# Studio answers cost questions with citations > Snowflake cost analysis in plain English. Ask Studio about spend across AI Services, Serverless and warehouses, and every number traces to its source. Source: https://altimate.ai/product-highlights/snowflake-cost-analysis-ai-cited-answers [.md](https://altimate.ai/product-highlights/snowflake-cost-analysis-ai-cited-answers.md) Copy as MD Enterprise Platform ## Snowflake Cost Analysis in Plain English, with AI That Cites Every Number Snowflake cost analysis in plain English. Ask Studio about spend across AI Services, Serverless and warehouses, and every number traces to its source. Pradnesh PatilMay 25, 2026Aug 11, 20265 min read Snowflake cost analysis in plain English, with AI that cites every number TL;DR - **What it is.** Studio is a specialized agent for cost and performance questions across your data stack. It answers on Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, Tableau and the other tools Altimate connects to. Ask in plain English and you get the cause and the fix, not the number on its own. Every figure in the answer links back to the table and the query behind it. - **Who it is for.** Data platform leads, engineering managers and the finance partner who has to accept the number. - **What you get.** You get one place to ask why the bill moved, which workload moved it, and what to change. This article follows one Snowflake cost question the whole way. ## AI Cost Analysis on the Snowflake Page You Have Open Studio is Altimate AI's specialized agent for your data stack. You ask in plain English about cost, performance and what to change. The answer spans Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, Tableau and more. Every major page in the Enterprise Platform has a chat button that opens it. This article stays on the Snowflake cost question, because that is where most teams start. Open it from the cost Summary page and your cost breakdown stays on screen while you type. The questions Studio suggests there are all about spend: - What drove this month's cost. - Which five warehouses cost the most. - What next quarter is projected to cost. The Studio AI panel running a Snowflake cost analysis over the platform's Summary page. Behind it, Current State shows total costs of $117.78 split into compute, storage, serverless, cloud services and AI Services, while the panel offers suggested prompts about this month's cost drivers, the top five warehouses and projected spend for next quarter. Studio already reads whatever Altimate is connected to. You add more context on top of that, in three forms: - **Attach a file.** - **Pull in a Knowledge Base doc.** - **Start from a prompt** your team already saved. The full Studio page with chat history down the left rail, each past question marked Completed, and the context menu open beside the prompt box offering Add photos or files, Knowledge Base and View Prompt Library. ## Studio Answers Across Surfaces, Then Names the Cause and the Fix Visibility is the first step, and only the first step. Studio reads every cost surface in one thread, so the answer does not stop at which number moved. It runs root cause analysis on that number, then gives you an optimization plan with the saving quantified. On Snowflake, these are the surfaces it draws from: | Ask about | What the answer breaks down by | | --- | --- | | **Warehouses** | per-warehouse credits and query cost | | **AI Services** | each function, split across four usage types: AI services, AI inference, and the overage version of each | | **Serverless** | more than 19 serverless usage types, down to per-table clustering and dynamic-table refresh | | **Workloads** | workload tag, matching the Workloads page | Ask from a notebook page or a stored procedure page and Studio starts from that workload. You never have to name it in the question. Studio answers the same questions for Databricks, counted in DBUs instead of Snowflake credits. ## Every Number in a Studio Answer Links to Its Source A number nobody can trace is a number finance will not accept. Studio puts a small marker next to the numbers in an answer. Click a marker and you get three things: - **The table** the number came from. - **The query** that produced it. - **The steps** it took to get from one to the other. Read a missing marker as a signal. A sentence with no marker is Studio's own commentary. A number with a marker has a query behind it. You can then share the answer or put it on a schedule: 1. **Share conversation.** Makes a read-only link to the answer. You choose whether the link expires after 7, 30 or 90 days, or never. 2. **Schedule report.** Re-runs the same conversation daily, weekly or monthly at 09:00 UTC, against fresh data each time. ## What You Get Once Studio Is Switched On - **Answers in plain English.** You ask about cost, performance or a slow workload, on the page you already have open. - **A source behind every number.** Click the marker and you get the table, the query and the steps. - **A link the finance partner can open.** It is read-only, and you decide when it expires. - **A report nobody has to rebuild.** The same conversation re-runs on a schedule against fresh data. Proof Studio adds the markers in a separate step, after the answer is already written. The wording never changes to fit a citation. A marker points at exactly what Studio computed. If it cannot trace a number, that number gets no marker at all. That is why an unmarked figure is a real warning rather than a gap in the tooling. Studio is in Beta today, and [Altimate for Snowflake](https://www.altimate.ai/use-cases/altimate-for-snowflake) is where a Snowflake team starts. ### Talk to us about your warehouse [Book a 30-min demo →](https://calendly.com/d/ctnv-rbc-yr3/altimate-ai-overview) ## Frequently Asked Questions What does a citation marker actually open? Why do some numbers in an answer have no marker? Which kinds of spend can I ask about? Who can open a shared Studio conversation? How often can a Studio conversation re-run itself? Does Studio tell me when it is unsure? How do I get citations, share links and scheduled reports turned on? On this page - AI Cost Analysis on the Snowflake Page You Have Open - Studio Answers Across Surfaces, Then Names the Cause and the Fix - Every Number in a Studio Answer Links to Its Source - What You Get Once Studio Is Switched On ## Related Resources Enterprise Platform Auto Tune Right-Sizes Snowflake Warehouses Without Slowing Queries https://altimate.ai/product-highlights/snowflake-warehouse-auto-tune-right-sizing Help Doc AI Cost Analysis (DataPilot) https://help.altimate.ai/platform/summary/datapilot-analysis/ Altimate Lite for Snowflake Reduce Snowflake Idle Warehouse Spend with Altimate Lite https://altimate.ai/product-highlights/altimate-lite-snowflake-warehouse-cost Altimate Lite for Snowflake Snowflake Cortex AI Cost Breakdown by Service, User, and Model https://altimate.ai/product-highlights/snowflake-cortex-ai-cost-breakdown