Google BigQuery vs Amazon Redshift
Data Warehousing pricing comparison · 2026
Google BigQuery has a free plan and quote-based paid plans, while Amazon Redshift is quote-based. Amazon Redshift is typically 68% more affordable, though your actual cost depends on tier and team size.
Sources & confidence
Every dollar amount and contract clause below traces back to a sourced fact. We don't manufacture composite scores.
Plans at a glance
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What users say
Aggregated, with sample sizes. We use whichever review platform has data.
Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift represent the flagship data warehouse offerings of the two largest cloud providers. BigQuery is fully serverless with no infrastructure to manage; Redshift offers both serverless and provisioned options. Pricing models differ: BigQuery charges $6.25/TB scanned on-demand or flat-rate capacity slots, while Redshift Serverless costs $0.375/RPU-hour and provisioned nodes run $0.26–$1.08/node-hour.
Plan-by-Plan Pricing
| Plan | Google BigQuery | Amazon Redshift |
|---|---|---|
| Free usage tier | Free /month | Custom |
| On-demand compute | Custom | Custom |
| Capacity - Standard edition | Custom | Custom |
| Capacity - Enterprise edition | Custom | — |
| Capacity - Enterprise Plus edition | Custom | — |
Market Intelligence
Google BigQuery
- Median annual cost
- $612
- Based on
- 12 deals
Amazon Redshift
- Median annual cost
- $370
- Based on
- 21 deals
Continue researching
Our Verdict
Choose Google BigQuery if your organization is on Google Cloud, needs true zero-infrastructure management, or runs large ad-hoc queries that benefit from BigQuery's columnar engine. The free 1 TB/month query tier is excellent for exploration.
Choose Amazon Redshift if your data stack is built on AWS, you need tight integration with S3, Glue, and SageMaker, or you run predictable, high-concurrency workloads where provisioned clusters provide cost stability.
Frequently Asked Questions
01 Which is cheaper for petabyte-scale analytics: BigQuery or Redshift?
At petabyte scale, both are comparable but architecturally different. BigQuery capacity pricing (flat-rate slots) and Redshift provisioned clusters can be similarly priced for high-volume workloads. BigQuery's per-TB scan model can be expensive for full-table scans without query optimization.
02 Does BigQuery or Redshift integrate better with BI tools?
Both integrate well with major BI tools like Tableau, Looker, and Power BI. BigQuery has native Looker integration (both owned by Google). Redshift integrates natively with Amazon QuickSight. For third-party BI tools, both are well-supported.