> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trychroma.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Pricing

Chroma Cloud uses a simple, transparent, usage-based pricing model. You pay for what you use across **writes**, **reads**, and **storage**-with no hidden fees or tiered feature gating.

Need an estimate? Try our [pricing calculator](https://trychroma.com/pricing).

## Writes

Chroma Cloud charges **\$2.50 per logical GiB** written via an add, update, or upsert.

* A *logical GiB* is the raw, uncompressed size of the data you send to Chroma-regardless of how it's stored or indexed internally.
* You are only billed once per write, not for background compactions or reindexing.

## Forking

* Forking a collection costs **\$0.03 per fork request**.
* Forks are copy-on-write. You only pay for incremental storage written after the fork; unchanged data remains shared.
* Forking is available on Chroma Cloud. Learn more on the [Collection Forking](/cloud/features/collection-forking) page.

## Reads

Read costs are based on both the amount of data queried and the volume of data returned:

* **\$0.0075 per TiB queried**
* **\$0.09 per GiB returned**

**How queries are counted:**

* A single vector similarity query counts as one query.
* Each metadata or full-text predicate in a query counts as an additional query.
* Full-text and regex filters are billed as *(N - 2)* queries, where *N* is the number of characters in the search string.

**Example:**

<CodeGroup>
  ```python Python theme={null}
  collection.query(
     query_embeddings=[[1.0, 2.3, 1.1, ...]],
     where_document={"$contains": "hello world"}
  )
  ```

  ```typescript TypeScript theme={null}
  await collection.query({
      queryEmbeddings: [[1.0, 2.3, 1.1, ...]],
      whereDocument: { "$contains": "hello world" }
  });
  ```

  ```rust Rust theme={null}
  use chroma::types::{Key, QueryVector, RankExpr, SearchPayload};

  let search = SearchPayload::default()
      .r#where(Key::Document.contains("hello world"))
      .rank(RankExpr::Knn {
          query: QueryVector::Dense(vec![1.0, 2.3, 1.1]),
          key: Key::Embedding,
          limit: 10,
          default: None,
          return_rank: false,
      })
      .limit(Some(10), 0);

  let results = collection.search(vec![search]).await?;
  ```
</CodeGroup>

For the query above (a single vector search and a 10-character full-text search), querying against 10 GiB of data incurs:

* 10,000 queries × 10 units (1 vector + 9 full-text) = 100,000 query units
* 10 GiB = 0.01 TiB scanned → 100,000 × 0.01 TiB × $0.0075 = **$7.50\*\*

## Storage

Storage is billed at **\$0.33 per GiB per month**, prorated by the hour:

* Storage usage is measured in **GiB-hours** to account for fluctuations over time.
* Storage is billed based on the logical amount of data written.
* All caching, including SSD caches used internally by Chroma, are not billed to you.

## Sync

Sync pricing is usage-based:

* **\$0.04 per GiB processed** — data processed through Sync, including S3 files, code repositories, and web pages.
* **\$0.01 per document page extracted** — applies to document file types (PDF, Office documents, images, ebooks, HTML) that require conversion. See [S3 Sync](/cloud/sync/s3#supported-file-types) for the full list.
* **\$0.01 per page scraped** — applies to web pages crawled during [Web Sync](/cloud/sync/web).

## Frequently Asked Questions

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Is there a free tier?">
    We offer \$5 in credits to new users.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How is multi-tenancy handled for billing?">
    Billing is account-based. All data across your collections and tenants within a Chroma Cloud account is aggregated for pricing.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I deploy Chroma in my own VPC?">
    Yes. We offer a BYOC (bring your own cloud) option for single-tenant deployments. [Contact us](/cloud) for more details.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Do I get charged for background indexing?">
    No. You're only billed for the logical data you write and the storage you consume. Background jobs like compaction or reindexing do not generate additional write or read charges.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>