If auto-suspend settings are too high, warehouses can sit idle and continue accruing unnecessary charges. Tightening the auto-suspend window ensures that the warehouse shuts down quickly once queries complete, minimizing credit waste while maintaining acceptable user experience (e.g., caching needs, interactive performance).
Snowflake bills warehouses per second while they are active, regardless of whether queries are actively running. Warehouses continue to accrue charges until they are suspended.
Adjust warehouse auto-suspend settings to minimize idle billing while balancing performance needs. For batch and non-interactive workloads, consider shorter suspend intervals (e.g., around 60 seconds), recognizing that minimum billing granularity is already 60 seconds. For interactive workloads where query caching significantly improves performance, moderate suspend timers (e.g., up to 5 minutes) may be justified. Communicate cache loss implications to workload owners to ensure informed decisions about suspend timing. Periodically reassess suspend policies as workload patterns and user experience expectations evolve.
