Free Alternatives to ChartMogul, Baremetrics, and ProfitWell (And When to Use Each)

If you're bootstrapped, $129/month for subscription analytics is real money. ChartMogul, Baremetrics, and ProfitWell are excellent tools, but every dollar you spend on tracking is a dollar you can't spend on acquisition. The good news: at the early and growth stages, you don't have to pay them anything.

This post is the honest breakdown — every major free alternative, what each is good at, what each isn't, and the specific point at which paying makes sense.

TL;DR — Which free tool, when

| You are... | Best free option | Why | |---|---|---| | Pre-revenue / sub-$10K MRR | Saasly | No setup, no billing integration needed, calculator + benchmarks | | Stripe-native, want automation, OK in Paddle's orbit | ProfitWell (Paddle) | Genuinely free, Stripe-connected, mature | | Stripe-native, SQL-comfortable, want raw query access | Stripe Sigma | Native, 1,000 charges/month free tier | | Spreadsheet person, want model flexibility | Google Sheets + manual | Maximum control, zero new tool | | Anti-Stripe (Lemon Squeezy, Paddle direct, Razorpay, custom) | Saasly | Manual entry works for any billing source |

The big paid tools — what you're comparing against

Before listing free alternatives, the paid baseline:

• ChartMogul — $129–$799+/month. Stripe / Recurly / Chargebee automation. Strong account-level intelligence. CRM integrations. Best for funded SaaS at $1M+ ARR. Compare to Saasly →
• Baremetrics — $129+/month plus add-ons. Stripe-first. Excellent cancellation surveys (Insights) and dunning recovery (Recover). Compare to Saasly →
• Equals — $39+/month per user. Spreadsheet with live data connectors. Flexible but DIY-modeling. Compare to Saasly →

These tools are great. They're also overkill if you have $20K MRR, a 3-person team, and you just want to know your churn this month.

Free alternative #1: ProfitWell (Paddle)

Best for: Stripe-connected SaaS that wants automated metrics without paying for the dashboard.

Pricing: Free for the metrics tier. Paid add-ons (Retain for dunning, Price Intelligently consulting) are separate.

Pros:

• Genuine free tier — no MRR cap
• Stripe / Braintree / Chargebee integration is mature
• Large public dataset for industry benchmarks
• Brand-name credibility, established since 2014

Cons:

• Acquired by Paddle in 2022; the product is increasingly funnel toward Paddle's billing platform
• Future feature direction tied to Paddle's roadmap
• Less optimized for non-Stripe billing setups

Pick ProfitWell when: You're on Stripe and you trust the Paddle ecosystem. The automation justifies any future product drift.

Compare ProfitWell to Saasly in detail →

Free alternative #2: Stripe Sigma

Best for: Stripe-native teams with SQL-comfortable operators.

Pricing: Usage-based — free up to 1,000 charges/month, then ~$0.02 per charge above. For most early-stage SaaS, free indefinitely.

Pros:

• Native to Stripe — zero integration setup
• Raw SQL access to full Stripe schema — maximum flexibility
• Pay-as-you-go, no monthly subscription

Cons:

• SQL required — your team needs at least one person comfortable writing queries
• Stripe-only — doesn't work if you use Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Razorpay, or custom billing
• No pre-built dashboards — you build everything yourself
• No SaaS-specific framing — Sigma is generic data tooling

Pick Stripe Sigma when: Stripe-native, SQL on the team, and you want full control over how metrics are defined.

Compare Stripe Sigma to Saasly in detail →

Free alternative #3: Saasly

Best for: Bootstrapped founders who want SaaS metrics without picking a billing integration or learning SQL.

Pricing: Free forever. No signup, no credit card, no upgrade gate.

Pros:

• Truly free — no plan to monetize, no Paddle-style acquisition risk
• Works with any billing source (manual entry; copy from Stripe, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, your own dashboard)
• Pre-built calculators for Payback Period, Quick Ratio, and the full 24-metric calculator
• Industry benchmark library — 98 dedicated pages with P25/P50/P75 across SaaS B2B, B2C, Mobile Subscription, Fintech SaaS, and E-commerce SaaS
• Metrics glossary with 30+ definitions including formulas and healthy bands
• Numbers stay in your browser — no data stored on servers
• Open dataset (CC BY 4.0)

Cons:

• Manual entry — you have to enter monthly numbers yourself (5-10 minutes/month)
• No automated billing integration
• No team accounts or persistent dashboard (by design — the trade-off for zero data risk and no signup)
• No cancellation surveys or dunning recovery

Pick Saasly when: You want fast clarity on the same metrics ChartMogul charges $129/month for, without picking a side in the billing-platform wars.

Free alternative #4: Spreadsheets

The forgotten contender. Google Sheets or Excel with manual formulas:

Pros:

• Zero new tool
• Maximum model flexibility
• You learn the math by typing the formulas

Cons:

• Brittle — formulas break, links go stale, "who edited cell B47" mysteries
• No benchmarks built in
• Slow once you have 12+ months of data
• The kind of thing every founder means to maintain, then doesn't

Pick spreadsheets when: You're at pre-revenue / pre-PMF, or you genuinely love spreadsheets and will keep them up to date.

