Changes / ETL / ELT & ingestion / Fivetran
Price increasemedium impact
Fivetran adds a $5 minimum per connection (1 to 1M MAR)
A $5 minimum base charge applies to standard connections generating between 1 and 1 million MAR per month, starting January 1, 2026 for PAYG.
Who’s affected
Teams on the Standard plan with PAYG billing, which has had the $5 per-connection minimum since January 1, 2026. Annual-contract customers are hit when they renew, and the minimum applies to connections generating between 1 and 1M MAR per month.
Not affected: Free plan accounts. Annual-contract customers are unaffected until their renewal date.
What it costs
Each connection with 1 to 1M MAR a month now costs at least $5 per month at list. Accounts with many small or low-volume connections (long-tail SaaS sources, dev/test syncs) feel it most, since volume-based charges no longer set their floor.
When to act
The change is already in effect for PAYG, and annual customers should review it 60-90 days before renewal so they can negotiate or consolidate connections first.
Blast radius: Billing and contract renewal terms first. Migrating connectors would affect dbt source tables, schema names, sync schedules and downstream dashboards that depend on Fivetran-loaded schemas.
What should you do? decision tree
- you are on the Free planNothing to do; the minimum does not apply to you.
- you are on PAYG StandardExport your connection list with monthly MAR and flag every connection under the minimum, as you are already being billed for it.
- you are on an annual contractFind your renewal date, run the estimator on current connections, and raise the per-connection minimum in renewal talks 60-90 days ahead.
- many connections are idle, duplicated or low-valuePause or delete them, or merge sources where the connector allows it, before the next bill or renewal.
- the remaining minimums still push cost beyond budgetPrice a lower-cost ingestion tool for the long-tail connectors and keep Fivetran for high-volume sources.
Options
- OptimizeAudit connections: delete unused, test and duplicate ones so you stop paying the $5 list minimum on them.
- NegotiateAt renewal, ask for the per-connection minimum to be waived or capped, or for bundled pricing across small connections.
- Re-architectConsolidate small sources into fewer connections or sync them less often where your design allows.
- MigrateMove long-tail, low-MAR connectors to a cheaper or open-source ingestion tool and keep Fivetran for the heavy sources.
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The facts straight from the source
Facts above are extracted from the source and checked word-for-word before publishing. The guidance sections are AI-assisted analysis based only on those facts: a starting point, not legal or procurement advice. Spotted an error? Tell us.
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Packaging