Census vs Prefect Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
Free
- 500,000 monthly active rows (MAR) for connections
- 3,500 monthly active rows (MAR) for activations
- 5,000 monthly model runs (MMR) for transformations
Standard
Popular- Unlimited users
- 15-minute syncs
- 700+ fully managed connectors
- 200+ fully managed activation destinations
- Integration for dbt Core™
- Role-based access control
- Access to Fivetran REST API
- Access to SSH tunnels for encryption
Enterprise
- 1-minute syncs
- Fivetran Activations' Audience Hub
- Enterprise database connectors
- Custom roles
- VPN tunnels (annual contract only)
- SCIM/user provisioning
- Pick any cloud provider (GCP, AWS, Azure)
- Hybrid deployment option
Business Critical
- Customer-managed keys for encryption
- PCI DSS Level 1 certification
- Private networking options
Hobby
- Workflow scheduling
- 2 users
- Up to 5 deployments
- 500 min of Prefect Serverless
- Workflow observability
- Logging & alerting
- 7 days run retention
Starter
- 3 users
- Up to 20 deployments
- 75 hours of Prefect Serverless
- Bring your own compute
- Webhooks
- 1,250 API requests/min
Team
- 4-8 users
- Up to 100 deployments
- 225 hours of Prefect Serverless
- Service accounts
- 24 hour audit log
- 50 automations
Pro
- 5-20 users
- Up to 1,000 deployments
- 250 hours of Prefect Serverless
- Multiple workspaces
- SSO (SAML/OIDC)
- Basic RBAC
Enterprise
- 5+ users
- Unlimited deployments
- Custom Prefect Serverless
- RBAC + ACLs
- Directory Sync (SCIM)
- IP allowlisting & PrivateLink
Census vs Prefect FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. Census uses usage-based pricing, while Prefect goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Census: Opaque custom pricing across all paid tiers signals they're not trying to win on being the cheapest option — they're positioning against tools like Hightouch and Segment as a data activation layer for teams already invested in a modern data stack. The free tier and 14-day trial per connection are the low-friction entry points to get teams hooked before the sales motion kicks in. Prefect: They're positioned in the mid-market sweet spot — not trying to undercut Airflow's self-hosted free tier, but not as aggressively priced as Dagster Cloud or as enterprise-heavy as Astronomer. The $100/user/mo Team tier targets growing data engineering teams who've outgrown DIY orchestration but aren't ready for a six-figure platform deal.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for Census and Prefect and let you know when something moves.