Fivetran’s acquisition of Census (now Fivetran Activations) unlocks powerful new opportunities for customers to activate their warehouse data. Now that becomes even easier as Census aligns with Fivetran’s  consumption-based pricing (CBP) model, combining data movement and activation in one bill. 

This change aligns Census’s pricing with the rest of the Fivetran platform, eliminating the previous flat platform fee and allowing customers to use and grow with Census just like they do with Fivetran. 

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What’s changing — and why it matters

To provide customers with more value, Fivetran is moving Census into one platform under a new feature — Fivetran Activations. Customers can now pay for and manage Connections, Transformations, and Activations with one contract in one place for every workload.

Instead of paying a fixed fee for Activations, you’ll only pay for what you use, based on monthly active rows (MAR).

MAR represents the unique primary keys that are added, updated, or deleted in your source and synced into your destination in a given calendar month. Unlike counting every single row synced, MAR focuses on what actually changed — making costs more predictable and tied to insight delivery. 

For example, when you insert a new row or update or delete an existing one, it becomes a MAR. However, if that row changes more than once in a given month, it is only counted once. And thanks to our built-in resync detection, you won’t get penalized for unchanged records.

This shift enables a fully self-serve experience that fits how most of our customers already buy and grow with Fivetran. Whether you’re activating 10,000 records or 10 million, you’ll be able to scale usage at your own pace — without needing a dedicated sales conversation just to get started. This means easier expansion and better alignment with how modern data teams operate

Streamlined plan tiers

Your invoice now consolidates Connections, Transformations, and Activations in one place, allowing you to commit to a single Fivetran budget and use it across all three. That means no matter your data need, you manage one budget, one contract, and one platform — with account-level discounts automatically applied across every workload. This unified approach gives your team clearer visibility, simpler planning, and consistent value across the entire Fivetran ecosystem.

Here’s how the new Census pricing maps to Fivetran plans:

For more on Fivetran pricing tiers and what’s included, visit https://www.fivetran.com/pricing/features. 

How much will it cost my organization?

Our pricing estimator makes understanding and forecasting your costs easy and transparent. This tool helps you model expected usage and validate your Census use cases before committing to them. Simply enter your projected sync volume and cadence to see a clear, data-driven estimate of your monthly spend. You can adjust inputs as your needs evolve, giving you confidence that your investment aligns with your budget and business goals.

Fivetran also offers a Free Plan designed to help teams get started quickly. You receive 3,500 free MAR for Activations and 500,000 free MAR for Connections, plus built-in role-based access controls. This option is ideal for testing new sources, exploring proofs of concept, or supporting lightweight workloads without upfront cost. It’s a simple way to try Fivetran’s capabilities before scaling to a paid tier.

But no matter what plan tier you’re on, every new connection, Quickstart data model, or activation comes with 14 days of free usage.

Try out the pricing estimator now: https://fivetran.com/pricing-estimator

How to get started

If you’re a Fivetran customer, you’ll see a new “Activation” tab in your dashboard where you can enable reverse ETL and begin syncing data to downstream tools — no separate login or contract needed. 

Existing Census customers will receive instructions to link their Census and Fivetran accounts to take advantage of unified billing and access.

New to Activations or Fivetran? Try a free trial — every new connection and activation comes with a 14-day free trial, letting you find value without any risk.

Log in to your Fivetran dashboard to try Activations now — or book a demo to see it in action.

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