The best revenue analytics tools in 2026, by the question they answer
By Devendra Variya, co-founder of Virling. Published 2026-11-02.
TL;DR: Revenue analytics tools fall into three groups. Channel revenue tools such as Virling join each payment to the visits before it and show which marketing channel brings paying customers. Subscription metrics tools such as ChartMogul and Baremetrics report MRR and churn from billing data. Web analytics tools such as GA4 and Plausible show revenue only from events you send.
Prices and features below were read on each vendor's own site on 2026-11-02 unless a line says otherwise. They change, so check the vendor before you buy. We build Virling, so read its entry with that in mind; the section on when another tool fits better is there on purpose.
Revenue analytics means three different things
| Question you have | Kind of tool | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Which channel brings paying customers? | Channel revenue (revenue attribution) | Virling, DataFast, Dub |
| What is my MRR and churn? | Subscription metrics | ChartMogul, Baremetrics, ProfitWell Metrics |
| How many visitors, and what did they do? | Web or product analytics with revenue events | GA4, Plausible, PostHog, Fathom, Umami, Mixpanel |
Sales revenue intelligence, the call recording and pipeline tools for sales teams, is a fourth meaning. It is out of scope here.
How we compared them
Four checks for each tool, all from the vendor's own pricing page or docs, never from other roundups:
- How revenue gets in: read straight from your payment provider, or only from events your code sends.
- Self-host: whether you can run it on your own server.
- Price: the cheapest paid plan, and any free tier or trial.
- One limit taken from the vendor's own page.
Comparison table
Checked 2026-11-02 on each vendor's site.
| Tool | How revenue gets in | Self-host and price |
|---|---|---|
| Channel revenue | ||
| Virling | Reads 9 payment providers directly | Self-host free (AGPLv3); hosted $19 a month after a 14-day trial |
| DataFast | Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Shopify, plus a Payment API | No self-host on its site; $9 a month, 14-day trial, no card |
| Dub | Stripe, or sales sent by SDK or API, per link | Self-host not stated on its pricing page; $81 a month (Business) for conversions, 14-day trial |
| Subscription metrics | ||
| ChartMogul | Billing integrations, API, CSV | No self-host; free up to $10K MRR, Starter $69 a month |
| Baremetrics | Billing integrations | No self-host; $75 a month on the plan card, $49 in its FAQ |
| ProfitWell Metrics | Billing integrations | No self-host; free |
| Web and product analytics | ||
| Google Analytics 4 | Purchase events you add | No self-host; free |
| Plausible | Purchase events with a value | Self-host without revenue goals; revenue on Business, $19 a month, 30-day trial |
| PostHog | Stripe through its data warehouse, or revenue events | Hobby self-host, officially unsupported; first 1M synced rows and 1M revenue events a month free |
| Fathom | Events with a value | No self-host; $15 a month, 7-day trial, card required |
Channel revenue tools
These answer "which channel brings paying customers?" by joining payments to visits. The deep dive on this group, with seven tools, is the best revenue attribution tools.
Virling
Virling is open-source revenue attribution for B2B SaaS teams, online stores and agencies. It reads payments from Stripe, Paddle, Shopify, WooCommerce, Dodo Payments, Polar, LemonSqueezy, Creem and RevenueCat with read-only keys where the provider allows, joins each payment to the visit before it, and shows revenue and revenue per visitor for every channel, page and country, including AI assistants. Retention is grouped by the channel of each customer's first payment. It has a read-only MCP server so Claude and other assistants can answer revenue questions. Self-host free under AGPLv3 as one Rust binary, or hosted from $19 a month (first 50 customers pay $9 for life) after a 14-day free trial; the Agency plan is $79 (first 50 pay $29) with unlimited client sites and white-label weekly reports.
Best for: teams that want to know which marketing channel brings paying customers without writing purchase-event code.
Limit: it is not a subscription finance tool (no MRR forecasting or dunning).
See your own channels: 14-day free trial at app.virling.com, or self-host free.
