Businesses rely on more than just data storage and analytics—they need actionable insights that seamlessly integrate into their daily operations. Reverse ETL tools make this possible by syncing data from warehouses, lakes, and other storage solutions into business applications like CRMs, marketing platforms, and BI tools. This allows teams to use real-time data for automation, decision-making, and customer engagement.

As these tools advance, they eliminate the need for custom-built data pipelines by offering pre-built connectors and automation features. By reducing manual effort, improving data accuracy, and lowering development costs, reverse ETL tools have become essential for modern data infrastructure. Choosing the right solution ensures businesses can efficiently access and utilize their data to gain a competitive edge.

What Is Reverse ETL?

Reverse ETL extracts data from centralized storage systems, such as data warehouses and lakes, and loads it into operational business applications. Unlike traditional ETL (Extract, Transform, Load), which moves data into warehouses for analysis, reverse ETL pushes data back into tools used for sales, marketing, customer support, and other business functions.

This approach ensures teams always have up-to-date information within the applications they use daily, enabling automation, personalization, and more informed decision-making. By making data more accessible across departments, reverse ETL enhances efficiency and helps organizations drive better business outcomes.

Benefits of Reverse ETL tools

Reverse ETL, or reverse extract-transform-load tools, extract data from a source, transform it and load it into a BI tool or other platform. Reverse ETL tools allow data to follow in both directions, from source to destination or destination to source. This keeps data updated and accurate wherever it lives. When you can easily synchronize your data between platforms, you can streamline your data-related processes, make compliance simpler and gain better data insights.

Since reverse ETL tools reduce the need for writing custom code for these various processes, they can be beneficial to businesses that use a lot of data. Let’s recap some of the main benefits of reverse ETL tools:

• Expedited data transformations — Reverse ETL tools allow businesses to convert data quickly from one format to another. Automating this process makes it easier for businesses to improve data quality and insights.
• Combine data sets — With reverse ETL, you can easily combine data sets from multiple sources. Since you can easily pull data from different sources and transform it into the desired format, you can utilize the power of all your data.
• Automation and cost-saving — Automating all of these data processes reduces the workload on staff so they can focus on other value-adding tasks for your business. This also saves your business time and money.
• Reduce data inconsistencies — With reverse ETL tools in place, you can reduce data errors and inconsistencies. These tools can help you centralize your data and remove data silos. 

In short, reverse ETL tools are invaluable for data-driven businesses. They allow them to work with data more efficiently and effectively. The only question is, which tool is right for your business?

Top Reverse ETL tools

Census

Census is a tool that automates data syncing between different data sources, such as databases, CRMs and marketing automation tools. It also allows you to define rules for data transformation.

Here are some of the benefits of Census:

• Over 85 integrations
• Works on top of your existing data warehouse
• Customization options for data syncing frequency
• SQL model builder and editor, visual data mapper and more

Census offers a free plan for businesses that need fewer than 50 destination fields. The Core plan adds more features and starts at $800 per month with $60 added for every 10 additional fields. They also offer custom enterprise pricing.

Hightouch

Hightouch is a tool that helps to sync data from your data warehouse to various other systems, such as CRM, marketing automation and customer support tools.

Here are some of the benefits of Hightouch:

• Connects to over 15 data sources
• Connects to over 140 SaaS destinations
• Granular permissions, audit logs, role and label-based access controls
• Version control with Git

Hightouch offers a free plan for smaller businesses. Higher tiers come with more features and are $350 and $800 per month, respectively. There are custom options for companies with greater needs.

Matillion

Matillion is a cloud-based ETL platform that provides reverse ETL capabilities to help data teams automate the extraction of data from data warehouses and push it to other systems. It supports various data sources, including Salesforce, Google Analytics and Amazon S3.

Here are some of the benefits of Matillion:

• Batch data loading
• Universal data connectors and pipelines
• Code-free data pipelines
• Intuitive dashboard for workflow and pipeline management

Matillion offers a free pricing tier and paid tiers are calculated on a credits-based system. Pricing ranges from $2.00 to $2.70 per credit depending on the tier you choose.

Fivetran

Fivetran is a cloud-based data integration platform that provides reverse ETL capabilities to help data teams automate data synchronization from data warehouses to other systems. It supports a wide range of data sources, including Salesforce, HubSpot and Marketo.

Here are some of the benefits of Fivetran:

• Automated, fully managed data pipelines
• Over 300 prebuilt, no-code source connectors
• Automated schema drift handling, updates and more
• Automated governance and security

Fivetran offers a free plan for small volumes of data. Higher tiers are priced based on the volume of data and the features you want to be included.

