Pay per minute.
Not per commit.
Databasin is an AI-native data ecosystem that replaces the warehouse-plus-ETL-plus-BI-plus-AI stack with one post-pay, per-minute meter. Everything lands on open Apache Iceberg by default. HIPAA is in the base SKU, and you can run it in our cloud or your own.
Everything you bought Snowflake for, plus the things you had to buy around it.
Snowflake is a warehouse. Databasin is the ecosystem. The stack you assembled to make Snowflake useful is already inside it, metered by the minute: the ETL tool, the BI seat, the notebook license, the AI add-on.
Stopped clusters cost $0. There are no "credits that aren't dollars" and no annual true-up conversations. Turn it off, it's off.
Open Apache Iceberg tables on open Parquet files. Query them from Trino, Spark, Doris, DuckDB, or bring your own. Leaving is not a migration project, because your data is already portable.
Databasin One is an agentic analyst built in, running Claude + GPT with full catalog awareness. It isn't a credit-priced add-on. Ask a question, ship the chart.
Co-created at Washington University School of Medicine, with a BAA available and no "Business Critical" tier upgrade to buy. Compliance is not a premium line item.
SaaS, or self-installed into your own Azure tenant with your keys and VNets. Same ecosystem, same features. Zero vendor logical access, if you want it.
Pipelines, lakehouse compute, AI tokens, storage, and dashboards on one bill. Not three vendors and a procurement deck.
The math fits in one table.
Published list prices, apples to apples: Snowflake Enterprise on-demand against Databasin consumption rates. Every line is a real SKU you can verify at the source.
| Capability | Databasin | Snowflake (Enterprise) |
|---|---|---|
| Query compute — small | $2.00/hr · XSmall, per node | $3.00/hr · XS warehouse (1 credit/hr) |
| Query compute — medium | $4.00/hr · per node | $12.00/hr · M warehouse (4 credits/hr) |
| Data pipelines (ETL/ELT) | ✓$5.00/hr · included in the ecosystem | —Not included · add Fivetran, Matillion, or Airbyte |
| AI / natural-language analyst | ✓$0.015 / 1K tokens · Databasin One, built in | —Cortex AI · credit-metered add-on SKU |
| BI / dashboards | ✓Included · Reportbasin + Databasin One | —Not included · add Tableau, Power BI, Sigma |
| Storage | $24 / TB / mo · snapshot-metered | ~$23 / TB / mo compressed · proprietary format |
| Table format | ✓Apache Iceberg + Parquet · open, any engine reads it | Proprietary FDN · Iceberg support exists but as a managed overlay |
| Billing model | ✓Pay-per-minute, post-pay, no commit | Credits, typically pre-purchased with annual commit |
| Billing granularity | ✓Per-minute · stopped clusters bill nothing | Per-second, with a 60-second minimum each time a warehouse resumes |
| HIPAA / BAA | ✓Base plan · BAA available | Business Critical tier (higher credit price) |
| Deployment | ✓SaaS or self-install in your own Azure tenant | SaaS only · multi-tenant account on Snowflake's infra |
| Seat / user fees | ✓None | None on warehouse · but you still pay per seat on Tableau/PBI |
A 4-node medium cluster, 8 hrs/day, 20 days/month, with pipelines and BI included, lands around $2,717/month on Databasin. The equivalent stack typically runs $5,300–5,600+.
Competitor pricing reflects published on-demand list prices for Azure regions as of early 2026. Actual costs vary by region, contract terms, and committed-use discounts. Verify at snowflake.com/pricing. Snowflake rates shown assume Enterprise edition at $3.00 / credit.
All the analytics workload for half the monthly bill.
4-node medium cluster, 8 hours/day, 20 business days/month. Pipelines run 60 min/day. 500 GB stored, and two BI seats for business users.
Storage: $12 · AI (Databasin One): $45
BI & dashboards: $0 (included)
Tableau (2 seats): ~$1,750 · Storage: $12
Cortex AI: add-on, credit-priced
Four reasons Finance and Engineering
land on the same answer.
Snowflake is still a warehouse. Databasin is a lakehouse, a pipeline engine, an agentic analyst, and a BI surface. One governance layer sits over all of it.
Open storage, actually.
Every table is written as Apache Iceberg on Parquet, in your lake. Trino, Spark, Doris, DuckDB, or any engine you bring can read it without copies, rewrites, or format conversion.
Flexible where it runs.
Take our SaaS, or self-install Databasin into your own Azure tenant with your keys, your VNets, and zero vendor logical access to your data. Same product in both modes.
Secure by default, not by tier.
Built inside an academic medical center. HIPAA-ready and BAA-available on the standard plan, with row-level security, column masking, and audit in the base product.
Intelligent, not bolted on.
Databasin One is an agentic analyst built into the ecosystem: Claude + GPT, with full catalog awareness. It picks the tables, writes the SQL, renders the chart, and explains its work.
The line items Snowflake
hopes you don't total up.
Snowflake's sticker rate is the warehouse credit. The bill you actually sign is the warehouse plus the ETL tool plus the BI seats plus the AI add-on plus the annual commit minimum. Databasin replaces that stack with one ecosystem, one meter, one invoice.
Try the disruptor.
$50 in credits. No card, no annual commit, no per-seat anything. Load real data, run a real query, and ask Databasin One to build you a real dashboard. Before lunch.