# snowflake_acct_steady_no_capacity

> Accounts whose 10th-percentile daily credit burn stays above 10 credits for 90 days are paying on-demand list rates for consumption that behaves like a commitment. ZopNight computes that floor from METERING_DAILY_HISTORY; a capacity contract sized to the floor discounts every one of those baseline credits.

Source: https://zop.dev/integrations/snowflake/recommendations/snowflake-acct-steady-no-capacity
Updated: 2026-08-19

---

## A 90-day floor under your daily burn

On-demand pricing is the most expensive way to buy Snowflake credits, and it is the right
choice exactly as long as your consumption is unpredictable. Once an account shows a
steady daily floor (credits it burns on the quietest days, week after week), that floor
is consumption you could have pre-purchased at a capacity discount. ZopNight measures the
floor as the 10th percentile of daily credit totals and fires when its 90-day average
exceeds 10 credits per day, the empirical threshold that separates a real baseline from
noise.

## Percentile, not average

The 10th percentile is the level your consumption exceeded on 9 out of 10 days. Sizing a
commitment to the average would over-commit: spiky days drag an average upward, and an
over-sized capacity contract wastes money in the other direction. Sizing to the p10 floor
means the contract is consumed with near-certainty and every credit above it stays
flexible on-demand.

## Compute the same floor yourself

The production query, adapted to run standalone:

```sql
SELECT PERCENTILE_CONT(0.10) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY daily_credits) AS p10_baseline
FROM (
  SELECT usage_date AS day, SUM(credits_used) AS daily_credits
  FROM SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE.METERING_DAILY_HISTORY
  WHERE usage_date >= DATEADD('day', -90, CURRENT_DATE)
  GROUP BY 1
);
```

METERING_DAILY_HISTORY covers all metered services (warehouses, serverless features, and
cloud services), so the baseline reflects the whole account, not just warehouse compute.
Running this needs imported privileges on the SNOWFLAKE database.

## What the rule cannot see yet

Contract terms. ZopNight does not ingest your Snowflake agreement, so it cannot tell an
account genuinely on on-demand from one that already holds a capacity commitment. The
finding is advisory until contract-terms ingestion ships, and if you already have a
contract covering the floor, the recommendation is simply satisfied. The rule also makes
no claim about the discount percentage itself: capacity pricing is negotiated, so the
finding quantifies the committed-consumption opportunity in credits and leaves the rate
conversation to procurement.

## Sizing the conversation

Bring the p10 number, not the monthly total, to your Snowflake rep. Committing to the
floor keeps utilization risk near zero; growth above it continues on-demand until the next
renewal, when a higher floor can be re-measured from the same query.