Amazon Redshift vs Snowflake
Data Warehousing pricing comparison · 2026
Amazon Redshift pricing ranges from $0.543–$1.5/month, while Snowflake ranges from $0–$50000/month. These products use different pricing models (Per-seat subscription vs Custom enterprise pricing), so a direct price comparison isn't meaningful — costs depend on usage volume and mix.
Amazon Redshift and Snowflake are the two most established cloud data warehouses. Redshift is AWS's native offering with deep integration into the AWS ecosystem, while Snowflake is cloud-agnostic and runs on AWS, Azure, and GCP. Redshift Serverless starts at $0.375/RPU-hour, and provisioned RA3 nodes run ~$0.26–$1.08/node-hour. Snowflake credits cost ~$2–$4 each depending on edition. Both offer free tiers: Redshift Serverless has a free trial, and Snowflake offers $400 in trial credits.
Plan-by-Plan Pricing
| Plan | Amazon Redshift | Snowflake |
|---|---|---|
| Redshift Serverless | Custom | Custom |
| RA3 Provisioned (Managed Storage) | Custom | Custom |
| DC2 Provisioned (Dense Compute) | Custom | Custom |
| Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS) | — | Custom |
Cost at Scale
Total cost of ownership — licenses, implementation, and hidden costs included.
Amazon Redshift
4 scenariosSnowflake
6 scenariosOur Verdict
Choose Amazon Redshift if you're deeply invested in AWS (S3, Glue, SageMaker, Kinesis), need predictable provisioned cluster pricing, or want the lowest egress costs within AWS. Redshift's tight AWS integration reduces data movement costs significantly.
Choose Snowflake if you need multi-cloud flexibility, have teams across AWS and Azure/GCP, or require Snowflake's mature data sharing and marketplace features. Snowflake's compute-storage separation is often simpler to manage than Redshift's node-based architecture.
Frequently Asked Questions
01 Is Redshift cheaper than Snowflake?
For AWS-native workloads with predictable volume, Redshift provisioned clusters can be cheaper than Snowflake. RA3.xlplus nodes at ~$0.26/node-hour can undercut Snowflake for steady-state workloads. However, Snowflake's auto-suspend feature (pausing compute when idle) can make it cheaper for intermittent workloads.
02 Which is easier to manage: Redshift or Snowflake?
Snowflake is generally easier to manage. There's no cluster resizing, VACUUM, or ANALYZE maintenance. Redshift Serverless reduces operational overhead, but provisioned Redshift still requires table design decisions (sort keys, distribution keys) that Snowflake handles automatically.
03 Can Redshift query data in S3 like Snowflake queries external stages?
Yes. Redshift Spectrum queries S3 data directly at $5/TB scanned. Snowflake External Tables query S3, Azure Blob, or GCS. Both approaches allow querying raw data without loading it, though Redshift Spectrum is more cost-effective for AWS-native data lakes.