Data is one of the most significant challenges that companies face in the modern world. In today's digital age, data has become one of the most valuable assets that a company can have. Every interaction and decision creates data that could be used to drive forward things like analytics, customer profiles, and marketing. In addition, data-driven decisions can make companies stand out and help improve their systems.

Data is a challenge to so many companies because put simply, it is easy to create, but it’s hard to aggregate and then use. There’s a lot that goes into making data available and useful for a company. The most common way businesses overcome this dilemma is through the modern data stack. Taking data from a silo that remains inaccessible or unusable, the data stack puts that data in a warehouse and makes it available.

However, while the data warehouse has long been the solution to a silo, the problem is that businesses are finding that even though their data has gone through ETL, their warehouses have taken on similar characteristics to silos. So, regardless of the fact that it’s transformed and loaded into a warehouse, it comes down to the human resources and skill to access that data and make it available to the various company departments that need to use it.

This is where dbt Cloud comes into the picture in a powerful way that helps alleviate your data team's stress and leverage their time for your company’s success. If you have been wondering what the key features of dbt Cloud are and if it’s worth the price point, here is everything you need to know.

What is dbt Cloud?

The modern data stack is the milk and honey of any company’s data integration. How the stack works and the ease of access it has across a company can bring many powerful benefits. Accessing data and pushing it out to different departments takes a lot of skill, time, and knowledge. Data teams, especially smaller ones, can often get bogged down by tedious tasks that take them away from worthwhile projects.

This is where dbt Cloud wants to make a difference. Designed as a SaaS, this tool is designed to increase efficiency in your team by limiting distractions and leveraging their time wisely. It does this through key features designed to complement the data stack. Here are some of the key features that dbt Cloud offers.

Easy Orchestration

Effective, easy orchestration is the number one way that you can free up your data team to focus their time away from tedious, time-consuming jobs. Orchestration is a team's ability to automate processes and run things on a schedule. This product has a few key features, such as notifying you of problems before merging into the main, that can save you time and stress later down the line. While larger, more robust teams may need an orchestration tool like Dagster, Airflow, or Prefect, dbt Cloud offers competent, easy-to-use orchestration for small teams.

Query With Ease

dbt Cloud’s main features are its integrated development environment or IDE. This helps to streamline live query results and decrease stress. With this feature, you can create your query, send it to your data warehouse, and see results from one browser. This helps minimize distractions and steam line a process that could bog down your data team.

Document Viewer

Out of the box, there is a native document viewer that is designed to show your team the size, stage, and dependencies of the projects you are working on. Access to this kind of documentation site allows democratizing of your documents so your entire team can have access. In addition, because the site is secure and viewer accounts are free, you can create accessible information without worrying about security and deployment logistics.  

Price Point

So how much will this SaaS tool cost your team? Is it worth the cost if you are looking for a way of complimenting your data stack in meaningful and impactful ways that move your team forward? The good news is that this tool is very affordable and gives you a massive bang for your buck.

There are three tiers of pricing, with the first tier being free to single developers, which is very generous in product features. After that, the second tier goes up to $50 per developer seat a month. While this tool is aimed at helping small to midsized businesses, it can complement and improve any data stack. You have to contact enterprise-sized companies to get special pricing, but they do offer this option.