What Is Hightouch?

Platform Description

Hightouch is a Reverse ETL platform that synchronizes data from your data warehouse to operational business tools. Unlike traditional ETL, it moves the "single source of truth" out of the warehouse, automating data delivery to sales, marketing, and support teams. It acts as a data activation layer, pushing defined data models (e.g., customer segments) to various SaaS applications like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Ads. This ensures consistent, up-to-date data for all teams within their everyday tools, leading to operational efficiency and improved personalization.

For Geear clients, this tool can be used as the ETL step in our Zero Footprint Solution.

Key Differentiators

SOC2 Compliance - Hightouch is SOC2 certified which some CU compliance teams prefer over not having it.
Faster syncs - Hightouch runs noticeably faster than Skyvia.
Better observability - You can see how long each in the sync takes.
Preview options - When setting up a model, you can preview the first 100 rows of data in the source file/table which helps confirm the format of property values.

Data Security

Hightouch is not creating a database from the data in the CSV files. But Hightouch needs to store some data to power syncs and to power features like the sync debugger. The debugger tool allows you to see success/error logs in your syncs for up to 7 days. You have full control over where this data is stored. More information here.

Pricing

While Hightouch offers a wide range of data tools, typically our clients are focused on finding a solution for only Basic Reverse ETL. Most clients are successfully able to integrate data with HubSpot using the Starter plan listed below.

Plan

Scheduled Files

Price

Starter

Monthly: $450

Annually: $4,200 ($350/month)

Pro

Monthly: $1,000

Annually: $9,600 ($800/month)

*accurate as of March 2026 based on Geear's experience. Contact Hightouch for the most up to date pricing information.

Important Notes & Limitations

Primary key
- For each model that you build in Hightouch, you are required to specify the unique identifier/primary key from your source. This primary key MUST be unique in the source file. If it’s not unique, Hightouch will reject all rows in the file.
- More information on Primary key
No file masking
- For using SFTP as a data source, you cannot use filemasking. This means that CSV files cannot have a date in them (e.g. Loans_Export_MM.DD.YYYY). Instead, the file must have a static name that does not change. Each day, the new file would need to replace the old file from the previous day.
- More information on SFTP connection

CSV format
- Files must be CSV and meet the following requirements.

- - They must have a header row. The values in the header row are automatically available as column names when you set up a sync.
  - They must use comma-separated values; tabs and other delimiters aren't supported.
  - They must use double quotes (") for quoted values.
- More information on CSV files

Models vs. Syncs
- You first need to create a Model before creating a Sync. You can technically run multiple syncs from the same model.

- More information/Setup Models | More information/Setup Syncs

Uses Liquid for data transformation
- Must use liquid functions for transforming data (e.g. convert to upper case, remove spaces in value, concatenating fields together)

- More information on Liquid

Full Resync vs. Reset CDC (change data capture)
- Since Hightouch tracks changes to record, when manually running the sync, you have the option to erase the changes Hightouch tracks in its system so that all records push to the destination OR just rest the CDC (change data capture) and not push any records to the destination.

- IMPORTANT: You are required to select one of these options when you change the Primary key property on the model after a sync has run.
- More information on Full Resync vs. Reset CDC

Sequences
- Since Hightouch runs so fast, you can schedule sequences to run so that a first sync has to run before the next runs. This is ideal to use and the best practice for a credit union would be to create a sequence in this order:

- - Core Banking
    - Contacts
    - Members
    - Products (Loans & Deposits)
  - LOS
    - Contacts
    - Applications
- More information on sequences

Pricing jumps dramatically after 10 syncs.

Hightouch no longer shows a base price on their website, though the Starter package of $350/month for up to 10 syncs still shows up as an option in the Billing section of your account. Pricing jumps up to $2,000/month if you go over the 10 syncs.

Ready to Set up Hightouch?

👉 Check out the steps here.