Snowflake Resource Monitors: Complete Cost Management Guide

A Resource Monitor is Snowflake's cost-management feature that tracks the credits consumed by Virtual Warehouses and automatically fires notifications or suspends the warehouse when thresholds are hit. It guards against cost overruns caused by runaway queries or warehouses you forgot to stop.

This article walks through the CREATE RESOURCE MONITOR SQL syntax, how each threshold action (Notify / Suspend / Suspend Immediately) behaves, and how to assign monitors at the account vs. warehouse level. This is a frequent topic in the Performance Concepts domain of the SnowPro Core exam.

Resource Monitor Overview

Resource Monitors periodically check Virtual Warehouse credit usage and trigger actions (notifications or suspension) when configured thresholds are reached. They can be applied at the account level (sum of credits across all warehouses) or at the level of an individual warehouse.

The three main parameters of a Resource Monitor are:

• CREDIT_QUOTA — Credit cap to monitor (e.g. 100 credits)
• FREQUENCY — Quota reset interval (DAILY / WEEKLY / MONTHLY / YEARLY / NEVER)
• TRIGGERS — Actions taken when thresholds are reached (NOTIFY / SUSPEND / SUSPEND_IMMEDIATELY)

CREATE RESOURCE MONITOR SQL

-- Create a basic Resource Monitor
CREATE OR REPLACE RESOURCE MONITOR monthly_cost_monitor
  WITH
    CREDIT_QUOTA = 500
    FREQUENCY = MONTHLY
    START_TIMESTAMP = IMMEDIATELY
  TRIGGERS
    ON 50 PERCENT DO NOTIFY
    ON 80 PERCENT DO NOTIFY
    ON 95 PERCENT DO SUSPEND
    ON 100 PERCENT DO SUSPEND_IMMEDIATELY;

In the example above, the monthly credit cap is 500. Notifications fire at 50% and 80%, Suspend (wait for running queries to finish) triggers at 95%, and Suspend Immediately (immediate suspension) triggers at 100%.

Threshold Action Comparison

NOTIFY actions send alerts to account administrators (users with the ACCOUNTADMIN role) via Snowsight notification banners and email. To route notifications to custom destinations, use Alert Integrations.

Account-level vs. Warehouse-level Assignment

Account level

-- Apply at the account level (monitor total credits across all warehouses)
ALTER ACCOUNT SET RESOURCE_MONITOR = monthly_cost_monitor;

An account-level Resource Monitor tracks the total credits consumed by every Virtual Warehouse in the account. Use it to enforce an organization-wide cost cap.

Warehouse level

-- Apply to individual warehouses
ALTER WAREHOUSE etl_wh SET RESOURCE_MONITOR = etl_monitor;
ALTER WAREHOUSE analytics_wh SET RESOURCE_MONITOR = analytics_monitor;

-- Specify the Resource Monitor at warehouse creation time
CREATE WAREHOUSE dev_wh
  WAREHOUSE_SIZE = 'XSMALL'
  RESOURCE_MONITOR = dev_monitor
  AUTO_SUSPEND = 300
  AUTO_RESUME = TRUE;

At the warehouse level, monitoring is scoped to a single warehouse. The common pattern is to split warehouses by purpose (ETL, analytics, development) and assign each one its own credit cap.

Resource Monitor Scope

Resource Monitor Management Commands

-- List Resource Monitors
SHOW RESOURCE MONITORS;

-- Modify a Resource Monitor
ALTER RESOURCE MONITOR monthly_cost_monitor
  SET CREDIT_QUOTA = 800;

-- Drop a Resource Monitor
DROP RESOURCE MONITOR dev_monitor;

-- Unassign from a specific warehouse
ALTER WAREHOUSE etl_wh UNSET RESOURCE_MONITOR;

Operational Best Practices

• Adopt a two-tier approach: an account-level cap for the whole environment plus per-warehouse caps for each workload
• Configure NOTIFY at multiple stages (50% and 80%) to catch rising costs early
• Use SUSPEND at 95% on production warehouses and SUSPEND_IMMEDIATELY at 80% on development warehouses
• If you offer Reader Accounts, always attach a Resource Monitor to the warehouse serving them
• Track serverless feature costs separately via the METERING_HISTORY view in ACCOUNT_USAGE

Sample Question

Frequently Asked Questions