Fivetran vs Airbyte Cloud vs Matillion: Real Data Integration Cost per 100 Million Rows in 2026
The short answer: a "row" is three different things on these three invoices. Fivetran bills monthly active rows (MAR): distinct rows changed in a month, counted once per connection. Airbyte Cloud bills rows synced (or gigabytes for databases and files), so every change counts. Matillion bills credits for compute time with monthly minimum commitments, so rows barely matter until you exceed the commitment. On the same append-only workload, the cost of 100 million rows ranges from about $1,000–$1,500 on Airbyte Standard, to $2,894 on Fivetran Standard through one connection, to $1,875 on Matillion Advanced at 100 million rows a month. Change the workload shape and the ranking flips: a table whose rows change roughly nine or more times a month is cheaper per row on Fivetran than on Airbyte API pricing, and a large historical backfill costs $10,000–$15,000 on Airbyte and nothing extra on Fivetran.
Normalizing the meter
| Question | Fivetran | Airbyte Cloud | Matillion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Monthly active rows per connection (distinct primary keys inserted, updated or deleted; counted once per month) | Rows synced for API and custom sources; gigabytes for database and file sources | Credits for compute time |
| Repeated changes to one row | Counted once per month | Counted every time it syncs | Not counted; time-based |
| Deletes | Count toward MAR from January 2026 (REPORTED) | Counted for incremental syncs | Not applicable |
| Initial historical sync | Excluded from MAR (REPORTED) | Charged in full | Uses credits for run time |
| Volume discount | Per connection, not per account (REPORTED) | Volume discounts on request; Plus and Pro are capacity-based | Tiered price per credit with minimum credits |
A row synced is not automatically a MAR and neither is a credit. The comparisons below always state which unit is being counted.
Official rates
Fivetran (OFFICIAL, Fivetran pricing page and 2026 pricing-update documentation). Monthly cost is calculated per connection from a published curve. On the Standard plan the monthly cost ranges are: under 1M MAR $0–$499.99, 1M to under 4M $500–$1,009.99, 4M to under 16M $1,010–$1,705.99, 16M to under 64M $1,706–$2,651.59, 64M to under 250M $2,651.60–$3,901.51, 250M to under 1,000M $3,901.52–$5,619.01, and 1,000M and above $5,619.02+. From January 2026 a $5 base charge applies to any paid-plan connection generating between 1 and 1 million MAR. Annual contracts save up to 22%, and commit discounts of 5–11% are listed in the table. Enterprise and Business Critical were reported at about $667 and $1,067 per million MAR against $500 on Standard (REPORTED). Transformations are billed on a separate meter of monthly model runs (REPORTED). Vendr reported annual contracts commonly between $15,000 and $250,000 or more (REPORTED). Slopes between tier boundaries below are calculated from those published ranges.
Airbyte Cloud (OFFICIAL, Airbyte documentation). Standard starts at $10 a month including 4 credits, with additional credits at $2.50. API sources: $15 per million rows (6 credits). Database and file sources: $10 per GB (4 credits). For APIs, incremental syncs bill the rows added, edited or deleted; a full refresh bills every row. Database volume is measured in Airbyte's serialized format, which is likely larger than the size seen in the database itself. Plus was reported at a $25,000 annual minimum with capacity-based billing (REPORTED), and failed syncs were reported to consume credits without refunds (REPORTED).
Matillion (OFFICIAL, Matillion pricing page). Credit prices of $2.00 (Basic, from 500 credits a month), $2.50 (Advanced, from 750) and $2.70 (Enterprise, from 1,000), or $1,000, $1,875 and $2,700 a month at the minimums. Third-party trackers list plans named Developer, Teams and Scale starting at $1,000 and $2,000 a month, and the two naming schemes disagree. Vendr reported a median contract of $139,000 a year across 31 purchases (REPORTED). Matillion does not publish rows per credit, so throughput assumptions below are ILLUSTRATIVE.
Workload shapes
Volume is 10 million, 100 million and 1 billion rows synced per month. Rows are 1 KB each (ILLUSTRATIVE), so 100 million rows is 100 GB. Warehouse compute and network egress are billed by your warehouse and cloud, not by these vendors, and are excluded.
