credit | RA3 clusters from about $0.543 per hour |
| Storage | About $23 per TB per month (AWS US East) | $0.024 per GB per month (RMS, US East) |
| Billing basis | Per-second credits per running virtual warehouse | Per-second (serverless) or per-hour (provisioned) |
| Commitment discount | Capacity contracts cut rates roughly 20% to 45% | Serverless reservations save up to 24% (1 yr) or 45% (3 yr) |
Snowflake prices were reconfirmed on 24 July 2026 (Standard $2, Enterprise $3, Business Critical $4 per credit; storage about $23 per TB per month, AWS US East). Redshift prices were verified from AWS and independent sources on 19 July 2026 for US East (N. Virginia). Cloud pricing changes and varies by region, and capacity commitments cut the rates, so confirm current numbers before you commit.
›_ the call
Which one should you pick?
01
Choose Snowflake if
You want the warehouse to manage itself, your query load is spiky or has bursts of concurrent users, or you want the freedom to run on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud rather than being tied to one. Snowflake separates storage from compute, so you can run a small warehouse for reporting and a large one for a nightly load without them fighting for resources, and each auto-suspends when idle. The trade is that per-second credits reward discipline: a warehouse left running, or sized too large, quietly burns credits.
02
Choose Redshift if
You are already deep in AWS and your data lives in S3, Glue and the rest of the Amazon stack. Tight native integration and, for a steady all-day workload, a right-sized RA3 cluster that can be cheaper than per-query or per-credit billing are the real draws. You pay for that with operational work: someone sizes the cluster, watches it, and pauses it when idle, or leans on serverless to hand some of that back.
03
Either warehouse, then the questions problem
Whichever you pick, the warehouse only stores and serves the data. Getting answers out still means someone writes SQL or builds a dashboard. If your bottleneck is that people wait on an analyst for every one-off question, the choice of warehouse does not touch that. Agentsql connects read-only to Snowflake, turns plain-English questions into SQL and returns the answer, which is a different job from the warehouse itself.
What is the main difference between Snowflake and Redshift?
The core difference is management and cloud lock-in. Snowflake is a fully managed, multi-cloud warehouse that separates storage from compute completely: you spin up virtual warehouses of any size for any workload, they auto-suspend when idle, and there are no indexes to build or tables to vacuum. Redshift is AWS-native, and while it now has a serverless option, its provisioned RA3 model, where you size and run a cluster, is still where much of its cost control and its operational work live.
That design choice shapes everything downstream. On Snowflake, two teams can run heavy queries at the same time on separate warehouses without slowing each other down, because compute is isolated per warehouse. On a single provisioned Redshift cluster, concurrent heavy queries compete for the same resources unless you turn on Concurrency Scaling. Snowflake trades that elasticity for a per-credit meter that keeps ticking while a warehouse runs.
The other honest factor is which cloud you already live in. Redshift is the natural warehouse for an AWS shop, wired into S3, Glue and Athena. Snowflake is deliberately cloud-agnostic: the same product and pricing on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, which matters if you are multi-cloud or want to avoid being tied to one vendor. Very few teams choose a warehouse in a vacuum; they choose the one that fits how they already work.
Is Snowflake cheaper than Redshift?
It depends entirely on your workload shape, and anyone who gives you a flat answer is guessing. Snowflake bills per-second credits, from $2 each on Standard to $4 on Business Critical, only while a warehouse is running, so idle time costs nothing beyond storage. Redshift serverless bills about $0.375 per RPU-hour, and a provisioned RA3 cluster starts around $0.543 an hour and runs continuously until you pause it.
For spiky or bursty analytics, Snowflake usually wins, because warehouses auto-suspend and you pay nothing while nobody is querying. For a warehouse hammered all day by dashboards and pipelines, a right-sized provisioned Redshift cluster often wins, because the per-hour cost is fixed while the work it does keeps climbing. The pivot point is utilization: the more hours your warehouse sits busy, the more a fixed cluster favors Redshift.
