What is one credit?
What one credit stands for depends on the source type:
We added guardrails in case an API or database is very slow, so you won't be charged significantly more if this happens.
Compute time is the time between the moment the first byte is replicated and the last one is.
You might wonder why databases are charged differently. It’s simple, database replication throughput is at least 10 times faster than for API sources, the main cost becomes the egress cost.
Our fair pricing policy
We want to charge credits only when we provide value.
Failed jobs and attempts are not charged as well. If a job or attempt fails right now, we are not going to charge for it.
Some cases that Airbyte will charge for
There are cases that don’t depend on Airbyte doing a great job or not.
- Cancelled jobs and attempts. We do charge for cancelled jobs, as they are a decision from the user.
- Custom Transformations. They do consume compute time and will be charged, but will not depend on the source type. Note that custom transformations are only available in the open-source edition for the moment.
Why we chose this pricing model
Why we don’t like the volume-based pricing approach
Do any of the following stories talk to you?
You have 100+GB databases with millions and millions of rows. A pricing based on the number of rows is just prohibitive for you, as it would cost way too much.
You can’t predict how much you will be charged for every month. Indeed, you have no control over your visitors’, users’ or customers’ behaviors. Sometimes, your source and destination will get unsynced and will need a full refresh. The volume-based pricing will make you pay for that, although you have done nothing wrong.
Essentially, you have no control over your fees and they keep expanding beyond your expected budget.
Why we took the infrastructure pricing approach
By open-sourcing Airbyte, we are turning the build vs buy on its head, as we make the build much easier. At this point, volume-based pricing becomes obsolete. Actually, only a transparent cost-based approach really makes sense, as you understand what you’re paying in comparison to building it yourself using Airbyte’s open-source edition.
But why compute time? Compute time is how Snowflake and other warehouses charge. Data and engineering teams are used to being charged this way, and are able to fully predict their costs with it. This pricing is easy to understand and resonates with data users.
Is it more predictable than the volume-based approach?
The compute variance you get is now predictable for engineering and data teams. Whether your source and destination needs to re-sync and do a full refresh for whatever reason, it won’t impact much the credits you use. Whether you have more visitors or users this month won’t impact your compute usage.
This is different from opaque volume-base pricing for which you will actually not know how much you will be charged until you receive the bill.
Furthermore, we will soon provide estimates on your future credit usage based on the past growth on every connection you have, in order to give you more visibility.
What happens for high volumes
Our pricing model is linear, and will start to become pretty high if you move 5TB per month. That’s why we offer customized pricing, and we encourage you to talk to us when you want to replicate more than 1TB of data in your databases or 50 million records across your API sources on a monthly basis.
Credits displayed and charged for
We store up to 6 decimal places for your remaining credits. So, let’s say, you replicate 100 bytes for a sync and it only took 30 seconds for the sync. The sync would cost 0.008333 credits of compute time. This allows for accuracy down to 5ms of compute time.
However, we will only display the rounded number of credits you have in your account in the web app. So if you actually have 200.65 credits, we will display that you have 200 credits.
The free trial offer for Airbyte Cloud
We are offering a special offer at the launch of Airbyte Cloud: a 14-day free trial or $1,000 worth of credits (400), whichever expires first. This means that if you use your 400 credits within the first 14 days, you will need to buy credits to continue using Airbyte. If you don’t use your 400 credits in the first 14 days, then those credits will expire after 14 days, and you will need to buy credits to continue using Airbyte.
What does 400 credits stand for? If you’re syncing databases, you should be able to sync about 500GB of data with it. If you’re syncing APIs, you should be able to sync 25 APIs with 1 million new records for a month.
Once the special offer expires, we will offer either 14 days of free trial or $400 worth of credits, whichever expires first.
US-only access to Airbyte Cloud
We only have US servers for now, so you want to make sure that we're compliant with your local laws before using Airbyte Cloud in your country. We’re starting with the US, but will expand to other continents very fast in 2022. Don’t hesitate to sign up on our waitlist to be notified when we start offering Airbyte Cloud in your country.
FAQ
Is Airbyte open-source?
Yes for Airbyte Connectors (under a standard MIT license) and for Airbyte Core (under ELv2 license, learn more here). However, the premium features offered as part of Airbyte Cloud are not open-source. But we're still developing Airbyte in the open and we will continue to maintain a public product roadmap.
Can I get a longer trial?
If you need more time to evaluate or to simply pause the account and timer on your trial during your evaluation, please reach out on Intercom in the web app and we will be able to help you.
How do I purchase more Airbyte credits?
You can purchase credits directly through the Airbyte UI with a credit card. If you prefer to pay via ACH or are interested in high-volume discounts, contact us through Intercom.
I have very high volume needs, what should I do?
If you want to replicate more than 1TB of data from your databases on a monthly basis, we encourage you to talk to us for custom pricing.
Similarly, if you want to sync 50 million records from your API sources, we encourage you to talk to us again.
Where can I find more information on Airbyte’s SLAs?
Airbyte is still in its early stages. We will soon publish SLA on Airbyte’s certified connectors.
What happens when credits are depleted?
We’re nice people so we won’t stop your account and will try to engage with you to discuss credit purchases. However, if we see some abuse, we will warn you before stopping all replication, and if nothing changes, we will move forward on preventing any replication until some credits are purchased.
Do purchased credits expire?
Credits you purchase will expire after one year. But fear not, we’re good people. As soon as you renew, we will give you loyalty credits for free that will offset and even go beyond your expired credits. So let’s say you just had 100 credits that just expired. Then reach out to us and buy some credits, and we will add more than 100 additional loyalty credits to your account to offset your expired ones.
What if I have more questions?
Don’t hesitate to chat with us at any time.