March 18, 2026

7 Best Baremetrics Alternatives for Bootstrap SaaS Companies in 2026

Written by
Content Marketing Manager
Jay Kang
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Baremetrics costs add up quickly with pricing starting at $75/month for the Launch plan and scaling up to $1,152/month for the Scale plan, plus add-ons at $129/month each for Payment Recovery and Cancellation Insights. If you're a bootstrap founder watching every dollar, that's a significant chunk of your runway.

The good news? Seven strong alternatives offer comparable analytics—some completely free, others with better pricing models for early-stage companies. This guide breaks down which one fits your situation based on your payment processors, budget, and feature needs.

Quick Comparison: The 7 Best Alternatives at a Glance

Real Cost at Your Revenue

What You'll Actually Pay — At Every Stage

"Free" means different things for different tools. Select your ARR to see the real monthly cost and which option is cheapest.

Free at this tier
Paid
Lowest cost (full-featured)
Best for specific use case

* Baremetrics total includes Recover ($69+/mo) and Cancellation Insights ($129/mo). RevenueCat shown at 1% of gross MTR where applicable. Maxio excluded from tiers below $2M ARR. Prices as of March 2026.

1. Chartmogul: Best Free Tier for Growing Startups

Who it's for: Bootstrap SaaS companies under $120K ARR needing professional analytics without spending a dollar.

If you're under $120K ARR, ChartMogul is probably your best starting point. You get the complete analytics product — cohort analysis, segmentation, revenue forecasting, everything — for free. Not a trial. Not a stripped-down version. The full product.

That $120K ARR ceiling means $10K MRR. So if you're doing $8K/month? You're covered. You get:

  • MRR movements and growth tracking
  • Cohort retention analysis
  • Customer segmentation by channel, plan, geography, and custom attributes
  • Data cleaning and manual editing tools
  • Integrations with Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly, Paddle, PayPal, Braintree, and app stores
  • A robust API with webhook support

One thing that makes ChartMogul stand out from everything else on this list is their built-in CRM. It ships on every plan. Your workspace includes one free CRM Pro seat, and you can add more at $39/user/month. What does that actually mean for you? You can send emails to customers, manage sales opportunities, and run sequences — all inside the same tool where your MRR and churn data lives. No other subscription analytics platform here does that.

The other big advantage is data quality. Found duplicate customers? Need to fix historical data? ChartMogul lets you manually edit records. Most platforms don't give you that level of control — and if you've ever spent an afternoon trying to figure out why your MRR numbers look wrong, you know how much that matters.

What does it cost once you outgrow the free tier?

ChartMogul Pricing

How ChartMogul Scales With Your ARR

Free under $120K ARR with full features. Here's what each tier costs as you grow.

Pricing from ChartMogul's published plans as of March 2026. All tiers include full analytics, cohort analysis, segmentation, and CRM.

Early-stage startups may also qualify for ChartMogul's Startup Program — a $50/month discount on any paid plan for 12 months.

The downside? Steeper learning curve than Baremetrics. The out-of-the-box dashboards aren't as visually polished. And some users report inconsistent support response times, though the documentation is good enough to self-serve most issues.

ChartMogul makes sense for you if you're under $120K ARR, you use multiple billing platforms, you want CRM tied directly to your revenue data, and you're comfortable troubleshooting with docs rather than needing hand-holding from support.

2. ProfitWell Metrics: Best Truly Free Option (Forever)

Here's the thing about ProfitWell — the core Metrics product is genuinely free. No revenue caps. No time limits. No catch in the fine print. Paddle acquired ProfitWell for over $200 million in 2022 and kept Metrics free because it drives adoption of their broader billing platform.

What do you get for free?

  • Real-time MRR tracking
  • Churn and LTV calculations
  • Cohort retention analysis
  • Benchmarking against 30,000+ subscription companies
  • Integrations with Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, Braintree, Recurly, and Zuora
  • About five minutes to set up

That benchmarking feature is what really sets ProfitWell apart. It's the one thing no other tool on this list gives you for free. You can see how your churn rate, growth, and LTV stack up against similar-sized companies in your category. Is your 5% monthly churn rate bad? Compared to what? ProfitWell actually answers that question.

But here's where you need to pay attention. The free part is just core metrics and benchmarks. The paid add-ons — Retain for dunning and Recognized for revenue recognition — can get expensive. They charge a percentage of recovered revenue for Retain, and costs scale with your business. Some implementations reportedly run into tens of thousands annually.

