Fivetran Monthly Active Rows (MAR) are the unit in which Fivetran meters data pipeline usage. The Service Consumption Table defines MAR as “the number of distinct Primary Keys reflecting inserts, updates, and deletes that are synced via Fivetran, calculated on a per-Connection or per-Activation basis.”[1] A row counts once per billing period, a calendar month, however many times it syncs, so a primary key synced 30 times in a month is one MAR.[1] This differs from total synced rows, which Fivetran describes as more prone to variation and outliers.[1]
What is counted
Keys are counted separately by account, destination, connection, table, activation and activation sync.[2] If a table has no primary key Fivetran creates a synthetic, hashed key; a primary key column itself cannot be blocked from syncing.[2][4] The count covers inserts, updates and deletes. Deletes only joined paid MAR on 1 January 2026 for pay-as-you-go accounts, and at renewal for annual contracts signed after 1 March 2025; contracts signed before that date already counted them under the older rules.[3]
A row deleted twice in one month is still one MAR.[3] History mode behaves differently: when it is on, repeated updates to a key within a month are tracked, and since 1 January 2026 those changes count toward paid MAR, while rows with no change do not. Soft delete mode and live mode do not bill repeated updates.[3]
Three types of MAR
Fivetran splits MAR into historical, free and incremental. Historical MAR is data that already existed in the source or was synced when the table or connection was created, such as initial syncs, re-syncs after schema changes and migration syncs. Incremental MAR is new or updated data since the last sync.[2] Only incremental data outside a free period is paid.
What is free
Free MAR includes initial syncs, connection trials, private preview connectors (not destinations), Fivetran system tables, the Fivetran Platform connector, re-syncs, the connection troubleshooting window, accounts on legacy plans, the Free plan and promotions.[2] Every new connection has 14 days of free usage, which begins when the first incremental sync detects incremental data.[2][7]
Re-syncs are free in three listed cases: historical data from adding a column, unchanged rows in re-import tables, and post-trial MAR already seen in the trial. Fivetran applies this improved detection to accounts on the pricing launched on 1 March 2025, and customers on earlier annual contracts get it by renewing.[2][5] Rollback syncs are not free: records fetched again from the previous month count as new rows in the current month.[2]
How a connection is priced
Each Connection and Activation follows its own volumetric curve, so the cost per million MAR falls as that single connection grows. The list-price curve in the Service Consumption Table (effective 1 February 2026) is:
| Monthly MAR in the Connection (millions) | Standard | Enterprise | Business Critical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above 0 (1 MAR upward) | $5 base + $495.00 per million | $5 base + $661.67 per million | $5 base + $1,061.67 per million |
| From 1 | $500.00 + $170.00 per million | $666.67 + $226.67 per million | $1,066.67 + $362.67 per million |
| From 4 | $1,010.00 + $58.00 | $1,346.67 + $77.33 | $2,154.67 + $123.73 |
| From 16 | $1,706.00 + $19.70 | $2,274.67 + $26.27 | $3,639.47 + $42.03 |
| From 64 | $2,651.60 + $6.72 | $3,535.47 + $8.96 | $5,656.75 + $14.34 |
| From 250 | $3,901.52 + $2.29 | $5,202.03 + $3.05 | $8,323.24 + $4.89 |
| From 1,000 | $5,619.02 + $1.18 | $7,492.03 + $1.57 | $11,987.24 + $2.52 |
Each cell is base spend per month plus the incremental price per additional million MAR. Fivetran states the formula as base spend plus (actual MAR minus threshold) times the incremental spend per million, with portions of a million prorated.[1] For a Standard connection with 2.5 million MAR the list cost is therefore $500.00 plus 1.5 times $170.00, or $755.00. The example is computed from the published table.
Base charge
Since January 2026 a USD 5 base charge applies to each Connection with usage between 1 MAR and 1 million MAR. It starts on pay-as-you-go accounts on 1 January 2026 and on annual contracts at renewal. It does not apply to the Free plan, to a Connection with no paid MAR or to inactive Connections.[3] Fivetran suggests pausing low-value connections to avoid it.[4]
Tiering moved to the connection
Before 1 March 2025 tiering applied to account-wide MAR; after it, tiering applies per Connection. Fivetran says the change was calibrated to be neutral for the typical user, so customers with many equal-sized connections pay more and those with one dominant connection pay less.[5] Customers cannot combine MAR across connections, activations or accounts to reach a better band.[1]
Counting traps
- Same data, two connections. The Connection instance matters, not the Connector, so staging and production Connections reading the same source count separately.[2]
- Start of month. Active rows reset at the end of each month, so MAR can look high on the first day when many rows change; MAR is calculated in UTC.[4]
- Paused and resumed connections. The first sync after resuming loads everything changed while paused. Deleting and recreating a connection under the same name has a similar effect.[4]
- Schema changes. Adding a column to an Oracle table forces a full table re-sync on the Oracle connector.[2]
- Hybrid sources. For NetSuite Suite Analytics, Fivetran combines incremental updates, checksum-based delete detection and re-imports of tables that cannot be updated incrementally; for re-imported tables only changed rows count as paid MAR.[2]
- Blocked columns. Under pre-March 2025 rules, an update to a blocked non-key column still counts as MAR.[6]
Controlling and monitoring MAR
Usage is shown daily under Account Settings, Billing and Usage, and per connection on its Usage tab. The Fivetran Platform connector loads MAR data into the destination for analysis, and the MAR it generates is free.[4] Fivetran lists three levers: higher usage per connection for a better rate, blocking schemas or tables, and blocking commonly changing columns on tables without a primary key. Sync frequency makes no difference to MAR.[4]
Median examples on the pricing page, for Standard plan list prices, show Facebook Ads at 34,479 MAR costing $22.06 per month and Marketo at 847,574 MAR costing $424.54 per month.[7]
Legacy contracts
Annual contracts signed before 1 March 2025 stay on account-wide tiers, the older re-sync mechanism and, for some customers, the deprecated Starter or Private Deployment plans until they renew. On renewal the updated pricing applies automatically.[6] Under the older rules, an entire re-imported table counts as MAR on the first day of the month, and after a trial ends a one-time MAR increase appears because most rows then count for the first time.[6]
Out of scope
HVR has its own MAR definition and troubleshooting window, covered in the HVR and Hybrid Deployment article. Priority-first sync connector lists and per-connector MAR guides (HubSpot, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and others) are in Fivetran documentation and are not reproduced here.