Stitch

Stitch is a cloud-based ETL platform from Talend that provides reverse ETL functionality to automate data extraction from data warehouses and push it to other systems. It supports various data sources, including Salesforce, Shopify and MongoDB.

Here are some of the benefits of Stitch:

• Moves data from over 130 sources
• Offers open-source extensibility 
• Orchestration features for scheduling, error handling, logging and monitoring
• Over 900+ connectors and components

Stitch offers a standard plan that starts at $100 per month. Pricing increases depending on the number of rows you need. Stitch’s higher tier pricing plans start at $1250 and $2500 per month.

Airbyte

Airbyte is an open-source tool designed to replicate data from different sources, such as APIs, databases and SaaS applications, to your data warehouse. It supports a wide range of data sources and allows for real-time data replication.

Here are some of the benefits of Airbyte:

• 300+ prebuilt, no-code connectors
• Open source allows for more connectors to be continually added
• Automated schema change handling, data transformation orchestration, workflows and more
• Visibility and control of your data freshness at the stream level

Airbyte offers a free open-source plan. The next tier is the cloud tier, which includes additional features and is credit-based, charging $2.50 per credit. Airbyte also offers custom enterprise pricing.

Key Features of Reverse ETL Tools

Reverse ETL tools enable organizations to move data from a data warehouse back into operational systems, such as CRM platforms, marketing automation tools, and business applications. Here are the key features to look for in a reverse ETL tool:

1. Seamless data syncing

A good reverse ETL tool should offer automated, real-time, or scheduled data syncing to ensure business teams always have access to up-to-date insights.

2. Pre-built integrations

Top reverse ETL solutions provide native connectors for popular SaaS applications, databases, and cloud platforms, making it easy to integrate with existing tech stacks.

3. Data transformation capabilities

Before syncing, reverse ETL tools should allow for lightweight transformations, such as data mapping, formatting, and filtering, ensuring compatibility with destination systems.

4. Role-based access control (RBAC)

Security is critical when handling sensitive data. Reverse ETL tools should include access controls to manage permissions and prevent unauthorized data modifications.

5. Monitoring & alerting

Built-in monitoring features, including logging, error tracking, and alerts, help teams detect and resolve sync failures quickly, ensuring data reliability.

6. Scalability & performance optimization

As data needs grow, reverse ETL tools should support large-scale data transfers with efficient processing to avoid performance bottlenecks.

How to choose the right Reverse ETL tool for your company

It’s essential to choose the right reverse ETL tool for your company. You need to consider your needs and budget to make the right decision. Here are some tips for selecting the right tool for your company:

• Consider your needs — First, consider what you need out of a reverse ETL platform. Consult stakeholders in the decision to determine how a reverse ETL tool can help them and what features they would like to have.
• Budget — Your budget is another major factor you need to consider. Businesses with smaller amounts of data may be able to use a free tool, while enterprise-level businesses will need tools that can ingest and transform large amounts of data.
• Your data workflows — If you have multiple, complex data pipelines, you will need a tool that can handle the demands of your business. If you have numerous data sources and destinations, your reverse ETL tool should be able to handle these complexities.
• Connectors — Reverse ETL tools come with prebuilt integrations to business applications and tools you use every day. Make sure your reverse ETL tool includes connectors for the tools you use most.
• Security and compliance — Many reverse ETL tools provide advanced security and compliance features to make it easier for your data teams to manage these processes. Look into each tool's security and compliance features when selecting the best one for your business.
• Monitoring and error handling — You should look for reverse ETL tools that allow you to monitor your data flows and notify you about errors.
• Ease of use — Your team will be using your reverse ETL tool regularly, so the tool should be intuitive and easy to implement into your regular processes.
• Customer support — Reverse ETL tools should have comprehensive customer support to help you get set up and troubleshoot any issues you may have when using the tool.

Keeping these considerations in mind will help you to choose the best tool possible for your team.

Try Secoda for Free

If you’re looking for a comprehensive data enablement platform, choose Secoda. Secoda is the ultimate tool for data cataloging, data lineage, data discovery and more. With Secoda, you can centralize your data and make it easily searchable, allowing any member of your team to get insights efficiently.

Secoda easily integrates with your data stack and can be set up in minutes. Ready to learn more about Secoda and how it can help your business? Sign up and try Secoda for free today.