Cheapest option as row volume grows
Connector count, GB and rates held at your current inputs β only monthly MAR changes per row.
| MAR/mo (millions) | Fivetran | Airbyte Cloud | Portable | Cheapest |
|---|
Three billing shapes for the same pipeline
Fivetran meters every connector by Monthly Active Rows (MAR) β any row added, edited or deleted counts once per month β on a tiered curve that gets cheaper per row as volume climbs: roughly $2.50 per thousand rows for the first 5M MAR, dropping to $2.00/M from 5-20M and $1.50/M from 20-100M, plus a small flat base fee per connector. Airbyte Cloud instead sells credits at a flat $2.50 each, but how fast you burn them depends on source type: database and file sources are metered by data volume observed during sync ($10/GB, i.e. 4 credits), while API and custom sources are metered by rows ($15/M rows, i.e. 6 credits) β roughly 6x Fivetran's per-row rate before volume discounts. Portable flips the model entirely: a flat ~$200/month per connector with unlimited data volume included and no meter at all, built for the long-tail SaaS APIs Fivetran and Airbyte don't prioritize.
The practical takeaway: at low-to-mid volume, Fivetran's tiered MAR pricing usually beats Airbyte Cloud's credit rates, and both easily beat Portable's flat fee for a handful of connectors. But because Portable's price never moves with volume, a single very high-volume connector (hundreds of millions of MAR/month) eventually crosses over to make its flat fee the cheapest option β a crossover point neither Fivetran's nor Airbyte's usage-based pricing has. Compare this against the Vector Database Cost Calculator for what happens to the data once it lands in a warehouse, or the Webhook Delivery Cost Calculator for real-time sync as an alternative to batch ETL.
How this calculator works
The ETL / Data Pipeline Cost Calculator compares three ELT/ETL pricing shapes at your monthly volume: Fivetran (tiered MAR cost β the calculator walks your row volume through each published tier band in order, applying $2.50/M for the first 5M, $2.00/M for the next 15M up to 20M, $1.50/M for the next 80M up to 100M, and $1.00/M beyond that, then adds a flat base fee per connector), Airbyte Cloud (credits Γ $2.50, where credits = rows-in-millions Γ 6 for API sources, or GB Γ 4 for database/file sources, with a $10/mo plan minimum) and Portable (connectors Γ flat monthly fee, completely flat regardless of volume). All three totals are shown side by side, then a second table isolates every option across a range of MAR volumes at your current connector count and rates, so you can see exactly where the flat-fee model starts winning.
These are representative figures compiled from Fivetran's published example invoices, Airbyte's public 2026 credit pricing and Portable's published flat-fee model, not live vendor quotes β Fivetran doesn't publish per-MAR tier rates directly, and all three vendors offer custom Enterprise pricing above these self-serve tiers. Every field is editable: enter your own row volume, GB volume, connector count and rates for a number that matches your actual pipeline.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fivetran or Airbyte cheaper?
It depends entirely on volume and source type, because the two vendors don't even bill the same unit. Fivetran charges every connector by Monthly Active Rows (MAR) on a tiered curve β about $2.50 per thousand rows for the first 5M MAR/month, dropping to $2.00/M from 5-20M and $1.50/M from 20-100M, plus a small per-connector base fee. Airbyte Cloud instead sells credits at $2.50 each and burns them differently by source type: database and file sources cost 4 credits per GB synced ($10/GB), while API sources cost 6 credits per million rows ($15/M rows) β roughly 6x Fivetran's per-row rate at low volume. At small-to-mid volumes Fivetran is usually cheaper per row; Airbyte's open-source self-hosted Core edition (free, unlimited) is the actual cheapest option if you have the engineering time to run it yourself.
What is Portable.io and when is its flat fee cheaper?
Portable is an ELT vendor built for long-tail SaaS connectors (the niche APIs Fivetran and Airbyte don't prioritize) and it bills a flat monthly fee per connector β roughly $200/month β with unlimited data volume included, no MAR meter and no credits. That billing shape is the opposite of Fivetran and Airbyte: it's expensive for a handful of low-volume connectors but becomes the cheapest option once a single connector's volume climbs into the hundreds of millions of rows/month, because usage-based vendors keep charging linearly while Portable's price stays flat. It's rarely used to replace a high-volume core database replication pipeline, but it's a real crossover for the highest-volume connector in a stack.
What counts as a Monthly Active Row (MAR)?
A MAR is any row that changed (was added, edited or deleted) in a given source table during the billing month β Fivetran counts it once no matter how many times that same row is re-synced within the month. It's the industry's most-copied ETL billing unit but it's calculated per connector since Fivetran's March 2025 pricing update, so a single large table can push one connector into a higher tier while your other connectors stay in the cheapest tier.
Are these exact Fivetran, Airbyte and Portable prices?
These are representative figures compiled from public 2026 pricing pages and third-party pricing breakdowns, not a live vendor feed β Fivetran doesn't publish its per-MAR tier rates directly (they're derived from its published example invoices), and all three vendors negotiate custom Enterprise/Business Critical contracts above these self-serve tiers. Every field is editable: plug in your own row volume, GB volume and connector count for a number that matches your actual pipeline.