BigQuery’s free tier includes 10GB storage and 1TB queries per month—enough for 2-3 years of typical WooCommerce data and 160+ dashboard refreshes monthly. Most SMB stores never pay a cent. The enterprise data warehouse sounds expensive, but the math says otherwise.
What 10GB Storage Actually Means for WooCommerce
Abstract gigabytes don’t help you plan. Here’s what 10GB translates to in store terms.
A typical WooCommerce event—page view, add to cart, purchase—takes 200-500 bytes depending on schema complexity. At 300 bytes average, 10GB holds approximately 33 million events. Even with richer schemas at 1KB per event, you’re looking at 10 million events.
For a store processing 1,000 orders per month with 50,000 sessions, that’s roughly 2-3 years of complete event data before approaching the free storage limit.
Let’s break down a typical month:
- 50,000 page views: ~15MB
- 5,000 add-to-cart events: ~2MB
- 1,000 purchases with line items: ~3MB
- Session and user data: ~5MB
Total: roughly 25-30MB per month, or 300-360MB per year. At that rate, 10GB covers nearly 30 years of data. Even stores 10x that size stay within free tier for years.
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What 1TB Queries Actually Means for Reporting
Query pricing confuses everyone. BigQuery charges based on data scanned, not results returned. Understanding this changes everything.
If your WooCommerce dataset is 6GB and you run a full table scan (SELECT * FROM events), that query costs 6GB against your 1TB monthly allowance. With 1TB free, that’s approximately 166 full-table queries per month.
But you rarely need full-table scans.
Using partitioned tables by date, a query for “last 30 days of purchases” might scan only 200MB instead of 6GB. That’s 5,000 targeted queries per month within free tier. Add column selection (SELECT specific_fields instead of *), and the number climbs higher.
Real-world WooCommerce reporting typically uses:
- Daily dashboard refresh: 200MB scan × 30 days = 6GB/month
- Weekly performance reports: 500MB × 4 = 2GB/month
- Ad-hoc queries: 100MB × 50 = 5GB/month
Total: roughly 13GB of queries monthly—1.3% of your free 1TB allowance. Most stores use less than 5% of available query capacity.
Beyond Free Tier: The Actual Costs
If you do exceed free limits, here’s what you’re looking at:
Storage beyond 10GB:
- Active storage: $0.02 per GB per month
- Long-term storage (data untouched 90+ days): $0.01 per GB per month
Storing 100GB of active data costs $2/month. Storing 1TB costs $20/month (OWOX, 2025). For context, that’s 100x the free tier—most WooCommerce stores will never get there.
Queries beyond 1TB:
- On-demand pricing: $5 per TB processed
- A 12GB query costs approximately $0.075 (OWOX, 2025)
New customers also get $300 in free credits to try BigQuery and other Google Cloud products (Google Cloud, 2025). That credit alone covers 15TB of additional queries or 15,000GB of storage beyond free tier—more than any SMB needs during the trial period.
The Gotchas: Where Costs Can Surprise You
Transparency matters. Here’s where BigQuery costs can catch you off guard:
Streaming inserts cost extra. If you’re sending data in real-time via streaming API, Google charges $0.01 per 200MB inserted. For high-volume stores, this adds up. Batch loading (which Transmute Engine™ uses) is free.
Query costs depend on data scanned, not returned. A query returning 10 rows but scanning your entire 6GB table costs the same as returning 6 million rows. Use WHERE clauses on partitioned columns to limit scans.
SELECT * is expensive. Selecting all columns scans all data. Selecting only the columns you need dramatically reduces query costs. BigQuery is columnar storage—this matters.
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Staying Within Free Tier: Best Practices
With proper setup, most WooCommerce stores never pay for BigQuery. Here’s how:
Partition tables by date. This is the single most important optimization. Queries filtering by date scan only relevant partitions, not the entire dataset. A query for “last week’s purchases” scans 7 days, not 3 years.
Select specific columns. Instead of SELECT *, query only the fields you need. A table with 50 columns where you need 5 reduces query costs by 90%.
Enable query caching. BigQuery caches results for 24 hours. Repeated identical queries are free. Dashboard refreshes often hit cache.
Set billing alerts. Google Cloud Console lets you set alerts at any threshold. Set one at $1 to get notified long before any meaningful cost accumulates.
Use efficient schema design. Compact event schemas use less storage. Transmute Engine sends data with optimized schemas specifically designed to maximize free tier capacity.
The Enterprise Tool at SMB Pricing
BigQuery handles petabytes for enterprises like Spotify and The Home Depot. The same infrastructure is available to your WooCommerce store—and for most stores, it’s completely free.
The free tier isn’t a trial. It’s an ongoing allocation that doesn’t expire. 10GB storage and 1TB queries, every month, permanently.
Combined with Looker Studio (also free), you get enterprise-grade analytics infrastructure at zero cost. Server-side tracking captures the data GA4 misses, BigQuery stores it with unlimited retention, and Looker Studio visualizes it without third-party data exposure.
Transmute Engine™ completes this stack by capturing WooCommerce events server-side and routing them directly to BigQuery with compact, efficient schemas. No GA4 middleman. No data sampling. No JavaScript that gets blocked.
The data warehouse that powers Fortune 500 analytics is genuinely free for SMB usage patterns. The only thing stopping adoption is the assumption that “Google Cloud” means expensive. The numbers tell a different story.
Key Takeaways
- 10GB free storage holds 2-3 years of typical WooCommerce data (10-50 million events)
- 1TB free queries allows 160+ full-table scans or thousands of targeted queries monthly
- Beyond free tier: $0.02/GB storage, $5/TB queries—still minimal at SMB scale
- New customers: Additional $300 credit for 90 days
- Best practices: Partition by date, select specific columns, enable caching
- Most SMB stores never exceed free tier with proper schema design
For most WooCommerce stores, yes. 10GB holds approximately 10-50 million events depending on schema complexity. A typical store processing 1,000 orders monthly with 50,000 sessions generates roughly 3-4GB per year. That means 2-3 years of data before approaching the free tier limit.
Query costs depend on data scanned, not results returned. With a typical WooCommerce dataset of 6GB, 1TB allows approximately 160 full-table scans monthly. Using partitioned tables and selecting specific columns reduces data scanned dramatically, allowing thousands of targeted queries within free tier.
Beyond free tier, storage costs $0.02 per GB monthly and queries cost $5 per TB processed. For context, storing 100GB costs $2/month and a 12GB query costs about $0.075. Costs remain minimal even at scale, but most SMB stores never exceed free limits with proper schema design.
The $300 credit for new customers expires after 90 days, but the BigQuery free tier (10GB storage, 1TB queries) is ongoing and does not expire. You keep the free allocation permanently as long as you have a Google Cloud account.
Set up billing alerts in Google Cloud Console. Use partitioned tables to reduce query scans. Select only the columns you need instead of SELECT *. Enable query caching. With these practices, most WooCommerce stores stay well within free tier indefinitely.
Ready to own your analytics data without the enterprise price tag? Start with Transmute Engine and send WooCommerce events directly to BigQuery—staying well within free tier with efficient, compact schemas.
