Dagster vs Census Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

Dagster pricing Census pricing
Starts at $10/mo Custom
Number of plans 3 4
Free plan —
Free trial
Pricing model hybrid usage-based

Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →

Dagster pricing

Official page

Solo Plan

$10/mo
  • Pay-as-you-go $0.040/credit
  • Serverless compute $0.010/minute
  • 1 User
  • 1 Code location
  • 1 Deployment
  • 30-day free trial

Starter Plan

Popular
$100/mo
  • Pay-as-you-go $0.035/credit
  • Serverless compute $0.010/minute
  • Up to 3 Users
  • 5 Code locations
  • 1 Deployment
  • Catalog Search
  • 30-day free trial

Pro Plan

Custom
  • Custom Serverless compute
  • Unlimited code locations
  • Unlimited deployments
  • Cost Tracking and Insights
  • Personalized Onboarding Support
  • Private Slack channel
  • Uptime SLAs
  • Custom Security Questionnaires

Census pricing

Official page

Free

$0/mo
  • 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
Custom
  • 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

Custom
  • 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

Custom
  • Customer-managed keys for encryption
  • PCI DSS Level 1 certification
  • Private networking options

Dagster vs Census 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?
Census has a free plan. Dagster doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. Dagster uses hybrid pricing, while Census goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. Dagster: The $10 entry point undercuts most managed orchestration options, which makes Dagster an easy credit-card trial against Airflow-hosted and Prefect-style alternatives. Mid-market and enterprise pricing is hidden behind 'Custom,' so they're cheap to start but premium at scale, aiming to win individual engineers first and expand into data platform budgets. Census: Census plays in the middle-to-premium band of the reverse ETL space, priced to compete with Hightouch rather than DIY scripts or cheap connectors — they're betting on being the polished, enterprise-ready option rather than the budget pick. The custom-quote-everything approach signals they're chasing mid-market and enterprise data teams, not self-serve solo users.

Still deciding? See the best Dagster alternatives or the best Census alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.

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