6 Best Reverse ETL Tools For Businesses

• December 28th, 2021

Reverse ETL - Featured Image

Reverse ETL has emerged as a growing need for companies to make their data actionable. Today, the amount of data available is growing by leaps and bounds and, as every business has experienced it, capitalizing on stored data has always been hard. Until this point, businesses couldn’t use their data stored in warehouses to drive everyday business operations. 

Reverse ETL tools help your business sync data in real-time. They feed the right data directly into your Marketing, Sales, and Support platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot for data-informed decisions. They help your teams derive actionable insights beyond static reports and produce relevant and effective customer campaigns.

In this blog post, we’ll present to you our top 6 picks for reverse ETL tools that can help you create greater business benefits and smarter business decisions. 

Table of Contents

What is Reverse ETL?

In a standard ETL process, data is extracted from data sources such as SQL databases, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools, transformed, and loaded into a data warehouse. Solutions like Hevo, Fivetran, Airbyte, etc., enable your business to build ETL pipelines seamlessly.

Reverse ETL works opposite to standard ETL. It refers to the process of moving data from your data warehouse to third-party systems in order to make it operational. This helps your business teams in creating effective and accurate data-driven decisions around daily business operations.

Reverse ETL Tools- Data Warehouse to Data Destination
Image Source: Rivery

Why do you Need Reverse ETL?

Companies use their data stored in warehouses primarily for business intelligence and analytical reporting. Using tools such as Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, SAS Business Intelligence, etc., companies are able to create reports that provide data insights and help them craft business strategies on a broad scale. 

Reverse ETL makes that same data actionable, in a sense that reverse ETL can deliver your existing data in the hands of operational teams like Sales, Marketing and Customer Support to be used for day-to-day decision-making. This type of data analytics that syncs data in real-time and improves the efficiency of your internal operations, is called Operational Analytics and reverse ETL serves as the “enablement” for that. 

Reverse ETL tools sync real-time information from your data warehouse to your operational tools like CRM, Support Apps, Project Management Apps, and Marketing Apps so that your teams stay up-to-date and can act quickly. Here are a few examples of how Operational Analytics helps different business teams:

  • Product Teams can identify at-risk customers by integrating real-time product usage data with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. A system can be set up to notify teams when usage goes below a given threshold, thereby allowing the Sales Team to take necessary actions to prevent the customer from churning.
  • Marketers can use Operational Analytics to build personalized marketing campaigns. By leveraging Sales, Support, and Product data, campaigns can be created for each user based on their requirements instead of sharing a single campaign with all users.
  • Sales and Customer Support Teams can get a consistent view of the customer across all systems. They get access to an up-to-date list of each customer’s Lifetime Value, Product Qualified Lead (PQL) and Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) information, Customer Health, Propensity Score, ARR/MRR, Funnel Stages, etc, which can be used for planning future strategies.

6 Best Reverse ETL Tools to Make your Data Actionable

If you are new to Operational Analytics and the reverse ETL bubble, chances are you’ll stumble and think many times before choosing your cream of the crop.

To help ease your judgment, we would like to present to you our top six picks for the best Reverse ETL tools in the market:

1) Hevo Activate

Reverse ETL - Hevo Logo

Hevo Activate helps you transfer data from Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, etc., and various other sources to SaaS applications, CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Support tools such as Zendesk, Intercom, and a lot more. Our data transfer is a completely hassle-free and automated process.

Hevo Activate is fully managed and automates the process of not only loading data from your desired source to destination but also enriching the data and transforming it into an analysis-ready form. You can do all of this without having to write a single line of code. Impressive, right?

Hevo Activate features a fault-tolerant architecture to ensure that your data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss. It takes care of all your data preprocessing needs so that you can focus on your key business activities. Using Hevo Activate, your teams can draw a much more powerful insight on how to generate more leads, retain customers, and take your business to new heights of profitability.