DataFast
DataFast, a hosted channel revenue tool, has native integrations with Stripe, LemonSqueezy, Polar and Shopify, and a Payment API for other providers. Starter is $9 a month for 1 website and Growth $19 a month for 30 websites, both after a 14-day trial with no card. Limit: both plan cards list 10k monthly events, and prices for higher-traffic plans are not shown on the page. Source: datafa.st, checked on 2026-11-02. Virling vs DataFast.
Dub
Dub, a link management tool with conversion tracking, credits sales to the short link that was clicked rather than to every visit. Stripe is a native integration; other sales go in through its SDKs or the POST /track/sale endpoint. Conversion tracking starts on the Business plan at $81 a month, with a 14-day trial. Limit: its docs say server-side tracking is only on Business and above. Sources: dub.co/pricing dub.co/docs/conversions/quickstart, checked on 2026-11-02.
Subscription metrics tools
These answer "what is my MRR and churn?" from billing data. They do not read your website visits.
ChartMogul
ChartMogul, a subscription metrics tool, reads billing systems such as Stripe, Chargebee and Paddle, plus its API and CSV import. It is free up to $10K MRR; Starter is $69 a month, or $57 a month billed annually. Limit: Free and Starter allow one billing source. Source: chartmogul.com/pricing, prices checked on 2026-11-02, integrations as listed on 2026-11-01.
Baremetrics
Baremetrics, a subscription metrics tool, connects to Stripe, Braintree, Chargebee and Recurly. Its pricing page shows two entry prices: the Launch plan card says $75 a month and the FAQ says Launch starts at $49 a month, with up to 35% off on annual plans. Ask them which applies to you. Limit: Launch includes a single integration. Sources: baremetrics.com/pricing baremetrics.com/integrations, pricing checked on 2026-11-02, integrations as listed on 2026-11-01.
ProfitWell Metrics by Paddle
ProfitWell Metrics, a subscription metrics tool from Paddle, is "completely free" and works with Stripe, Chargebee, Braintree, Zuora, Recurly and Paddle. Limit: it reports from billing data; its page does not describe linking customers to website visits or marketing channels. Source: www.paddle.com/profitwell-metrics, checked on 2026-11-02.
Web and product analytics with revenue events
These count visitors well. Revenue appears only when your code sends a purchase event with a value, so renewals, refunds and events that never fire make their totals differ from your payment provider.
Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4, a free web analytics tool, shows revenue from purchase events you add to your site, app or tag manager; on Shopify some events come through the Shopify pixel. Refunds need their own refund event. Limit: ecommerce events are not sent automatically, and reports can take up to 24 hours to fill. Source: support.google.com/analytics/answer/12200568, checked on 2026-11-02. More in why GA4 revenue doesn't match Stripe.
Plausible
Plausible, a privacy-friendly web analytics tool, records revenue from a purchase event with a value, with a WooCommerce plugin and a Shopify custom pixel to help. Starter is $9 a month; ecommerce revenue attribution is on the Business plan at $19 a month; the trial is 30 days with no card. The self-hosted Community Edition (AGPLv3) does not include ecommerce revenue goals. Limit: its own docs say renewals, upgrades, refunds and chargebacks are not captured, and to expect lower revenue than in Stripe or Paddle. Sources: plausible.io plausible.io/docs/ecommerce-revenue-tracking plausible.io/self-hosted-web-analytics, checked on 2026-11-02. Virling vs Plausible.
PostHog
PostHog, a product analytics platform, has revenue analytics that reads Stripe through its data warehouse; Chargebee, Polar and RevenueCat are listed as coming soon, and other revenue can be sent as events. Its docs say the feature is not yet generally available and free to try, with the first 1M synced rows and 1M revenue events a month free. The self-hosted hobby deploy is MIT licensed and officially unsupported. Limit: Stripe is the only payment source today. Sources: posthog.com/docs/revenue-analytics/start-here posthog.com/docs/self-host, checked on 2026-11-02. We could not confirm PostHog's paid price for revenue, so it is left out. Virling vs PostHog.
Fathom
Fathom, a privacy-friendly web analytics tool, records events with a value in cents sent from your site. It is $15 a month for up to 100,000 pageviews across 50 sites, with a 7-day trial that needs a card. Limit: its events docs name no payment provider integration, so revenue is whatever your code sends. Sources: usefathom.com/pricing usefathom.com/docs/events/overview, checked on 2026-11-02. Virling vs Fathom.
