Search Optimization Service: When the Cost Pays for Itself

Search Optimization Service: When the Cost Pays for Itself

The search optimization service adds storage and maintenance costs but can dramatically speed up selective queries. Calculate the ROI for your workload.

When It Helps

• Large tables (100M+ rows)
• Highly selective queries (returns <0.1% of rows)
• Point lookups (WHERE id = 12345)
• Substring searches (WHERE email LIKE '%@company.com%')
• High query frequency on same columns

Cost Structure

Table size 1TB, 10B rows:

• Initial build: 50 credits ($150)
• Daily maintenance: 5 credits/day ($450/month)
• Additional storage: 100GB ($23/month)
• Total first month: $623, ongoing: $473

ROI Calculation

Before Search Optimization:

SELECT * FROM large_table WHERE email = 'user@company.com';
-- Scans: 500GB
-- Time: 15 seconds
-- Cost: 0.5 credits per query
-- 1000 times/day: $45,000/month

After Search Optimization:

ALTER TABLE large_table
ADD SEARCH OPTIMIZATION ON EQUALITY(email);

-- Same query now:
-- Scans: 1MB (99.9998% reduction)
-- Time: 0.3 seconds (50x faster)
-- Cost: 0.001 credits per query
-- 1000 times/day: $90/month

ROI: Query cost savings $44,910/month, search optimization cost $473/month, net savings $44,437/month (99% reduction), payback period: Immediate.

Enabling Search Optimization

-- For specific columns
ALTER TABLE customers
ADD SEARCH OPTIMIZATION ON EQUALITY(email, customer_id);

-- For all suitable columns
ALTER TABLE large_table ADD SEARCH OPTIMIZATION;

Real-World Example

An e-commerce company had a 500M row orders table with frequent customer lookups. Before: query scans 200GB, 12 seconds, 5,000 queries/day = $1,500/day.

After: query scans 500KB (99.9998% reduction), 0.4 seconds (30x faster), $6/day. Search optimization cost $300/month, query savings $44,820/month, net savings $44,520/month.

Key Takeaways

• Search optimization dramatically speeds up point lookups on large tables
• Costs include initial build, ongoing maintenance, and storage
• ROI is positive when query frequency × cost > maintenance cost
• Best for tables >100M rows with high-frequency selective queries
• Can achieve 90-99% query cost reduction with 10-100x speed improvement