Get Started with Hevo for Free

Check out what makes Hevo Activate amazing:

  • Real-time Data Transfer: Hevo Activate, with its strong integration with Data Warehouses like Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, etc., allows you to transfer data quickly & efficiently. This ensures efficient utilization of bandwidth on both ends.
  • Data Transformation: Our product provides a simple interface to perfect, modify, and enrich the data you want to transfer. 
  • Secure: Hevo Activate has a fault-tolerant architecture that ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss.
  • Tremendous Connector Availability: Hevo Activate houses a large variety of connectors and lets you bring in data from various data-warehouses such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, etc. in an integrated and analysis-ready form.
  • Simplicity: Using Hevo Activate is easy and intuitive, ensuring that your data is exported in just a few clicks. 
  • Completely Managed Platform: Hevo Activate is fully managed. You need not invest time and effort to maintain or monitor the infrastructure involved in executing codes.
  • Live Support: Our Hevo Activate team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to our customers through chat, email, and support calls.

Users can leverage Hevo Activate to perform the following operations:

  • Create User Segments: Creating user segments allows the Marketing and Sales teams to understand how resources should be utilized for different kinds of users. This allows teams to focus on channels that convert better and maximize their Return On Investment (ROI).
  • Build 360 View of Customers: This can be used to understand each customer better and plan strategies accordingly to ensure maximum revenue. This information can also be leveraged to help Support teams prioritize enterprise customers. Businesses can seamlessly sync all customer data into their support software and respond quicker with a holistic customer background.
  • Sync Product Data into Sales CRM: Hevo Activate can be leveraged to get all product data in the CRM tool of choice, allowing businesses to track user activity easily. Users can be segmented based on their activity, and that information can be used to improve product adoption and prevent churns.
Sign up here for a 14-Day Free Trial!

2) Hightouch

Hightouch Logo- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Braze

Hightouch is a reverse ETL tool that allows businesses to effortlessly sync their data from data warehouses to Customer-facing Teams’ Applications. This includes Customer Relationship Management Apps (CRMs), Marketing, and Support tools such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, Gainsight, Zendesk, and many more. It also allows businesses to use their data warehouse as an Operational Center and an Analytics Center. This gives them the ability to use this analysis to power their operational workflows.

Hightouch syncs data with the tools at the user’s specified frequency, and it only syncs the data that has changed since the most recent call. Hence, it can avoid data transfer limits imposed by the APIs of their operational tools.

Hightouch Pricing

Reverse ETL Tools- Hightouch Pricing
Image Source: Hightouch

Hightouch offers two paid tiers, i.e., Team and Business, along with its Free tier. The pricing for each paid tier depends on the number of records a user is expected to integrate.

  • The Team tier offers 10k Active Records at $150/month, 30k Active Records at $300/month, and 100k Active Records at $600/month.
  • The Business tier is a custom tier for large enterprises with complex requirements. However, Hightouch does not follow a transparent pricing model for this tier, and the ultimate price depends on your unique business and data requirements.

Find more information about Hightouch and its pricing plans by clicking here.

3) Census

Census Logo- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Census

Census is a popular Operational Analytics enabler reverse ETL tool that syncs data to numerous third-party applications from your data warehouse. Census automatically publishes SQL & dbt models from your data warehouse in your operational tools, allowing you to ensure customer success. This keeps your Marketing and Sales Teams aligned with no requirement of engineering bandwidth.

Census works on top of your existing data infrastructure. This means that you do not need to spend additional resources in setting up new hardware. Census solution empowers everyone in your business to make data-driven decisions by leveraging live metrics in every application, leading to happy users & more revenue.

Census Pricing

Census Pricing- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Census

Census offers a Free Business Plan with a 14-day free trial. The Free Plan only supports integration with Google Sheets and allows for creating only two workflows. However, the Business Plan supports integration with unlimited sources and allows the creation of unlimited workflows. This plan, again, does not follow a transparent pricing model. The ultimate price depends on the number of sources you wish to integrate and can be completed after a discussion with the Census team.

Find more information about Census and its pricing by clicking here.