There's also a caveat worth knowing about. Since the Paddle acquisition, some long-time users have seen significant price increases on paid modules. One verified G2 reviewer — a 5+ year customer — reported a tenfold price increase after opening a support ticket. The free Metrics product is still free. But if you grow into needing Retain or Recognized, get pricing commitments in writing before you depend on them.

Support for free tier users can also be slower than for paying customers. And because Paddle now owns ProfitWell, product development may increasingly prioritize Paddle's billing customers over standalone Metrics users. Something to keep in your back pocket.

ProfitWell makes sense for you if your budget is genuinely $0, you want benchmark data to understand how your metrics compare to peers, and you can self-serve for most technical questions. Just be aware of what happens if you need dunning or revenue recognition down the line.

3. Putler: Best for eCommerce Businesses

Are you selling through multiple channels right now — like Stripe for subscriptions, PayPal for one-off payments, and Shopify for your storefront? If so, you already know the pain of reconciling data across three or four dashboards every month. That's the exact problem Putler solves.

Putler is different from the other tools on this list. It's not a pure SaaS analytics platform. It tracks 17+ data sources including payment processors, eCommerce platforms, and marketplaces. So it works for businesses that aren't purely subscription-based, or that run eCommerce alongside recurring revenue.

What you get with Putler:

  • Multi-channel revenue tracking across PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Amazon, and more
  • 153+ metrics covering sales, subscriptions, and products
  • RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) customer segmentation — this helps you identify your best customers, at-risk customers, and dormant ones based on buying behavior
  • Multi-currency support with automatic conversion across 36 currencies
  • Data cleanup, deduplication, and consolidation across all your connected platforms

Pricing is metered based on your monthly revenue:

Putler Pricing

Scales With Your Monthly Revenue

Starts at $20/month for businesses under $10K in monthly revenue. Pricing increases as revenue grows. 14-day free trial available.

$20 → $2,250/mo
$10K
$100K
$500K
$1M
$3-5M
Monthly Revenue Cost % of Rev

Why Putler's model works for multi-channel sellers: Unlike SaaS-only tools, Putler connects 17+ sources — PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Amazon — into one dashboard. The pricing covers all channels, not just one.

Selected tiers shown. Full pricing from Putler's published plans. Pricing is metered based on total monthly revenue across all connected sources.

The real value here is time savings. If you're spending two to four hours every month pulling data from Stripe, cross-referencing it with PayPal, and manually building a revenue picture in a spreadsheet — Putler just does that for you in one dashboard.

The downside? It's not as deep on subscription-specific metrics as ChartMogul or ProfitWell. If your business is 100% recurring subscriptions through a single processor, you'll get better SaaS-specific insights from a dedicated tool.

Putler makes sense for you if you use multiple payment processors or sales channels, you run eCommerce alongside subscriptions, or you need PayPal analytics — which most SaaS analytics tools handle poorly or not at all.

4. GrowthOptix: Best for Paypal and Stripe Businesses

GrowthOptix is a subscription analytics platform, and it positions itself as solving a specific problem with real-time synchronization of PayPal and Stripe (multiple accounts) data into one customer database. If you're reconciling these manually each month, the platform could save you 2-4 hours of work.

How much time are you spending each month reconciling your PayPal and Stripe data?

That might sound niche, but it fills a gap that most analytics tools don't touch. ChartMogul and ProfitWell are great for Stripe-only businesses, but if a meaningful chunk of your revenue comes through PayPal, those platforms give you an incomplete picture. GrowthOptix gives you the full view.

What you get:

  • Unified PayPal + Stripe analytics with real-time sync
  • 70+ metrics including MRR, ARR, churn, LTV, and ARPU
  • Product-level revenue tracking so you can see which products are driving growth
  • AI-powered forecasting to help you plan based on your actual data patterns

GrowthOptix is a newer platform, so you'll find fewer third-party reviews compared to tools like ChartMogul or ProfitWell that have been around longer. But the product solves a specific pain point that few competitors address directly — and that's what matters if PayPal reconciliation is eating your time right now. Like with any analytics tool you're evaluating for the first time, using the trial period to compare its numbers against your own records is a smart move.

GrowthOptix makes sense for you if PayPal represents 20%+ of your revenue, manual reconciliation is costing you hours each month, and you want a purpose-built solution rather than trying to stitch together a workaround from a tool that wasn't designed for it.

