Pick MotherDuck if
solo analysts who will stay on Lite $0 (10 GB + 10 Pulse hours), then buy Business at $250/org/month plus usage when they need Standard+ instances, Flights at scale, and a 99.9% SLA.
Read the MotherDuck pageMotherDuck vs Snowflake
Our take
Pick MotherDuck if solo analysts who will stay on Lite $0 (10 GB + 10 Pulse hours), then buy Business at $250/org/month plus usage when they need Standard+ instances, Flights at scale, and a 99.9% SLA. Pick Snowflake if data teams who will open Snowsight Home and run a first Query data worksheet, then size warehouses against the published $2 / credit worked example (4,464 credits = $8,928 compute on that page).
Best for
MotherDuck Cloud DuckDB metered in CU-hours and GB
Snowflake A warehouse query you bill in credits
Free plan
MotherDuck $0 · no card. Up to 3 internal users and 2 service accounts. 10 GB storage and 10 Pulse hours / month included. Pulse instances only. Preset RBAC. Community support. 1-day snapshots. Lite without a card includes 30 minutes/day of F4 Flights
Snowflake No free plan
Lowest paid
MotherDuck Storage $0.04/mo
Snowflake
Next step up
MotherDuck Flights $0.15/hour
Snowflake
Coding agent
MotherDuck Flights
Snowflake
Runs where
MotherDuck
Snowflake Hosted
Watch out
MotherDuck Lite is Pulse-only
Snowflake Worksheets consume warehouse credits
Last checked
MotherDuck 2026-10-22 · motherduck.com/pricing
Snowflake 2026-10-23 · docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/cost-understanding-overall
Which one, then?
Pick Snowflake if
data teams who will open Snowsight Home and run a first Query data worksheet, then size warehouses against the published $2 / credit worked example (4,464 credits = $8,928 compute on that page).
Read the Snowflake page