Umami and Mixpanel
Umami, open-source web analytics, can be self-hosted free; its cloud Hobby plan is $0 for 100K events a month on 1 site with 6 months of data, and Pro is $20 a month (umami.is/pricing, checked on 2026-11-02). Mixpanel, a product analytics tool, is free up to 1M events a month, and the first paid tier is $100 a month billed annually for 1.5M events (mixpanel.com/pricing, checked on 2026-11-02). Both build revenue from events you send.
Which one should you pick?
- B2B SaaS on Stripe, Paddle or Polar that wants revenue per channel: a channel revenue tool. Virling, or DataFast if you never want to self-host and fit its event limits.
- Shopify or WooCommerce store: a tool that reads orders directly, so refunds count. See Shopify and WooCommerce.
- Agency with many client sites: flat pricing for unlimited sites and a report clients read. See Virling for agencies.
- Finance view of MRR and churn: ChartMogul or Baremetrics, often next to a channel revenue tool rather than instead of it.
- Already deep in Google Ads: GA4, with purchase events sent from your server.
When another tool is the better fit
- You need board-ready subscription metrics such as cohort MRR movements, forecasting or dunning: a subscription metrics tool does that and Virling does not.
- You pay affiliates or creators per sale on short links: Dub credits each sale to the short link that was clicked. Virling's Partners page ranks partner links by revenue but does not pay anyone.
- You want session replay, feature flags and product analytics in one place: PostHog.
- You only need visitor counts and no revenue: Plausible, Fathom or Umami are simpler.
- Your revenue never passes through a supported provider and you cannot pass a visitor ID into checkout: a channel revenue tool has nothing to join, so it will show most revenue as Unattributed.
Can you use two of them together?
Yes, and many SaaS teams do: a subscription metrics tool for the board deck, and a channel revenue tool for where to spend marketing time. The overlap is retention. Virling's Retention page groups customers by the channel of their first payment, so you can see which channels bring customers who stay, which a billing-only tool cannot show. See retention by channel.
Frequently asked questions
What is revenue analytics?
Revenue analytics is reporting on where revenue comes from and how it changes. For a website business it usually means one of three things: revenue by marketing channel, subscription metrics such as MRR and churn, or revenue events inside web analytics. Pick the kind by the question you need answered.
Which revenue analytics tool shows which marketing channel brings paying customers?
A revenue attribution tool that joins payments to visits. Virling does this for Stripe, Paddle, Shopify, WooCommerce, Dodo Payments, Polar, LemonSqueezy, Creem and RevenueCat, and shows revenue per visitor by channel, page and country.
What is the best revenue analytics tool for a SaaS on Stripe?
It depends on the question. For which channel brings paying customers, use a tool that reads Stripe directly and joins payments to visits, such as Virling or DataFast. For MRR and churn, use a subscription metrics tool such as ChartMogul or Baremetrics.
Is there an open-source revenue analytics tool?
Yes. Virling is open source under AGPLv3 and runs as one binary on your own server for free, with every feature. A hosted version starts at $19 a month after a 14-day trial.
What is the difference between revenue analytics and subscription metrics?
Subscription metrics tools read billing data to report MRR, churn and lifetime value. Channel revenue tools also read the website visits, so they can say which channel each customer came from. Many SaaS teams use one of each.
Can Google Analytics 4 do revenue analytics?
It can show revenue by channel if you send purchase events with a value and currency. It does not read Stripe, Paddle or Shopify directly, so renewals, refunds and events that never fire make its totals differ from your payment provider.
What is the best revenue analytics tool for an agency?
One with flat pricing for many client sites and a report clients read. Virling's Agency plan has unlimited client sites and a white-label weekly revenue report for $79 a month, $29 for the first 50 agencies.
Start with the question. If it is "which channel pays", try Virling on your own data: Start free trial or self-host it free. Not sure yet? Open the live demo, or work out each channel's value with the revenue per visitor calculator.