For businesses with more of an eCommerce focus alongside PayPal, Putler ($20/month starting) is also worth looking at as a complementary option — though it leans more toward eCommerce analytics than pure SaaS subscription metrics.

5. RevenueCat: Best for Mobile App Subscriptions

Building an iOS or Android app with subscriptions? Then the tools above probably aren't what you need. App Store and Google Play subscriptions work completely differently from Stripe — different APIs, different receipt validation, different billing mechanics. RevenueCat handles all of that complexity for you.

This isn't really a Baremetrics competitor in the traditional sense. It's mobile subscription infrastructure. But if you're a mobile developer looking for analytics alongside your subscription management, RevenueCat is the standard.

What you get:

  • StoreKit and Google Play Billing infrastructure
  • Receipt validation and subscription status management
  • Cross-platform subscription tracking
  • Analytics for MRR, churn, trial conversions, and cohort analysis
  • Native paywall templates with A/B testing
  • Typical integration time of 1-2 hours

RevenueCat is free until you hit $2,500 in monthly tracked revenue (MTR). After that, the Pro plan charges 1% of MTR. One thing to know — MTR is calculated on your gross revenue before Apple or Google take their cut. So if your app earns $10,000 gross and Apple takes 15%, RevenueCat's fee is based on $10,000, not the $8,500 you actually receive.

Why does this matter? Because Apple and Google are constantly changing their subscription APIs. Every iOS update can break something. RevenueCat keeps their SDK current so you don't have to rewrite your subscription code every time Apple ships an update. That alone is worth a lot if you've ever dealt with App Store subscription bugs.

What about Adapty? If you're at the point where you want to run paywall A/B tests and optimize conversion rates, Adapty is worth adding. It has a no-code paywall builder, advanced analytics, and a free tier up to $5K MTR with a 1% fee above that. Think of RevenueCat as your subscription plumbing and Adapty as your conversion optimization layer.

RevenueCat makes sense for you if you're building mobile apps with subscriptions right now and need infrastructure that handles app store complexity without your dev team maintaining it.

6. Maxio: Best for Mid-Market With Complex Needs

Most bootstrap founders can skip this section. Maxio is here for companies doing $2M-50M ARR that need financial-grade billing — things like GAAP-compliant revenue recognition, multi-entity accounting, and hybrid pricing models that mix subscriptions with usage-based billing. If those words don't describe your situation today, move on.

Still here? Maxio was formed from the merger of SaaSOptics and Chargify. It handles scenarios that simpler analytics tools can't touch:

  • Revenue recognition compliant with ASC 606 and IFRS 15
  • Multi-entity accounting across subsidiaries
  • Usage-based + subscription hybrid pricing
  • Multi-currency billing and reconciliation
  • Advanced financial reporting and billing automation

Pricing starts at $599/month for the Grow plan (up to $100K in monthly billings). Higher tiers scale from there.

The value is real — when your investors or auditors need GAAP-compliant revenue reports, or when you're billing across three legal entities in different currencies, Maxio is the category of tool you need. Nothing else on this list does that.

But the downside is significant. Implementation is complex. Some user reviews mention onboarding taking over six months. This isn't a plug-and-play setup like ChartMogul or ProfitWell. It requires your finance team's active involvement throughout.

Is Maxio overkill for you? If you're under $2M ARR, running simple subscription plans, don't need audited financials, and have no compliance requirements — yes, absolutely. The $599/month minimum plus implementation overhead is way more than a bootstrap company needs.

7. Stripe Analytics: Best When You Just Need Basics

Already using Stripe? Then you already have analytics. Most founders don't realize this because Stripe doesn't market it as a standalone product, but your Stripe dashboard includes basic subscription metrics right now — no additional signup, integration, or cost.

What's already built into your Stripe account:

  • MRR tracking
  • Revenue growth trends
  • Customer count and growth
  • Churn rate basics
  • Payment success rates
  • Basic cohort analysis (with Stripe Billing)

For most pre-revenue founders or companies under $20K MRR, this is enough. You're validating product-market fit. You need to know if MRR is going up or down, and roughly how many customers you're keeping. Stripe tells you that.

If you need more advanced capabilities, Stripe offers Sigma for custom SQL queries and Data Pipeline for syncing to external warehouses. Check Stripe's current pricing page for the latest costs on these, as they've changed over time.

