Many organizations assign separate Snowflake warehouses to individual business units or teams to simplify chargebacks and operational ownership. This often results in redundant and underutilized warehouses, as workloads frequently do not require the full capacity of even the smallest warehouse size. By consolidating compatible workloads onto shared warehouses, organizations can maximize utilization, reduce idle runtime across the fleet, and significantly lower total credit consumption. Cost allocation can still be achieved using Query Billing Attribution.
Snowflake charges based on the size and active runtime of a warehouse. Costs are incurred regardless of whether the warehouse's full concurrency capacity is utilized.
Consolidate compatible workloads onto shared warehouses to improve overall utilization without sacrificing performance. Adjust warehouse sizing or enable multi-cluster scaling if necessary to accommodate increased concurrency after consolidation. Validate SLA and performance expectations with all impacted business units or workload owners prior to consolidation. Use Query Billing Attribution to maintain accurate cost allocation across teams sharing a consolidated warehouse.
