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In Cloud Firestore we are charged for read/write/delete operations. Perhaps this is obvious for some but I could not find anywhere what is considered read. If I have a collection of 10 records and I fetch them all in form of a list, does it count as 10 reads or 1 (since I read only once from the database)?

Bielik
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3 Answers3

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Since you're reading 10 documents, so you'll be charged for 10 document reads. The number of read API calls you use is not relevant here.

Also see:

Frank van Puffelen
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    That *sounds* reasonable, but I've got a strange situation going on here. I have a Firestore with 4 collections with a grand total of 58 records between them (14, 10, 29, 5). And yet, according to the usage graph, I had 2.6K reads at 11:00am and now I'm at 5.4K reads an hour later. I did NOT run the app 48 times in an hour! I'm adding code and so, it takes me 5-10 minutes to add a feature. plus I search on Google, etc. So, maybe 5-10 times in an hour...... where did the 2800 reads come from?!? – Zonker.in.Geneva May 14 '20 at 20:00
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    after a refresh, now it's 6.1K at 12:00. So, that's 3500 reads in an hour or over 60 app runs. No, no, no, no, no..... – Zonker.in.Geneva May 14 '20 at 20:03
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    It sounds like you're having a problem. I'd recommend posting a new question. One important thing that many devs don't realize: the Firestore console also needs to read the documents to list/display them, and this especially adds up during development. – Frank van Puffelen May 14 '20 at 20:16
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    The usage tab doesn't read any documents, but when you're browsing and viewing documents, that needs to read those documents and all reads are charged operations. – Frank van Puffelen May 15 '20 at 00:47
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I did a bunch of testing of this and can confirm that the Firebase Database tab uses an insane amount of reads. For me it incurred a 600+ read count every single time I opened it. If I clicked off that tab and back onto it, I would get another 600+ hit on read count. I monitored the usage of this using the GCP Usage for Firestore so I could avoid having that window open.

This is an absurd cost, it has taken me into 100k+ reads by scrolling through it without realizing what was happening. You could even hit a million pretty easy if you were spending a lot of time in there doing something.

In addition, if you leave that tab open as you make calls, it throws your numbers WAY WAY off as it also shows real time updates.

Be very careful when and how you use these tools. Personally I don't think it makes sense to incur usage costs for using internal tools. Especially since they don't even tell you these tools will incur usage costs.

emalamisura
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    I talked to Firebase Support at length about this and they said this is by design. – emalamisura Aug 27 '20 at 21:07
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    Just for clarification, just by looking at what exists within the Firebase Database console open in a browser (i.e. found at the URL "https://console.firebase.google.com/.../projectName/...") you will be charged with a read? – Andrew B. Sep 14 '20 at 14:48
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    An addition to this is that you do not see the increase on the number of reads you have. The number of reads increase slowly, not at once as soon as a read operation occurs. (I am sure it is by design as well!) Since numbers are increasing very slowly, it makes it very hard to test how it is really calculated. – edn Nov 05 '20 at 20:25
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    @AndrewB. Yes that is correct. And Google has confirmed, it's by design and they do not plan to change it. Not just "a read", you will be charged with hundreds, of thousands of reads. If data is being manipulated within the view that is loaded you will also be charged for each of those realtime reads as data is updated by your users. – emalamisura Dec 06 '20 at 15:44
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    Thank you so much for explaining this mystery! – khalidsafir Mar 11 '21 at 10:40
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In Firebase firestore, read is counted in 2 ways, Here 1 document = 1 read. Firstly from your app where your client fetches the data from document you created in firestore and

Secondly You're charged for reads in the console too. Generally, this number is low during the development phase but when your documents are excessive then it would create a problem for you as it will increase your read if you simply open your console.

to solve this problem either you may prefer to create a separate admin panel which you can fetch the required document instead of getting read the whole documents in firestore console or just create an collection named a or A with an empty document so that whenever you load firestore console, only documents in the a or A collection are loaded.

NOTE: you should only create a empty document collection named either a or A so that whenever you open your console that collection would be opened in default instead of other document.

Harsh Kothari
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  • How do we create a separate admin panel? – Real Tech Hacks Jul 08 '21 at 03:57
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    @RealTechHacks i believe the admin panel mention by Harsh is you personally create a website that only fetch some record that you need from a collection instead of looking at firebase console as the console will load all document in the collection which consume lot of your read quota – Henry Teh Aug 22 '22 at 14:29
  • @HenryTeh Exactly! just fetch or categorize required data in a admin panel so you won't have to pay for the whole read you gonna have while opening Firestrore console – Harsh Kothari Sep 01 '22 at 15:55