When should you graduate to something else? When you need real cohort analysis, customer segmentation by acquisition channel, LTV calculations by plan type, or data from more than just Stripe. Most companies hit that point around $20-30K MRR. At that stage, switch to ChartMogul's free tier or ProfitWell — it takes about ten minutes and gives you dramatically better insight.

Stripe Analytics makes sense for you if you're very early stage, only use Stripe, need just basic MRR and churn numbers, and want zero setup time.

Other Alternatives Worth Knowing About

Two more platforms come up often enough to mention.

Chargebee is a subscription management platform with built-in analytics. If you're already using Chargebee for billing, its native analytics might give you enough insight without adding another tool. It's particularly useful if you want subscription lifecycle management, invoicing, and analytics all in one place rather than bolting together separate point solutions.

FirstOfficer is a no-frills analytics tool built for bootstrapped SaaS founders. At about $29/month, it gives you core SaaS metrics and weekly email reports. No fancy dashboards. No feature creep. Just the numbers you need, delivered to your inbox. If that sounds appealing, it's worth a look.

Feature Comparison

What Each Platform Actually Gives You

Core capabilities compared side by side. Scroll horizontally on mobile.

Feature ChartMogul ProfitWell Putler GrowthOptix RevenueCat Maxio Stripe
Included
Partial / Paid add-on
Not available

Feature availability based on published product pages. Check each vendor for the latest.

How to Choose the Right One

Don't overthink this. Start with three questions about your business right now — not where you want to be in two years.

Decision Guide

Which Tool Is Right for You?

Answer three questions to find your best fit. Start from the top.

What payment processors do you use?
Stripe only
ChartMogul or ProfitWell Both free. ChartMogul if under $120K ARR, ProfitWell for benchmarks.
PayPal + Stripe
GrowthOptix or Putler GrowthOptix from $99/mo for SaaS, Putler ($20/mo) for eCommerce mix.
App Store / Play
RevenueCat Free under $2,500 MTR. Built for mobile subscriptions.
Complex / Multi-entity
Maxio $599/mo. For $2M+ ARR with compliance needs.
What's your budget?
$0
ProfitWell No cap, no limits on core metrics. Truly free forever.
Under $100/mo
ChartMogul or Putler ChartMogul $119/mo at $500K ARR. Putler from $20/mo.
$500+/mo
Maxio Financial-grade billing and compliance.
What feature matters most today?
Benchmarking
ProfitWell Compare against 30K+ companies free.
CRM + Analytics
ChartMogul Built-in CRM on every plan. One free Pro seat.
Dunning / Recovery
Baremetrics Recover ROI guarantee. Pair with free analytics tool.
Compliance
Maxio ASC 606, IFRS 15, multi-entity.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Buying more than you need. Are you checking MRR and churn once a week? Then you don't need $400/month in advanced forecasting tools. Start with a free tier. Upgrade when you actually hit a limitation — not before.

Not checking the numbers. During any trial or free tier setup, pick one week of transactions and manually calculate your MRR. Then compare it to what the platform shows. If the difference is more than 5%, dig in. Don't trust a tool with your business decisions until you've verified it gets the basics right.

Forgetting that costs scale. ChartMogul is free until $120K ARR, but jumps to $119.99/month at $500K ARR and $539/month at $3M ARR. If your business is growing fast, budget for those jumps now so they don't catch you off guard.

Picking the prettiest dashboard. A good-looking chart that shows the wrong number is worse than an ugly chart that's accurate. Function over form, every time.

Ignoring the Paddle factor. ProfitWell's free metrics are still free. But the Paddle acquisition has introduced some uncertainty around paid module pricing and product direction. Keep your data portable and your options open.

Your Action Plan

You can knock this out today. Seriously.

Ask yourself three things: what payment processors do you use, what's your current MRR, and what features do you actually need — just metrics, or also dunning and forecasting?

Sign up for the free tiers or trials of your top two picks. Let them import a few months of historical data. Spot-check the numbers against your own records.

Then just pick one. The gap between ChartMogul and ProfitWell is small. The gap between using either of them and using nothing? That's enormous.

Set it up right — connect your integrations, build one dashboard with MRR, churn, and customer count. Check it Monday mornings. Five minutes. Then get back to building your product.

Your analytics tool is important. But it's still just infrastructure. Choose this week, and move on to the work that actually grows your business.

Frequently Asked Questions About Baremetrics Alternatives

Get answers to the most common questions about switching from Baremetrics and choosing the right subscription analytics platform for your SaaS business

What is the best free alternative to Baremetrics?

