Rising Concerns Over BigQuery Pricing
Solana developers are voicing serious concerns after being hit with unexpected charges of up to $5,000 for running a single query through Google Cloud’s BigQuery. Several blockchain developers have described their experiences as “horror stories,” with some claiming that a few queries have cost them tens of thousands of dollars.
BigQuery, a serverless data warehouse powered by Google Cloud, enables users to analyse large datasets through SQL and built-in artificial intelligence tools. However, its billing practices are now under fire from developers who allege the platform’s pricing model is both opaque and predatory.
Developer Warns of “Scam”
One pseudonymous developer reported that their usual monthly bill of a few hundred dollars suddenly ballooned to $18,000 after running just three Solana-related queries. Each search, despite including limits in the code, incurred a charge of more than $5,000.
“I want to warn everyone that BigQuery is a big scam and every day you’re risking getting a ridiculous bill that can bankrupt you,” the developer wrote in a post shared by Mikko Ohtamaa, co-founder of decentralised algorithmic trading protocol Trading Strategy.
After appealing to Google support, the charges were reduced slightly to $4,000 per query. Yet the developer noted that such incidents highlight the risks of using BigQuery without clearer safeguards.
Lack of Spending Controls Criticised
Others in the crypto industry have echoed these frustrations. Ermin Nurovic, co-founder of the Flat Money synthetic dollar protocol, argued that BigQuery deliberately avoids offering hard spending limits to protect users from runaway costs.
“They intentionally don’t let you set hard stops,” Nurovic said. “Your Google Cloud function got stuck in a recursive loop costing you thousands? Too bad.”
The absence of stricter limits has sparked fears that developers could be bankrupted overnight by unexpected charges.
Second “Horror Story” Emerges
Adding to the controversy, another pseudonymous developer revealed being billed $5,000 for a single query that unintentionally scanned several terabytes of Solana blockchain data. In this case, the charges were later refunded after the developer’s company escalated the issue directly with Google.
“Thankfully that time, our company was connected to Google locally, which helped us escalate the issue and refunded us,” the developer explained. Since the incident, they have avoided querying blockchain data on BigQuery without first checking partition settings to limit the scale of searches.
Integration Raises Questions
Google Cloud integrated Solana data into BigQuery in October 2023, offering developers the ability to analyse on-chain activity such as whale movements and NFT sales with greater transparency. While the feature promised more powerful analytics for blockchain projects, the recent billing controversies suggest that the cost of access may be far higher than many anticipated.
Some developers now argue that the pricing model not only deters experimentation but also makes it unfeasible for artificial intelligence systems to rely on BigQuery for blockchain analytics.
With complaints mounting, developers are calling for clearer pricing transparency, effective safeguards, and better user protections from Google Cloud before trust in the service erodes further.
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