Storage is close either way. Snowflake storage runs about $23 per TB per month on AWS US East, and Redshift Managed Storage is $0.024 per GB per month, roughly $24 per TB. Storage is rarely the deciding cost. Compute is, and the deciding question is whether your usage is bursty or steady.
How do you control cost on each warehouse?
On Snowflake the levers are warehouse size and runtime. Set aggressive auto-suspend so a warehouse pauses within a minute of going idle, right-size each warehouse to its workload rather than defaulting to large, and use resource monitors to cap credit spend. The most common surprise bill comes from a warehouse left running or sized far bigger than the queries need, because you pay per second it is up.
On Redshift the lever is capacity. Right-size the provisioned cluster to your real workload, use pause and resume so you are not paying for idle compute overnight, and for serverless set a sensible base capacity so a runaway query cannot scale you into a large bill. Reserved commitments cut the rate meaningfully: up to 24% for a one-year serverless reservation and up to 45% for three years, and Snowflake capacity contracts cut credit rates by roughly 20% to 45% in the same way.
Both warehouses reward attention and punish neglect. The teams that get burned are almost always the ones who set it up once and never looked at what the queries were actually costing.
Where Agentsql fits with either warehouse
We connect to Snowflake, so we are not neutral, and we will say so. But the point of this section is not to sell you a warehouse; it is to note what the warehouse does not solve.
A warehouse stores your data and runs the SQL you send it. It does not write that SQL for you. Whether you land on Snowflake or Redshift, someone on the team still has to translate a business question into a query, and the people asking the questions are usually not the people who can write them. That gap is where the days-long wait for an answer comes from.
Agentsql connects read-only to Snowflake (as well as Postgres, MySQL and BigQuery), takes a plain-English question, writes the SQL, runs it, and returns a chart, a table and a one-line answer, with the SQL shown so an analyst can verify it. It does not replace the warehouse or a BI tool; it removes the SQL bottleneck between a question and its answer. It starts at $49 a month.
›_ frequently asked
Snowflake vs Redshift questions, answered.
Is Snowflake cheaper than Redshift?
It depends on your workload. Snowflake bills per-second credits ($2 to $4 each) only while a warehouse runs, so idle time is free and it wins for spiky use. Redshift provisioned RA3 clusters start around $0.543 an hour and run continuously, so a busy, high-utilization warehouse can cost less on Redshift. Model both against your real query pattern before deciding.
What is the difference between Snowflake and Redshift?
Snowflake is a fully managed, multi-cloud warehouse that separates storage from compute and needs almost no tuning. Redshift is AWS-native, with a serverless option plus provisioned RA3 clusters you size and run. Snowflake suits teams wanting hands-off ops and elastic concurrency; Redshift suits AWS shops with steady workloads that want deep S3 and Glue integration.
Does Agentsql connect to Redshift?
No. Agentsql connects to PostgreSQL, MySQL, Snowflake and BigQuery. This page is a neutral comparison of the two warehouses to help you choose, and does not imply a Redshift connection. If you are on Snowflake, Agentsql can turn plain-English questions into SQL against it directly, read-only.
Is Redshift only on AWS?
Yes. Redshift runs only on AWS and is built to integrate tightly with S3, Glue and the rest of the Amazon stack. Snowflake, by contrast, runs on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud with the same product and pricing on each, which matters if you are multi-cloud or want to avoid being tied to a single provider.
Which handles concurrency better, Snowflake or Redshift?
Snowflake generally handles many concurrent users more gracefully out of the box. Its multi-cluster warehouses scale out automatically, and separate workloads run on separate compute so they do not slow each other down. Redshift can queue queries on a single provisioned cluster under heavy load unless you enable Concurrency Scaling, which adds temporary capacity.
Which warehouse is better for a small team?
For most small teams Snowflake is the easier start: nothing to tune, warehouses auto-suspend so idle time is free, and it runs on whichever cloud you prefer. Redshift becomes attractive once you are already deep in AWS or your query volume is steady enough that a small right-sized cluster beats per-second billing.
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