GA4 BigQuery Export Cost Forecaster

Translate your Google Analytics 4 export volume into tangible BigQuery costs. Enter daily exported events and the terabytes you scan each month, then optionally adjust event size, retention window, and published rates to project storage, streaming ingest, query spend, and effective cost per million events.

Average number of GA4 events exported to BigQuery each day, expressed in millions.
Total terabytes you expect Looker Studio, scheduled jobs, or analysts to scan monthly.
Defaults to 1.3 KB if blank. Adjust if you have custom parameters or trim event payloads.
Defaults to 30 days of active storage. Increase if you keep a longer hot data window.
Defaults to $0.02/GB, BigQuery's on-demand storage price in many regions.
Defaults to $0.01/GB for streaming inserts. Override if you negotiated committed-use discounts.
Defaults to $6/TB on-demand query pricing. Set to 0 if you use flat-rate slots for GA4 workloads.

BigQuery pricing varies by region, commitment plan, and data reduction techniques. Validate these assumptions with your Google Cloud account team before finalizing budgets.

Examples

  • 8 million daily events, 12 TB queries, 1.3 KB events, 30-day retention ⇒ Active storage footprint: 304,687.50 GB • Active storage cost: $6,093.75 USD • Streaming ingest cost: $3,046.88 USD • Query cost: $72.00 USD • Total monthly BigQuery cost: $9,212.63 USD • Cost per million exported events: $38.39 USD
  • 15 million daily events, 25 TB queries, 1.6 KB events, 45-day retention, custom rates ⇒ Active storage footprint: 1,054,687.50 GB • Active storage cost: $22,148.44 USD • Streaming ingest cost: $9,492.19 USD • Query cost: $137.50 USD • Total monthly BigQuery cost: $31,778.13 USD • Cost per million exported events: $70.62 USD

FAQ

How do reserved slots change the math?

Set the query rate to $0 if you are on flat-rate or enterprise capacity for GA4 queries. You can then add your monthly slot commitment separately for a full picture.

Can I include Looker Studio extract costs?

Yes. Estimate the additional terabytes scanned by Looker Studio or scheduled queries and add them to the query TB field so the output includes that usage.

What about long-term storage pricing?

This tool focuses on active storage. If you keep partitions longer than 90 days, use the same footprint output with BigQuery's $0.01/GB long-term rate for a supplemental estimate.

Does this cover export to data warehouse alternatives?

No. The assumptions match BigQuery pricing. For Snowflake or Redshift, adjust the storage and query rates to mirror those platforms.

Additional Information

  • Event size defaults to 1.3 KB per row, which reflects typical GA4 payloads with a handful of custom parameters.
  • Retention represents the hot data window you keep in active storage; older partitions can be moved to long-term storage outside this model.
  • Streaming ingest cost is estimated using BigQuery's default $0.01/GB rate—update it if you batch-load via Cloud Storage.
  • Cost per million events lets marketing teams benchmark GA4 export spend against media budgets or analytics ROI targets.

Related calculators