Fivetran licensing is the set of commercial and legal terms under which Fivetran Inc. sells its managed data movement platform. The platform extracts data from sources into a destination such as a warehouse or lake, can transform it there, and can send warehouse data back to business applications. Fivetran describes its products as a data movement platform that “extracts, loads and transforms data from customer-specified sources to customer-specified destinations.”[1] Unlike most enterprise software it is not licensed per user, per core or per server. A customer pays for how much data changes, measured in Monthly Active Rows (MAR) for pipelines and activations and in monthly model runs for transformations.[4]
Fivetran announced on 2025-10-13 and completed on 2026-06-01 an all-stock merger with dbt Labs, and says the two companies operate initially as “Fivetran + dbt Labs”.[8] The Fivetran legal hub now lists “Requirements for dbt labs” next to those for HVR, Hybrid Deployment, the Free Plan and Fivetran AI.[7] The LICENSEWARE Wiki keeps dbt Labs on a separate vendor page; see dbt Labs licensing.
Products and what is metered
| Product | What it does | Metric | Deeper article |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data pipelines (connections) | Replicates a source into a destination with a pre-built connector | MAR per Connection | Monthly Active Rows |
| Transformations | Quickstart data models and Fivetran-hosted dbt jobs | Monthly model runs | Transformations and Activations |
| Activations | Reverse ETL, previously Census | Activation MAR | Transformations and Activations |
| HVR | Self-hosted database replication | HVR MAR | HVR and Hybrid Deployment |
| Hybrid Deployment | Local agent that processes data in the customer network | MAR, on Enterprise and Business Critical | HVR and Hybrid Deployment |
| Fivetran AI features | AI-powered features under separate requirements | Not separately metered in the documents reviewed | Contract terms |
Activations became part of Fivetran’s pricing in February 2026, giving customers “a single provider, contract, and invoice” for both ELT and reverse ETL.[9]
Plans
Fivetran offers four plans. Free gives Standard plan features up to 500,000 connection MAR, 3,500 activation MAR and 5,000 monthly model runs.[3] Standard adds unlimited users, 15-minute syncs, more than 700 connectors, role-based access control and the REST API. Enterprise adds one-minute syncs, enterprise database connectors, custom roles, SCIM provisioning, VPN tunnels on annual contracts, a choice of cloud provider and the Hybrid Deployment option. Business Critical adds customer-managed keys, PCI DSS Level 1 certification and private networking.[3] Only Enterprise and Business Critical offer enterprise database connectors, such as Oracle and SAP sources, and Hybrid Deployment.[5] The plans, contracts and billing article compares them in detail.
How the bill is computed
The Service Consumption Table sets the list rate. Each Connection and each Activation is priced on its own volume curve, and Monthly Spend is the sum of connection and activation costs plus transformation costs.[1] Within a curve the formula is the base spend for the band plus the MAR above the band threshold, in millions, times the incremental rate.[1] A $5 base charge applies to a paid Connection with 1 to 1 million MAR, which is why low-volume pipelines are no longer almost free.[4]
At list prices, a Standard connection costs $5 plus $495 per million MAR up to 1 million, and $500 plus $170 per million above 1 million; Enterprise and Business Critical use higher curves (about 1.33 and 2.14 times the Standard rates).[1] The multiples are derived from the published table rows and are not stated by Fivetran. Customers cannot combine MAR across connections or accounts to reach a cheaper band.[1]
Billing and contract structure
Customers either buy an annual Capacity Purchase Plan, which requires an upfront purchase of Contracted Spend, or a monthly pay-as-you-go plan billed in arrears.[1] Annual contracts start at USD 12,000 of spend and carry discounts that begin at 5%.[5] Fivetran also offers Enterprise License Agreements with a fixed annual price and no consumption limit in specific cases.[3] Purchases can be made through the AWS, Google Cloud, Azure and Snowflake marketplaces under separate Marketplace Terms.[2]
The Master Subscription Agreement (MSA) is the base contract. It makes the Order Form prevail over the business associate agreement, data processing addendum, product-specific requirements, acceptable use policy, the MSA itself and the documentation, in that order.[2] Changes to the MSA take effect on renewal of the current subscription term or at a new Order Form, though continued use counts as acceptance.[2] The same renewal rule applies to updates of the Service Consumption Table, except for changes required by law or tied to new features.[1]
Free plan terms
The Free plan is governed by its own requirements. A customer may hold one Free plan account. An Overage Month in which any limit is exceeded blocks new connections until the next month; a second Overage Month in twelve months ends eligibility. Fivetran may change the Free plan at any time without notice.[6]
Licence compliance points for a software asset manager
- Fivetran has no installed-base audit clause in the MSA text reviewed. Compliance is by metering: usage data flows to Fivetran, and for On-Prem Software the customer may be asked for a monthly usage report if its configuration blocks metering.[1][2]
- Spend exposure comes from connection count, churn in source rows and the sync modes chosen. Since 1 January 2026 deletes and history mode changes count as paid MAR on pay-as-you-go accounts.[9]
- Use of Fivetran AI features is governed by separate requirements: the customer owns AI Content, and Fivetran does not use it to train its models.[10]
- Contracts signed before 1 March 2025 keep account-wide tiers and older re-sync rules until renewal; see the plans and billing article.
Out of scope
This article does not cover Fivetran connector SDK pricing, partner-built connectors, Professional Services statements of work, destination warehouse costs billed by Snowflake, Databricks or cloud providers, or negotiated Order Form terms that are not public.