WeatherNext 3 API Pricing: What You Actually Pay For
There is no single WeatherNext 3 API price list. The research layer is free to read, the forecast fields are delivered through Google Cloud products with their own billing, and a product API adds convenience on top. This page separates the costs and gives you a way to estimate a first month before you commit engineering time. For access routes, see the API guide; for the data channels, see the data access guide.
7-day free trial, then $19/mo · API keys included on every plan · compare plans
Three lines that explain the bill
The useful budget question is not 'what is the API price?' It is 'which part of the route am I paying for?'
Docs are free Research papers, model documentation and parts of the WeatherNext family code are public and free to read.
Research papers, model documentation and parts of the WeatherNext family code are public and free to read.
Fields are metered Forecast fields reach teams through Google Cloud data products, billed on queries, storage, requests or compute.
Forecast fields reach teams through Google Cloud data products, billed on queries, storage, requests or compute.
$19/mo workspace The weathernext3.lol workspace starts at $19 per month after a seven-day trial, with API keys drawing on plan credits.
The weathernext3.lol workspace starts at $19 per month after a seven-day trial, with API keys drawing on plan credits.
The four cost buckets
Most surprises come from one bucket being treated as free while another is measured carefully.
Query and compute
BigQuery charges for the data a query scans; Earth Engine and notebook work consume compute. The model is not the meter here - your analysis is.
Storage
Keeping raw fields and history is a storage decision. A one-off download is cheap to imagine and expensive to keep forever.
Egress and requests
Moving data out of a cloud region or serving it through an API adds transfer and request costs. A dashboard can spend more than a notebook.
Product API
A managed forecast API bundles access, authentication and support. You pay for convenience and a predictable contract instead of assembling the route yourself.
Estimate your first month in four steps
Do this before you build a dashboard or promise a daily pipeline to anyone.
Choose one variable and one region
Start with the smallest slice that answers the decision: one variable, a handful of locations and a short time window.
Estimate the data volume
Count locations, variables, time steps and history. That number drives query scans, storage and transfer more than the model name does.
Price retrieval and storage separately
Use Google Cloud's current price list for the products you chose. Do not assume a free query tier covers a production refresh schedule.
Add a monitoring budget
Log bytes scanned, rows returned, storage growth and requests. The first month should produce a number you can defend, not just a working notebook.
Where budgets drift
These are the usual reasons a small weather experiment turns into an unexplained cloud bill.
SELECT * on large tables
Scanning every column for one variable is the classic mistake. Select only the fields and time range your decision needs.
Repeated dashboard queries
A dashboard that reruns the same expensive query every few minutes can cost more than the forecast itself. Cache the result or precompute it once.
Keeping raw history forever
History is valuable for backtesting, but it has a carrying cost. Define a retention window before the archive becomes the largest line item.
Cross-region movement
Keep analysis close to the data where possible. Moving the same fields between regions or into another tool can add avoidable transfer costs.
WeatherNext 3 API pricing questions
Short answers before you choose between a cloud data route and a managed forecast API.
Price the decision, not the download
Start with one variable and one region, then compare the managed workspace with the cloud route you would have to build. Seven-day free trial, cancel anytime. Background: the API guide and the cost guide.
Related guides
The pages that go with this one, chosen by what each one answers.
