# Save on Pinecone costs

## Credits and discounts

In addition to the workload optimizations below, you can lower your effective rate:

- **Prepaid credits and annual commitments** earn discounted usage rates. See [Prepaid credits](/guides/manage-cost-understanding-cost#prepaid-credits).
- **Dedicated read nodes** can lower cost for sustained, high read throughput when you fully use the provisioned capacity (see [Choose the right index capacity mode](#choose-the-right-index-capacity-mode)).
- **Volume discounts.** Standard and Enterprise customers can [contact Support](https://app.pinecone.io/organizations/-/settings/support/ticket) to discuss cost optimization and discounts.

## Prefer bulk import over upsert for large loads

When you need to populate a new namespace or load a large dataset (for example, millions of records or hundreds of GB), [importing from object storage](/guides/index-data-import-data) is usually the most efficient and cost-effective path compared to streaming [upserts](/guides/index-data-upsert-data).

- **Import** is optimized for one-time or bulk loads from Parquet in your object store and is priced based on data read during the job. See [Import cost](/guides/manage-cost-understanding-cost#imports).
- **Upsert** is priced in write units based on request size; many small requests can cost more than fewer large ones for the same total data. See [Write unit pricing](/guides/manage-cost-understanding-cost#write-units).

Use upsert (including [batch upsert](/guides/index-data-upsert-data#upsert-in-batches)) for ongoing, incremental ingestion after your initial load. For how import and upsert compare, see the [data ingestion overview](/guides/index-data-data-ingestion-overview).

Partitioning tenants with [namespaces](/guides/index-data-implement-multitenancy) instead of many separate indexes often lowers storage overhead and query cost, because cost depends in part on how much data each query scans. For patterns and rationale, see [Manage cost](/guides/manage-cost-manage-cost#use-namespaces-for-multitenancy).

## Right-size reads and queries

- Avoid returning vector values from a query when you don't need them (`include_values=false`, the default), especially at high `top_k`. Values are typically the largest part of a response, so leaving them out lowers [egress](/guides/manage-cost-understanding-cost#egress) and helps you stay within your plan's egress allowance.
- Use [metadata filters](/guides/index-data-search-filter-by-metadata) so queries scan fewer records where your workload allows.

:::callout{intent="note"}
Omitting values lowers egress, not [read units](/guides/manage-cost-understanding-cost#read-units): query read unit cost depends on the size of the namespace scanned, not on the size of the response.
:::

:::callout{intent="note"}
Indexes built on [Dedicated Read Nodes](/guides/index-data-dedicated-read-nodes-overview) aren't subject to read unit limits for query, fetch, list, and full-text search operations. For sizing and capacity planning guidance, see the [Dedicated Read Nodes](/guides/index-data-dedicated-read-nodes-overview) guide.
:::

## Choose the right index capacity mode

For sustained, high read throughput, [dedicated read nodes](/guides/index-data-dedicated-read-nodes-overview) can be more cost-effective than on-demand when you fully use provisioned read capacity. For spiky or low-QPS workloads, on-demand may be cheaper. See [When to use dedicated read nodes](/guides/index-data-dedicated-read-nodes-overview#when-to-use-dedicated-read-nodes) and [Understanding cost](/guides/manage-cost-understanding-cost).

## See also

- [Decrease latency](/guides/optimize-decrease-latency)
- [Increase throughput](/guides/optimize-increase-throughput)
- [Manage cost](/guides/manage-cost-manage-cost)

## Related pages

- [Account management](./account-management-index.md)
- [Admin](./admin-2-index.md)
- [Admin](./admin-index.md)
- [APIs](./apis-index.md)
- [Architecture](./architecture-index.md)
- [Assistants](./assistants-index.md)
- [Bring Your Own Cloud](./bring-your-own-cloud-index.md)
- [Build an assistant](./build-an-assistant-index.md)
- [Build an integration](./build-an-integration-index.md)
- [Changelog](./changelog-index.md)

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