# Estuary Flow

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/etl/estuary/

A streaming ELT platform billed per gigabyte moved plus a flat monthly fee for each connector instance, with millisecond latency on the entry paid plan.

## Who it suits

Pipelines that have to be fresh. Millisecond latency or batch is included on the entry paid plan at no extra charge, where the other three gate sub-15-minute syncs behind a higher tier or a sales call. The free tier runs indefinitely at 10 GB a month with no card.

Consider something else if You need the compliance paperwork or a lot of pipelines. SOC 2 and HIPAA reports, SSO and any SLA at all are Enterprise-only, and no availability figure is published anywhere. The per-instance fee compounds: a pipeline is two connector instances, so three of them is $600 a month before a byte moves.

## iScore

77 / 100 (80% interval 70–84), rank 2 of 4 in etl — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every etl peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/etl/estuary/alternatives/

- Price: 82 (64–100), weight 28%, 4 of 4 criteria scored
- Capacity and limits: 35 (12–57), weight 22%, 2 of 2 criteria scored
- Capabilities: 100 (94–100), weight 22%, 0 of 1 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: mfa
- Trust and compliance: 80 (67–92), weight 17%, 4 of 10 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: customer_managed_keys, encryption_at_rest, gdpr_data_residency, hipaa_eligible, iso27001, pci_dss
- Evidence: 98 (98–98), weight 11%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Kind of free offer: Free tier ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- What the free plan includes: 10 GB a month across up to 2 concurrent connector instances, with no time limit on it. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Credit card to start: No ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- When the free offer ends: A 30-day Cloud trial that begins automatically once the free tier limits are passed, with no credit card to start it. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Entry paid plan: $100 a month for the first connector instance on the Cloud plan, before any of the $0.50 per GB moved. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Pricing model: $0.50 per GB moved, plus a flat monthly fee for every active connector instance — $100 each for the first six and $50 each after that. A connector instance is one connection to a source or to a destination, so a single pipeline costs two of them. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- When you exceed a cap: Passing the free tier raises a warning and offers a choice: continue on usage-based billing, or pause the pipelines. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Infrastructure

- Regions: Two data processing regions on the Cloud plan, US and EU. Custom region support is an Enterprise feature. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Uptime SLA: No figure is published. SLA terms are custom and negotiated on the Enterprise plan. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Auth

- SAML single sign-on: Limited ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Pipelines

- Connectors published: 200+ fully managed connectors across databases, cloud storage, APIs, SaaS apps and streaming platforms. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Sync frequency: Millisecond latency or batch on the Cloud plan at no extra charge, and delivery latency is configurable per destination. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Compliance

- SOC 2: SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance reports are an Enterprise feature, above the Cloud plan. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Role-based access control: Role-based access control is included on the Cloud plan, the entry paid tier. ([source](https://estuary.dev/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

## Compared with

- [Estuary Flow vs Fivetran](https://inetgeek.com/compare/fivetran-vs-estuary/)
- [Estuary Flow vs Hevo Data](https://inetgeek.com/compare/hevo-vs-estuary/)
- [Estuary Flow vs Portable](https://inetgeek.com/compare/estuary-vs-portable/)