Census vs Fivetran For ETL/ELT in 2025
Fivetran moves data from SaaS apps, databases, and files into data warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, and Redshift, while Census syncs data from your data warehouse to SaaS apps like Salesforce, Hubspot, and ad platforms. In this article, we'll compare Census and Fivetran to see which one is the best ETL solution.
What are Census and Fivetran?
Census
Census is a Reverse ETL platform that syncs data from your data warehouse to SaaS apps like Salesforce, Hubspot, and ad platforms.
It ensures that your business tools are always up-to-date with the latest information from your data warehouse.
Fivetran
Fivetran is a widely-used ETL tool that transfers data from SaaS applications, databases, and files into data warehouses such as Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, and Redshift.
It simplifies the process of data movement, ensuring seamless integration and accessibility across various platforms.
Compare Census and Fivetran
Census
Fivetran
Key Features
- Sync data from your warehouse to various tools (Reverse ETL)
- Collaborative workspaces
- Customizable white-label API
Key Features
- Renowned ETL provider
- Extensive array of built-in connectors
- Effortless syncing into data warehouses
- Ideal for smaller businesses
Limitations
- Limit on the number of synced fields for the Professional plan
- Pricing structure not based on scale (per field pricing)
- Enterprise plan needed for syncs more frequent than every 15 minutes
- Unable to sync to data warehouses
Limitations
- Unable to sync data back into SaaS applications (lacks Reverse ETL capabilities)
- Frequent increases in pricing
- High costs for medium-scale operations and beyond
- Customer support is limited and often unreliable
- Slow to respond to requests for new connectors
Pricing
Census provides three primary pricing options: a limited free plan, a Professional plan beginning at $350 per month, and customizable Enterprise plans. For real-time sync capabilities and access to their “Audience Hub” features, the Enterprise plan is necessary.
Pricing
Fivetran offers a variety of pricing plans, starting with a Free Plan at $0, a Standard Plan at $500 per million monthly active rows (MAR), an Enterprise Plan at $667 per million MAR, and a Business Critical Plan at $1,067 per million MAR.
As of March 2025, bulk sync discounts are applied on a per connector basis rather than across the entire workspace, which has led to increased costs for many users.
Reviews
Census has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Some users find Census to be expensive, especially for scaling companies.
There are mentions of feature limitations and missing features. A few users noted that some functionalities, like on-the-fly transformations, are lacking in certain pricing tiers. One review mentioned that the tool is still young and has limited connections to SaaS tools. Check out more of their reviews here.
Reviews
Fivetran has an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars. Users have expressed concerns about the pricing model, limited connectors, and customer support.
Check out more of their reviews here.
Why customers are switching to Polytomic
Polytomic combines ETL, Reverse ETL, and CDC streaming in a single platform so you can move data to and from your data warehouse without managing multiple ETL tools.
- Loved by Data Teams: One single vendor for all ETL and Reverse ETL, covering high-scale CDC streaming, full SQL support, and Terraform integration.
- Easy for RevOps and Marketing: Point-and-click pipelines with power-user features like real-time SOQL transformations on Salesforce and native integrations with ad platforms.
- Integrations Powering AI Agents: White-label API with native clients for unified ETL; deep integrations with your customers’ GTM stack, finance tools, and data warehouses with fully managed authentication.
- Enterprise-ready: Self-hosting option, multi-tenant workspaces, fine-grained RBAC permissions, high scalability, and 30–50% cost savings from platform consolidation. Plus, support from engineers—in minutes, not days.
What is Polytomic?
Polytomic
Data teams appreciate our single ETL platform with unified monitoring to centralize all data movement. We have full SQL support and first-class support for infrastructure-as-code.
RevOps and marketing teams use our no-code UI to quickly and independently set up syncs for product data to their CRM and ad platforms.
Built for enterprise scale, Polytomic can be self-hosted, handles billions of rows reliably, and has multi-tenant workspaces with fine-grained access controls.
All the features you need, on the platform that does it all
Replace multiple vendors
Reduce costs and simplify workflows
One platform for all syncs
ETL, Reverse ETL, CDC, iPaaS, APIs, and spreadsheets
Sync only what's changed
Save on API limits and compute costs
Point and click
Select and filter your data without writing code
SQL query support
Powerful transformations when you need them
Pull from any API
No more glue code for custom integrations
Self-hosting available
Turnkey deployment to your private cloud
Enterprise-ready
SOC 2, GDPR, permissions, and audit logs
Integrated with your favorite tools
Sync any of your proprietary data from databases, data warehouses, and spreadsheets to the business systems you use.
Pricing begins at $500/month
Standard
Everything in Basic, plus:
- Sync to and from databases, warehouses, spreadsheets, apps, and APIs
- Unlimited users and connections
- Multiple sync destinations
- Live chat support with engineers
Enterprise
Everything in Standard, plus:
- On-prem deployment
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Dedicated engineer
- Phone support
Get hands-on with Polytomic
See how easy it is to sync data to the tools your team actually uses—no code, no waiting.