4) Grouparoo

Grouparoo Logo- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Grouparoo

Grouparoo is another popular reverse ETL tool that gives businesses the ability to move data between their data warehouses or databases and Cloud-based operational tools in real-time. One key characteristic that differentiates Grouparoo from other tools is that it offers a free Community Edition that is Open-source. This means that businesses can make changes to the code base to fit their unique use case and business requirements.

Grouparoo Pricing

Grouparoo Pricing- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Grouparoo

Grouparoo offers two paid tiers, i.e., Standard Cloud and Enterprise Cloud, along with its free Open-Source Community Edition.

The Standard Cloud tier allows users to sync 100k records at $150/month, and the Enterprise Cloud tier is a custom plan for enterprises with larger data requirements. The pricing for this tier can be discussed with the Sales team at Grouparoo. An in-depth comparison of the features offered in each tier is as follows:

Grouparoo Tiers Comparison- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Grouparoo

Find more information about Grouparoo and its pricing by clicking here.

5) Polytomic

Polytomic Logo - Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Polytomic

Polytomic is another rewarding reverse ETL tool that allows businesses to create a live view of all customer data they need in Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot, and other business systems within minutes. Users can sync data from various data sources, such as data warehouses, databases, spreadsheets, APIs, etc., and choose custom fields they wish to sync from these sources. Polytomic also houses a functionality that allows users to sync data in real-time or schedule it or invite other users to perform the necessary operations.

Polytomic Pricing

Polytomic Pricing- Reverse ETL Tools
Image Source: Polytomic

Polytomic offers three tiers, i.e., Basic, Standard, and Enterprise. However, it does not follow a transparent pricing model for any of the tiers, and the price can be finalized by contacting the Polytomic team.

Find more information about Polytomic by clicking here.

6) Omnata

Image Source: Omnata

Omnata reverse ETL tool is built for modern data analytics stack. It offers a seamless integration from data warehouse to Salesforce and Zendesk. Omnata can replicate big data in real-time to your operational applications, and you don’t have to depend on a third-party infrastructure. It’s a secure and scalable reverse ETL tool for business needs, but only supports data sync from Snowflake and Google BigQuery. 

If you use Salesforce CRM, Omnata can be a handy tool to operationalize your data. Salesforce also offers a Omnanta connector on their AppExchange website which can integrate data from Snowflake, BigQuery & Rockset via native Salesforce Connect adapter.

Omnata Pricing

Omnata offers three subscription plans which currently support Salesforce CRM as a destination. 

Image Source: Omnata

The three subscription plans offered are:

  1. Push: Offers unlimited data loads to CRM and Marketing Cloud without the need for Salesforce Connect. The plan costs $400/month.
  2. Connect: Offers sync for 20+ External Objects, and requires Salesforce Connect (not included in the plan). The plan costs $20/user.
  3. Enterprise: Comes with the ability to sync 200+ External Objects and requires Salesforce Connect (not included in the plan). Pricing is determined on an individual basis.

Conclusion

This article provided you with a comprehensive understanding of what Reverse ETL is, why it’s important, along with a list of the best Reverse ETL tools available in the market. 

Most businesses today, however, have an extremely high data volume with a dynamic structure. Creating a Reverse ETL pipeline from scratch for such data is a complex process since businesses will have to utilize a high amount of resources to develop it and then ensure that it can keep up with the increased data volume and Schema variations. Businesses can instead use automated platforms like Hevo Activate.

Visit our Website to Explore Hevo

Hevo Activate helps you directly transfer data from a source of your choice, such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, etc., to any SaaS applications, CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, etc., Support tools such as Zendesk, Intercom, etc., in a fully automated and secure manner without having to write the code repeatedly. It will make your life easier and make data migration hassle-free. It is User-Friendly, Reliable, and Secure.

Want to take Hevo Activate for a ride? Sign Up for a 14-day free trial and see the difference!  Check out the pricing details to get a better understanding of which plan suits you the most.

Share your understanding of Reverse ETL in the comments section below!

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