Snowflake Organization Billing: Cross-Account Cost Management in Practice

When you run multiple accounts under a Snowflake Organization, cost visibility and chargeback become critical management challenges. The SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE schema provides views that aggregate compute, storage, and data transfer usage across accounts, all accessible via the ORGADMIN role.

ORGANIZATION_USAGE Schema Overview

The ORGANIZATION_USAGE schema lives inside the SNOWFLAKE database and is accessed via the ORGADMIN role. The primary views are listed below.

Enabling the ORGADMIN Role

-- Enable the ORGADMIN role (run as ACCOUNTADMIN)
USE ROLE ACCOUNTADMIN;

-- Switch to the ORGADMIN role
USE ROLE ORGADMIN;

-- List all accounts in the Organization
SHOW ORGANIZATION ACCOUNTS;

Per-Account Compute Cost Aggregation

-- Per-account and per-warehouse credit consumption (last 30 days)
USE ROLE ORGADMIN;
SELECT
  ACCOUNT_NAME,
  WAREHOUSE_NAME,
  SUM(CREDITS_USED_COMPUTE) AS compute_credits,
  SUM(CREDITS_USED_CLOUD_SERVICES) AS cloud_credits,
  SUM(CREDITS_USED_COMPUTE + CREDITS_USED_CLOUD_SERVICES) AS total_credits
FROM SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE.WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY
WHERE START_TIME >= DATEADD('DAY', -30, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP())
GROUP BY ACCOUNT_NAME, WAREHOUSE_NAME
ORDER BY total_credits DESC;

-- Per-account compute cost trend (daily)
SELECT
  DATE_TRUNC('DAY', START_TIME) AS usage_date,
  ACCOUNT_NAME,
  SUM(CREDITS_USED_COMPUTE) AS daily_compute_credits
FROM SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE.WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY
WHERE START_TIME >= DATEADD('DAY', -90, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP())
GROUP BY usage_date, ACCOUNT_NAME
ORDER BY usage_date, ACCOUNT_NAME;

Per-Account Storage Cost Aggregation

-- Per-account storage usage (recent snapshot)
SELECT
  ACCOUNT_NAME,
  USAGE_DATE,
  AVERAGE_STAGE_BYTES / POWER(1024, 4) AS stage_tb,
  AVERAGE_DATABASE_BYTES / POWER(1024, 4) AS db_tb,
  AVERAGE_FAILSAFE_BYTES / POWER(1024, 4) AS failsafe_tb,
  (AVERAGE_STAGE_BYTES + AVERAGE_DATABASE_BYTES + AVERAGE_FAILSAFE_BYTES)
    / POWER(1024, 4) AS total_tb
FROM SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE.STORAGE_USAGE
WHERE USAGE_DATE >= DATEADD('DAY', -30, CURRENT_DATE())
ORDER BY total_tb DESC;

Currency-Based Cost Analysis (USAGE_IN_CURRENCY_DAILY)

USAGE_IN_CURRENCY_DAILY provides daily costs already converted into currency. This makes it easy to compare spend accurately while accounting for differing credit unit prices.

-- Monthly cost by account and category (currency-based)
SELECT
  ACCOUNT_NAME,
  USAGE_TYPE,
  DATE_TRUNC('MONTH', USAGE_DATE) AS usage_month,
  SUM(USAGE_IN_CURRENCY) AS monthly_cost_usd
FROM SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE.USAGE_IN_CURRENCY_DAILY
WHERE USAGE_DATE >= DATEADD('MONTH', -3, CURRENT_DATE())
GROUP BY ACCOUNT_NAME, USAGE_TYPE, usage_month
ORDER BY usage_month DESC, monthly_cost_usd DESC;

-- Cost category breakdown:
-- compute         : Warehouse compute
-- cloud_services  : Cloud Services Layer
-- storage         : Storage
-- data_transfer   : Cross-region transfer
-- serverless      : Serverless features (Snowpipe, SOS, etc.)

Checking Unit Prices with RATE_SHEET_DAILY

-- Inspect pricing rates for each account
SELECT
  ACCOUNT_NAME,
  USAGE_DATE,
  SERVICE_TYPE,
  EFFECTIVE_RATE,
  CURRENCY
FROM SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE.RATE_SHEET_DAILY
WHERE USAGE_DATE = CURRENT_DATE() - 1
ORDER BY ACCOUNT_NAME, SERVICE_TYPE;

Monitoring Capacity Plan Balance

-- Capacity contract balance over time
SELECT
  DATE,
  ORGANIZATION_NAME,
  CURRENCY,
  FREE_USAGE_BALANCE,
  CAPACITY_BALANCE,
  ON_DEMAND_CONSUMPTION_BALANCE,
  ROLLOVER_BALANCE
FROM SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE.REMAINING_BALANCE_DAILY
WHERE DATE >= DATEADD('DAY', -90, CURRENT_DATE())
ORDER BY DATE;

Practical Cost Allocation Patterns

Cross-organization cost management requires chargeback not just by account, but also by department and project.

• Account isolation: Split accounts by department and aggregate via ACCOUNT_NAME in ORGANIZATION_USAGE. The simplest and most accurate approach.
• Warehouse tagging: Apply Tags to warehouses inside an account and join with ACCOUNT_USAGE.TAG_REFERENCES for per-department aggregation.
• Budgets feature: Set budgets on accounts or custom groups and trigger alerts when thresholds are reached.

ACCOUNT_USAGE vs ORGANIZATION_USAGE

Exam Pointers

• Accessing ORGANIZATION_USAGE requires the ORGADMIN role.
• USAGE_IN_CURRENCY_DAILY holds currency-converted cost; RATE_SHEET_DAILY is used to inspect unit prices.
• ORGANIZATION_USAGE data latency is up to 24 hours, longer than ACCOUNT_USAGE's 45 minutes to 3 hours.
• REMAINING_BALANCE_DAILY lets you monitor the balance of a Capacity contract.
• Resource Monitors control warehouse cost inside an account, while Organization Billing focuses on cross-organization visibility — two distinct roles.

Check Your Understanding

Frequently Asked Questions