Getting Started with Snowflake (Continuation)

Trial Accounts:

A trial account with Snowflake provides the opportunity to assess and test the platform's innovative and robust features at no cost or contractual commitments. Signing up for a trial account is simple – just provide a valid email address. No payment or additional qualifying information is necessary.

Signing Up for a Trial Account:

Begin your free trial by completing the self-service form on the Snowflake website.

Upon signing up, you'll make essential selections, including your preferred cloud platform, region, and Snowflake Edition. Keep in mind that certain features in the Enterprise Edition may consume additional credits, impacting the rate at which you utilize your free usage balance.

Your free usage balance decreases as you consume credits for utilizing compute resources and incurring storage-related costs.

The trial period spans 30 days from the sign-up date or until your free usage balance is depleted, whichever comes first. At any point during the trial, you have the flexibility to cancel or convert the account to a paid subscription.

Once the trial concludes, the account enters a suspended state. Although you can still log in, you won't have access to features like running a virtual warehouse, loading data, or performing queries.

To reactivate a suspended trial account, you'll need to provide credit card information, transitioning it into a paid subscription.

Using Compute Resources:

Virtual warehouses play a crucial role in providing the computational power needed for data loading and query execution within Snowflake. These warehouses operate by consuming credits, consequently diminishing your free usage balance. To initiate this process, simply start a warehouse, and any credits utilized will be deducted from your balance. If your credit consumption exhausts your free usage balance entirely, adding a credit card to your account becomes necessary to continue utilizing Snowflake.

It's important to note that free credits are solely consumed by the virtual warehouses you create in your account, and this consumption occurs only when these warehouses are actively running.

Tip:
To avoid unintentional usage of your free credits, consider the following:

Verify Warehouse Size: Before starting or resuming virtual warehouses, check their sizes. Larger warehouses consume more credits while running. In many instances, Small or Medium-sized warehouses are adequate for evaluating Snowflake's loading and querying capabilities.

Auto-Suspend Setting: When creating a warehouse, refrain from disabling auto-suspend. Opting for a short auto-suspend time period, such as 5 minutes or less, can effectively reduce credit consumption.

Using Storage:

When you upload data to your trial account, the associated storage cost is deducted from your free usage balance, calculated according to the standard On-Demand cost of a terabyte (TB) in your cloud platform and region. Beyond storage expenses, the act of loading data also utilizes credits as it engages the compute resources of a warehouse.

Converting to a Paid Account:

To transition your trial account to a paid status, follow these steps:

Log in to Snowsight.
Navigate to Admin » Billing & Terms.
Select Payment Methods.
Click on + Credit Card.
Provide the required information and click Add Card.
Upon entering your credit card details, Snowflake will verify the card's validity by initiating a $1 (USD) charge. No other charges are applied at this stage.

Note that you can also update the credit card associated with a trial account using the same interface. Each time you add a new credit card, a $1 (USD) charge is processed for verification.

It's essential to be aware that adding a credit card to a trial account converts it into a paid account without prematurely ending the trial period. Throughout the remaining trial duration, you can continue utilizing your free credits and storage until the balance is depleted. Afterward, any additional credit consumption and storage costs will be billed.

Unused balances expire at the conclusion of the trial period. At this point, costs for credit consumption and data storage are charged to the credit card on file at the end of each billing cycle, typically on a monthly basis.

For detailed pricing information, please refer to the pricing page on the Snowflake website.

Canceling a Trial Account:

Cancellation of a trial account can be initiated by reaching out to Snowflake Support and requesting the cancellation. It's important to note that, presently, trial accounts cannot be canceled directly through the web interface. To proceed with the cancellation, you must contact Snowflake Support for assistance.