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The best free alternative depends on your stage. ProfitWell Metrics by Paddle is free forever with no revenue caps, making it ideal for zero-budget analytics. ChartMogul offers full-featured analytics free under $120K ARR, including cohort analysis, segmentation, and a built-in CRM. If you only use Stripe and need the basics, Stripe's built-in analytics cost nothing and require zero setup.

How much does Baremetrics cost compared to its alternatives?

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Baremetrics plans start at $49/month (Launch) and scale through $189/month (Growth) and $749/month (Scale). Adding Recover and Cancellation Insights can push total costs to $300–500+/month. By comparison, ChartMogul and ProfitWell offer free tiers, Putler starts at $20/month, and GrowthOptix provides an extended trial so you can validate before committing.

Which Baremetrics alternative works best with PayPal and Stripe together?

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GrowthOptix is purpose-built for real-time synchronization between PayPal and Stripe, including support for multiple accounts of each. It unifies your subscription data into one customer database with 70+ metrics and AI-powered forecasting. Putler is another strong option starting at $20/month if you also sell through eCommerce channels like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Amazon.

Is ChartMogul really free for small SaaS companies?

+

Yes. Any company under $10K MRR ($120K ARR) gets full access to ChartMogul's analytics — including cohort retention analysis, customer segmentation, revenue forecasting, and integrations with Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly, Paddle, PayPal, and more. It also includes one free CRM Pro seat. This is not a limited trial; it is the complete product at no cost.

What analytics tool should I use for mobile app subscriptions?

+

RevenueCat is the standard for iOS and Android in-app subscriptions. It handles StoreKit and Google Play Billing complexity, receipt validation, and cross-platform tracking that web-focused tools cannot replicate. It is free until $2,500 in monthly tracked revenue. For paywall A/B testing and no-code optimization, Adapty is a complementary option with a free tier up to $5K MTR.

When should I upgrade from Stripe's built-in analytics?

+

Most companies outgrow Stripe Analytics around $20–30K MRR. Once you need comprehensive cohort analysis, customer segmentation by acquisition channel, LTV calculations by plan type, or data from multiple payment sources, it is time to move to a dedicated tool like ChartMogul's free tier or ProfitWell Metrics.

Is ProfitWell still free after being acquired by Paddle?

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Yes, ProfitWell's core Metrics product remains free with no revenue caps or time limits. However, paid add-ons like Retain (dunning) and Recognized (revenue recognition) have seen significant price increases since the Paddle acquisition. If you plan to use paid modules, get pricing commitments in writing before relying on the platform long-term.

What is the best Baremetrics alternative for eCommerce businesses?

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Putler is the best option for multi-channel sellers. Starting at $20/month, it tracks 17+ data sources including PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, and Amazon. It provides 153+ metrics, RFM customer segmentation, and multi-currency support across 36 currencies — all in one unified dashboard without manual spreadsheet reconciliation.

How do I validate that my analytics tool is showing accurate data?

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During any trial or free tier setup, manually calculate your MRR from one week of actual transactions and compare that to what the platform reports. If the difference exceeds 5%, investigate before trusting the tool for business decisions. Let the platform import 3–6 months of historical data before making final comparisons.

Do any Baremetrics alternatives include failed payment recovery (dunning)?

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Yes. ProfitWell offers Retain as a paid add-on that charges a percentage of recovered revenue. Baremetrics itself offers Recover with an ROI guarantee — if it does not recover more than your Baremetrics cost, the next month is free. When evaluating dunning tools, calculate your involuntary churn rate first to determine whether recovery features will deliver meaningful ROI for your business.

Which alternative offers AI-powered analytics and forecasting?

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GrowthOptix includes AI-powered forecasting as part of its subscription analytics platform. It combines real-time PayPal and Stripe synchronization with predictive capabilities, helping you anticipate revenue trends and make data-driven decisions. This addresses one of the common reasons companies leave Baremetrics — the absence of ML-powered churn prediction.

What is the biggest mistake when switching from Baremetrics?

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The most common mistake is over-buying features. If you only check MRR and churn weekly, paying hundreds per month for advanced forecasting you will never use wastes budget. Start with free tiers, validate data accuracy during the trial period, and upgrade only when you hit genuine limitations — not before.

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Table listing mediums CPS and Social with corresponding ROI, revenue, and trend percentages showing mixed upward and downward arrows.
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