Census alternatives — pricing compared

The best-known CDP and the one most teams mean when they say "CDP". Its defining asset is connectivity: roughly 1,000+ pre-built integrations, split between sources (your website, mobile apps, servers, cloud tools) and destinations (analytics, ads, email, warehouses). You instrument tracking once through Segment's SDKs and API, and every downstream tool receives the same event stream without separate engineering work per tool. Owned by Twilio. Priced by Monthly Tracked Users. Competes with mParticle on breadth of connectors and with Hightouch and RudderStack on architecture.

A developer-first, warehouse-native CDP positioned as the open-source alternative to Segment. Connectivity spans 200+ sources and destinations, and it deliberately supports both directions: event collection through SDKs (web, mobile, server) like Segment, and reverse ETL out of Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and Redshift like Hightouch. That dual capability is its main differentiator — most CDPs do one or the other. Your warehouse is the primary store rather than a vendor database, and the core pipeline is open-source and self-hostable. Priced by monthly event volume.

Zeta CDP+ is the data layer of Zeta Global's enterprise marketing cloud, and the distinguishing feature is what it connects to beyond your own systems: Zeta operates a large proprietary identity and intent data set, so the platform enriches your first-party profiles with third-party signals rather than only unifying what you already hold. Alongside that it does the expected work — ingesting from web, app, CRM and warehouse sources, resolving identity, then activating into email, ads, site personalisation and its own messaging channels. Zeta Global is publicly traded (NYSE: ZETA). Enterprise contracts, nothing published.

A commerce-focused CDP where the data layer and the marketing execution layer are sold together — Bloomreach Engagement combines customer profiles with email, SMS, push, ads and on-site personalisation in one platform. Its connectivity is deliberately commerce-shaped: native integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, SAP Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento, plus product-catalogue ingestion that most general-purpose CDPs do not handle. That catalogue awareness is what lets it personalise on product attributes and inventory, not just customer behaviour. Sold as modules with a usage fee on top.

An enterprise composable CDP, now owned by Uniphore and sold as CDP Agent. Its connectivity model is query-in-place: rather than copying data, it federates queries across Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and Redshift while pushing audiences out to ad platforms, email tools and CRMs. The differentiator is governance at scale — giving marketing self-serve audience building while IT keeps control of definitions, access and which fields may leave the warehouse. Named a Leader in Forrester's B2C CDP Wave. Since the Uniphore acquisition it has gained agentic features: an Identity Resolution Assistant (2025) and a Customer Data Assistant (January 2026) that turns natural-language prompts into live segments.

An enterprise CDP whose selling point is handling messy, high-volume data environments — 170+ connectors spanning online and offline sources, including point-of-sale, call-centre, IoT and legacy systems that most CDPs cannot ingest. That offline-to-online stitching is why it shows up in retail, automotive and consumer goods, where the customer exists in systems that predate the web. In August 2026 it introduced a 'No Compute' pricing model that removes query and activation fees and charges only for stored profiles and events — a direct answer to the unpredictable-bill complaint that dogs consumption-priced CDPs. Gartner classes it a Challenger in 2026.

A CDP with cross-channel campaign orchestration and predictive AI built in, marketed as a 'SmartHub CDP' — meaning it is designed to sit between your data sources and your existing channel tools rather than replace them. Its connectivity proposition is that it ingests from warehouses, product catalogues and event streams, scores and segments with machine learning, then activates through whichever email, SMS, push, in-app and ad platforms you already run. That hub positioning is the differentiator against suites like Bloomreach and Insider, which prefer you use their own channels. Offers a free trial; all pricing quoted.

An enterprise CDP built out of tag management, which shapes its connectivity story: Tealium's catalogue runs to 1,300+ client-side and server-side connectors, the largest vendor-certified set in the category, and it began life controlling which third-party scripts fire on your site. Sold as modules — iQ Tag Management, EventStream, AudienceStream and DataAccess — which is why quotes vary so widely. Its recognised strength is compliance and consent governance: deciding which downstream tools may receive which data, per user and per jurisdiction. Gartner moved Tealium from Leader to Challenger in its 2026 CDP ranking.

A warehouse-native CDP built around Snowflake and the modern data stack, aimed at marketing teams inside data-mature companies. Its connectivity pitch is that the warehouse remains the system of record while Simon handles audience building and orchestration on top, syncing out to email, SMS, push, ad platforms and on-site channels. Sits between the pure activation tools (Hightouch, Census) and the full marketing suites (Bloomreach, Insider): more campaign orchestration than the former, less channel ownership than the latter. Raised $54M to expand. Priced on usage and data volume, all quoted.

The leading warehouse-native CDP, and a new entrant to the Leaders quadrant in Gartner's 2026 CDP ranking. Connectivity runs the opposite direction to Segment's: rather than collecting events into its own store, Hightouch reads customer data where it already lives — Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift — and syncs it out to 200+ destinations including Salesforce, HubSpot, Braze, Klaviyo and the major ad platforms. This pattern is called reverse ETL. Your warehouse stays the single source of truth and no duplicate customer database is created. Priced by Monthly Tracked Rows.