Snowflake 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.
Standard
Enterprise
PopularBusiness Critical
Virtual Private Snowflake
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
Snowflake 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. Snowflake doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Snowflake: Snowflake is the premium play in cloud data warehousing — they're not trying to win on price against BigQuery or Redshift, they're selling on performance, cross-cloud flexibility, and the Data Cloud ecosystem. They target mid-market to enterprise teams that have outgrown cheaper options and need serious scale. 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.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for Snowflake and Census and let you know when something moves.