BigQuery Active Logical Storage
Storage for table data that has been modified in the last 90 days. Data untouched for 90 consecutive days moves automatically to a long-term SKU at about half the price — no purchase, no configuration. Any write to a table resets that clock.
Billed: Per gibibyte-month of uncompressed data modified within the last 90 days. A companion long-term SKU covers the rest at roughly half the rate.
What triggers this charge
- All table data in datasets using the logical (uncompressed) billing model.
- Any modification to a table, which returns the whole table to active pricing and restarts the 90-day clock.
- Daily full-refresh pipelines using WRITE_TRUNCATE, which guarantee the table never qualifies for long-term pricing.
How to reduce it
Load incrementally instead of truncating
On a partitioned table the 90-day clock runs per partition, so writing only new partitions lets history age into the discount by itself.
Compare the two billing models per dataset
Physical (compressed) billing charges roughly double per byte but bills the compressed size, so it wins wherever compression beats about 2×. Well-structured columnar data often compresses far better than that.
Set expirations on staging data
Table and partition expiration turn a permanent charge into a temporary one, and staging datasets are usually where forgotten terabytes live.
Rates
Related charges
Now find out how much of this you are actually paying.
Finitizer breaks your Google Cloud bill down to the SKU, shows how each one has moved since last week, and separates rate changes from usage changes — so you know whether to talk to engineering or to procurement.