It's About Query Patterns
Snowflake: Best for: variable, bursty workloads. Pricing: compute credits ($2-4/credit). Risk: runaway queries = runaway costs.
BigQuery: Best for: ad-hoc analytical queries. Pricing: $5/TB scanned. Risk: full-table scans on large datasets = expensive.
Redshift: Best for: predictable, steady workloads. Pricing: fixed cluster cost. Risk: over-provisioning for peak = wasted spend during off-peak.
At $10M data budget, choice of warehouse can save or waste $2-3M annually.