A. Append-only (MAR equals rows synced), one connection:
| Monthly rows | Fivetran Standard | Airbyte API sources | Airbyte database sources | Matillion Advanced (if inside 750 credits) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 million | $1,358 | $150 | $100 | $1,875 |
| 100 million | $2,893.52 | $1,500 | $1,000 | $1,875 |
| 1 billion | $5,619.02 | $15,000 | $10,000 | $1,875 |
Effective cost per 100 million rows: Fivetran $13,580, $2,893.52 and $561.90; Airbyte $1,500 (API) or $1,000 (database) at every volume; Matillion Advanced $18,750, $1,875 and $187.50. Formula for Fivetran: base + (MAR − tier start) × slope, for example at 100 million MAR: $2,651.60 + (100 − 64) × $6.72 = $2,893.52. Airbyte is linear; Fivetran and Matillion have large fixed components.
B. Frequently updated SaaS tables, each row changed five times a month (MAR = rows synced ÷ 5):
| Monthly rows synced | MAR | Fivetran Standard | Airbyte API sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 million | 2 million | $670 | $150 |
| 100 million | 20 million | $1,784.80 | $1,500 |
| 1 billion | 200 million | $3,565.52 | $15,000 |
Fivetran's per-100-million-row-synced cost is $6,700, $1,784.80 and $356.55. Airbyte's is $1,500 throughout.
C. Large historical backfill plus incremental sync, a one-time 1 billion-row load plus 10 million incremental rows a month:
| Item | Fivetran | Airbyte API | Airbyte database | Matillion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backfill month | $1,358 (backfill excluded from MAR) | $15,150 | $10,100 | Uses credits, likely inside the commitment |
| Steady-state month | $1,358 | $150 | $100 | Inside the commitment |
The historical backfill penalty on Airbyte is $10,000–$15,000 one time. On Fivetran it is zero under the reported initial-sync exclusion, though re-syncs and connector changes should be confirmed in writing. On Matillion it depends on throughput: at an ILLUSTRATIVE 20 million rows per credit, a billion-row load uses 50 credits, well inside a 750-credit minimum.
Sensitivity to update frequency
Take 10 million distinct rows, updated k times a month. Fivetran bills 10 million MAR whatever k is, so $1,358. Airbyte bills 10 million × k rows:
| Updates per row per month | Fivetran | Airbyte API | Airbyte database |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,358 | $150 | $100 |
| 5 | $1,358 | $750 | $500 |
| 30 (daily) | $1,358 | $4,500 | $3,000 |
Airbyte API costs equal Fivetran's at about 9 updates per row per month; for database sources the crossover is about 13.6. Fivetran's advantage grows with update frequency and its disadvantage grows with the number of connections.
Sensitivity to connection count
Fivetran's discount curve is per connection. One billion MAR through one connection is $5,619.02 a month. The same billion split across ten equal connections is $28,935.20, five times higher, because each connection restarts the curve. Ten million MAR split across ten connections is $5,000 instead of $1,358.
Break-even points
- Airbyte Plus versus Standard: $25,000 a year is about $2,083 a month, which equals Standard's API charge at about 139 million rows a month (or 208 GB of database data), if Plus's capacity covers the workload.
- Matillion minimum: a $1,875 monthly minimum equals Airbyte's API charge at 125 million rows a month, so Matillion's cost per row falls below Airbyte's above that volume if the workload fits inside 750 credits.
Budgeting traps
- Counting rows the wrong way. Comparing Fivetran MAR with Airbyte rows synced overstates one or the other by the update frequency.
- Full refreshes. On Airbyte, a full refresh bills every row every time.
- Serialized volume. Airbyte database billing uses serialized volume, which can exceed the size in your database.
- Connection sprawl. On Fivetran, many small connections lose volume discounts and add the $5 base charge.
- Failed syncs and retries. Reported to consume Airbyte credits.
- Minimum commitments. Matillion and Airbyte Plus charge for capacity you may not use.
What to ask before you buy
Ask each vendor to price the same table by number of rows, distinct rows, changes per month and connection count. Ask for the initial-sync and re-sync policy in writing, and for the price at ten times your current volume.