Anytime your cloud spend with a single vendor starts to get out of hand, you just call and negotiate. If you make a multi-year commitment, they'll apply a substantial discount. Also, $100k/yr is still cheap compared to the cost of developers. Not just in terms of actual price tag, but risk management because a SaaS won't quit for a better offer.

So you dont need developers when you use SaaS?

If you need to hire 1 more developer at $100k to help maintain your data warehouse or pay $100k for Snowflake or BQ, its a no-brainer to use SaaS.

Also humans cost more than their salary: Recruiting, management, benefits, attrition, vacation, the risk that they are just not capable.

A human will also cost you more year over year (raises, promotions, etc), SaaS will typically cost you less year over year (optimizations, negotiations, competition, etc).

Completely agree. Currently staring at 700k+ BigQuery costs annually and accomplished MUCH more with Snowflake at the same price.

they should switch to flat rate billing capped at slots they are willing to pay for.