Google Cloud Datastore simplifies pricing, cuts cost dramatically for most use-cases
Dan McGrath
Product Manager, Google Cloud
Google Cloud Datastore is a highly-scalable NoSQL database for web and mobile applications. Today we’re announcing much simpler pricing, and as a result, many users will see significant cost-savings for this database service.
Along with the simpler pricing model, there’ll be a more transparent method of calculating stored data in Cloud Datastore. The new pricing and storage calculations will go into effect on July 1st, 2016. For the majority of our customers, this will effectively result in a price reduction.
New pricing structure
We’ve listened to your feedback and will be simplifying our pricing. The new pricing will go into effect on July 1st, 2016, regardless of how you access Datastore. Not only is it simpler, but also the majority of our customers will see significant cost savings. This change removes the disincentive our current pricing imposes on using the powerful indexing features, freeing developers from over-optimizing index usage.We’re simplifying pricing for entity writes, reads and deletes by moving from internal operation counting to a more direct entity counting model as follows:
Writes: In the current pricing, writing a single entity translated into one or more write operations depending on the number and type of indexes. In the new pricing, writing a single entity only costs 1 write regardless of indexes and will now cost $0.18 per 100,000. This means writes are more affordable for people using multiple indexes. You can use as many indexes as your application needs without increases in write costs. Since on average the vast majority of Entity writes previously translated to more than 4 write operations per entity, this represents significant cost savings for developers.
Reads: In the current pricing, some queries would charge a read operation per entity retrieved plus an extra read operation for the query. In the new pricing, you'll only be charged per entity retrieved. Small ops (projections and keys-only queries) will stay the same in only charging a single read for the entire query. The cost per Entity read stays the same as the old per operation cost of $0.06 per 100,000. This means that most developers will see reduced costs in reading entities.
Deletes: In the current pricing model, deletes translated into 2 or more writes depending on the number and type of indexes. In the new pricing, you'll only be charged a delete operation per entity deleted. Deletes are charged at the rate of $0.02 per 100,000. This means deletes are now discounted by at least 66% and often by more.
Free Quota: The free quota limit for Writes is now 20,000 requests per day since we no longer charge multiple write operations per entity written. Deletes now fall under their own free tier of 20,000 requests per day. Over all, this means more free requests per day for the majority of applications.
Network: Standard Network costs will apply.
New storage usage calculations
To coincide with our pricing changes on July 1st, Cloud Datastore will also use a new method for calculating bytes stored. This method will be transparent to developers so you can accurately calculate storage costs directly from the property values and indexes of the Entity. This new method will also result in decreased storage costs for the majority of customers.Our current method relies heavily on internal implementation details that can change, so we’re moving to a fixed system calculated directly from the user data submitted. As the new calculation method gets finalized, we’ll post the specific details so developers can use it to estimate storage costs.
Building what’s next
With simpler pricing for Cloud Datastore, you can spend less time micro-managing indexes and focus more on building what’s next.Learn more about Google Cloud Datastore or check out our getting started guide.