When to actually pay (ChartMogul / Baremetrics)

Three signals to upgrade to a paid tool:

1. You're past $50K MRR and the cost of paid tools is a rounding error vs. the time saved by automation
2. You're on Stripe / Recurly / Chargebee and the automated ingestion is genuinely valuable
3. You have a team that lives in account-level customer detail every day (CSM, account management, sales)

If none of these apply — you're bootstrapped, sub-$50K MRR, possibly non-Stripe — the paid tools are overkill. Stay free.

How to actually use the free options

Pragmatic workflow if you're going free:

Monthly check-in (10 minutes)

1. Pull these numbers from your billing source (Stripe Dashboard, Lemon Squeezy, your own DB):
   • MRR start of month, end of month
   • New MRR, Expansion MRR, Churned MRR
   • Customer count, customers acquired, customers churned
   • Total S&M spend
2. Open Saasly's calculator → paste these into the input fields
3. Get LTV, LTV:CAC, payback period, NRR, Quick Ratio, churn variants computed automatically
4. Compare against the benchmark band for your industry / stage

Diagnostic when something looks wrong

1. Identify which metric falls outside the healthy band
2. Open the corresponding /benchmarks/[industry]/[stage]/[metric] page for the formula and what drives it
3. Read the LTV:CAC tier guide, cohort retention guide, or negative-churn playbook for the relevant lever

Save the cheatsheet

Saasly's one-page cheatsheet covers all 15 core metrics with formulas, healthy bands, and warning signs — print it, save as PDF, stick on the wall.

What the free tools all miss

Honest disclosure: free tools (Saasly, ProfitWell, Stripe Sigma, spreadsheets) can't fully replicate the paid tools. Specific gaps:

• Cancellation surveys at scale — Baremetrics' Insights collects exit feedback automatically. Free workaround: a Refiner survey or simple Typeform with a 30-second exit form.
• Failed payment recovery (dunning) — ProfitWell Retain (paid add-on) does it well. Stripe Smart Retries built-in is decent. Free Saasly doesn't touch this.
• Account-level customer intelligence — ChartMogul's CRM-style account views are unique. No free tool replicates this depth.
• Salesforce / HubSpot CRM sync — paid tools only.

If any of these are core to your operation, pay for the tool that does it.

Decision checklist

Ask yourself, in this order:

1. Am I past $50K MRR with a Stripe stack and a real CS/sales team? Pay for ChartMogul or Baremetrics. Stop reading.
2. Am I on Stripe and OK with Paddle's ecosystem? ProfitWell free tier covers you.
3. Am I on Stripe with SQL on the team? Stripe Sigma.
4. Am I on non-Stripe billing or just don't want to pick a billing tribe yet? Saasly + monthly manual check-in.
5. None of the above? Spreadsheet. Be honest about whether you'll actually maintain it.

Quick reference

| Tool | Stripe required? | SQL required? | Cost | |---|---|---|---| | Saasly | No | No | Free forever | | ProfitWell (Paddle) | Yes (or supported alts) | No | Free (paid add-ons) | | Stripe Sigma | Yes | Yes | Free under 1K charges/mo | | Spreadsheet | No | No | Free + your time | | ChartMogul | Yes (or supported alts) | No | $129+/month | | Baremetrics | Yes | No | $129+/month |

Start with Saasly

If you don't have a clear preference, start with the lowest-friction option: open the Saasly calculator, paste your monthly numbers in, see all 24+ metrics computed in 30 seconds. No signup, nothing to install, no billing integration. Compare against the benchmark library to see which metrics are healthy and which need work.

You can graduate to a paid tool once you outgrow free. Most bootstrapped SaaS founders never do.

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Frequently asked questions

Is there a free alternative to ChartMogul?

Yes — three with different trade-offs. ProfitWell (now part of Paddle) has a free metrics tier with Stripe automation. Stripe Sigma offers SQL on top of Stripe data with a free 1,000-charges/month allowance. Saasly is fully free (no Stripe integration) with a calculator and industry benchmark library. Each fits a different stage and stack.

What's the catch with free SaaS metrics tools?

Each free option has a specific trade-off. ProfitWell pulls toward Paddle's billing platform. Stripe Sigma requires SQL skill and only works for Stripe. Saasly is manual entry with no billing integration. None of them are 'lite' versions of paid tools — they're different products with different limits.

When should I still pay for ChartMogul or Baremetrics?

When you're past $50K MRR on Stripe / Recurly / Chargebee, you have a team that lives in account-level customer detail every day, and you need integrations with Salesforce or HubSpot. Below that, free options cover the same essential metrics.

Can I track NRR and cohort retention for free?

Yes for NRR — ProfitWell, Stripe Sigma, and Saasly all compute it (Saasly takes new/expansion/churned MRR as separate inputs). Cohort retention is trickier — Stripe Sigma does it with SQL; Saasly's blog covers how to build it in a spreadsheet.