Architecture-review workbook

Pick a data pipeline tool without the vendor calculator dance.

A data pipeline tool moves rows from a source system into a warehouse, lakehouse, or back into a SaaS destination. The category splits into ELT, orchestration, streaming, change-data-capture, and reverse-ETL. In 2026, the leading managed vendors charge $14–$48 per million monthly active rows; self-hosted options trade subscription cost for a loaded 0.5 FTE.Fivetran pricing - pulled 2026-06-21

Vendor rate evidence rail

50M MAR mid-market profile

YOUR DATA

Fivetran: $48/M MAR

YOUR WAREHOUSE

YOUR DATA

Airbyte Cloud: $22/M MAR-eq

YOUR WAREHOUSE

YOUR DATA

Hevo: $20/M events

YOUR WAREHOUSE

YOUR DATA

Stitch: $25/M rows

YOUR WAREHOUSE

YOUR DATA

Estuary: $14/M MAR-eq

YOUR WAREHOUSE

YOUR DATA

Self-host Airbyte: $5/M + FTE

YOUR WAREHOUSE

Rates normalised to a 50M-MAR / month mid-market workload. Tooltips show each source URL + pull date.

5-question category router

ELT, orchestration, streaming, CDC, reverse-ETL - pick the wrong category and the finalist list is wrong. The router asks five questions and returns a category plus two or three named finalists.

Open the router →

TCO calculator

Subscription + warehouse compute + egress + reverse-ETL surcharge + FTE-loaded self-host line, scored across the seven most-common stacks. Export as a Markdown table.

Monthly active rows50M

Connectors10

Warehouse

Sync frequency

Add reverse-ETL surchargeTreat as self-hosted (add 0.5 FTE)

Stack	Subscription	Warehouse	Egress	FTE	Total / mo
Estuarycheapest	$1,050	$441	$28	$0	$1,519
Hevo	$1,500	$630	$28	$0	$2,158
Airbyte Cloud	$1,650	$693	$28	$0	$2,371
Stitch	$1,875	$788	$28	$0	$2,691
Fivetran	$3,600	$1,512	$28	$0	$5,140
Self-hosted Airbyte	$375	$158	$28	$12,500	$13,061
Airflow + Stitch	$2,250	$945	$28	$12,500	$15,723

Copy as Markdown table for an architecture-review deck

| Stack | Subscription | Warehouse compute | Egress | Reverse-ETL | FTE loaded | Total / mo |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Estuary | $1,050 | $441 | $28 | $0 | $0 | $1,519 |
| Hevo | $1,500 | $630 | $28 | $0 | $0 | $2,158 |
| Airbyte Cloud | $1,650 | $693 | $28 | $0 | $0 | $2,371 |
| Stitch | $1,875 | $788 | $28 | $0 | $0 | $2,691 |
| Fivetran | $3,600 | $1,512 | $28 | $0 | $0 | $5,140 |
| Self-hosted Airbyte | $375 | $158 | $28 | $0 | $12,500 | $13,061 |
| Airflow + Stitch | $2,250 | $945 | $28 | $0 | $12,500 | $15,723 |

Subscription rates derived from published vendor pricing pages (see /sources). Warehouse-compute multipliers from Snowflake / BigQuery / Databricks docs. FTE loaded at $25,000 / month for the self-host line.