SaaS marketing analytics
Analytics for SaaS
built around MRR, not pageviews
Analytics for SaaS founders on Stripe: see which channels drive trials, which trials convert to paid, and which sources — including ChatGPT and Perplexity — actually produce recurring revenue. One script tag, connect Stripe, about 2 minutes.
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The three-layer SaaS analytics stack
Most SaaS analytics tools comparisons pretend one product does everything. None does. These are the three layers, what each answers, and the honest tool pick for each.
Layer 1
Marketing analytics
Which channel drives trials and MRR?
Traffic source to revenue. Which channels, campaigns, and pages produce trial signups that turn into paying subscriptions — including AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity as separate revenue lines.
Tools
Attrifast ($9.99/mo). GA4 is free but cannot join traffic to Stripe revenue.
This is the layer Attrifast covers — and the layer most founders need first, because it decides where your next hour of marketing goes.
Layer 2
Product analytics
What do users do inside the app?
In-app behavior: feature adoption, activation funnels, retention cohorts, session replays. Essential once you have users, useless before you have traffic worth converting.
Tools
PostHog, Mixpanel, or Amplitude — all three have generous free tiers (1M-2M events/mo).
Attrifast does not do funnels or cohorts, and does not try to. Use PostHog or Mixpanel here — their free tiers cover most bootstrapped SaaS for a long time.
Layer 3
Revenue metrics
How healthy is the subscription business?
MRR, churn, LTV, expansion revenue, cohort retention curves. The financial reporting layer — what happened to the money after the subscription started.
Tools
Stripe dashboard (free, built in), ChartMogul (free up to $10K MRR), or Baremetrics.
Attrifast shows where new MRR came from, not a full churn and LTV suite. Under $10K MRR, the Stripe dashboard plus ChartMogul free tier is usually enough.
Wondering how the layers differ in practice? See Attrifast vs PostHog and Attrifast vs Mixpanel.
From first visit to MRR: the walkthrough
B2B SaaS analytics comes down to one table: trials, trial-to-paid conversion, and new MRR — per channel. Here is what that looks like in Attrifast.
New MRR by Channel — Example ($29/mo plan)
Google Organic$348
41 trials12 paid (29%)
ChatGPT$145
9 trials5 paid (56%)
Newsletter$116
8 trials4 paid (50%)
Perplexity$58
4 trials2 paid (50%)
X / Twitter$29
11 trials1 paid (9%)
Sample data. Note the pattern: X sends more trials than ChatGPT but converts a fraction of them. In the Attrifast 200-site benchmark, AI traffic converted at 2.7% vs 1.4% for Google organic on B2B SaaS sites — SaaS buyers who arrive from ChatGPT have already done their research.
Trial-to-paid by channel
Trial volume is a vanity metric if the trials never convert. Attrifast tracks which channels produce trials that become paying subscriptions — and which just inflate the signup count.
MRR by source
When Stripe fires customer.subscription.created, Attrifast joins the subscription to the visitor session that signed up. Every dollar of new MRR lands on a channel, campaign, and landing page.
Upgrade tracking
Plan upgrades are attributed back to the original acquisition channel, so you can see which sources bring customers who expand — not just customers who convert.
Why GA4 fails SaaS founders
GA4 is free, and for a content site that may be enough. For a subscription business it fails on the two things that matter most.
Google Analytics 4
- No Stripe join — conversions are proxy events, never actual MRR
- Consent banner drops visitors who decline, skewing every channel
- AI referrals collapse into Direct or generic referral buckets
- Built for ad-funded media businesses, not subscription revenue
Attrifast
- Native Stripe join — real subscriptions, real MRR, per channel
- Cookieless first-party ID in localStorage — no banner, no data loss
- ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini as separate revenue lines
- Built for founders who need one answer: what is working
34%
of GA4 Direct traffic was actually AI-referred in the Attrifast 200-site benchmark. Your best new channel may be hiding in your worst-labeled bucket.
64%
median undercount of AI traffic among SMBs in the same benchmark — most SaaS teams do not know how much of their pipeline starts in an AI answer.
Pricing sanity for bootstrappers
What the full three-layer stack costs a bootstrapped SaaS, with current list prices for the common picks at each layer.
ToolLayerPriceNotes
Attrifast
Marketing analytics
From $9.99/mo
Starter $9.99/mo: 1 website, 50k events/mo, 1 seat. Pro $49/mo: 3 websites, 100k events/mo, 5 seats. Yearly billing saves 17%. 7-day free trial.
Google Analytics 4
Marketing analytics
Free
No Stripe join, consent-banner data loss, no per-channel revenue.
PostHog
Product analytics
Free to 1M events/mo
Usage-based after — from $0.00005 per event, rates drop with scale.
Mixpanel
Product analytics
Free to 1M events/mo
Growth plan: $0.28 per 1K events beyond the free million.
Amplitude
Product analytics
Free to 2M events/mo
Plus plan scales from there; Growth and Enterprise are custom-priced.
ChartMogul
Revenue metrics
Free to $10K MRR
Starter from $69/mo ($59 billed annually) once you cross $10K MRR.
Baremetrics
Revenue metrics
From $75/mo
Launch plan covers $0-360K ARR; add-ons like Recover are extra.
Attrifast
Marketing analytics
From $9.99/mo
Starter $9.99/mo: 1 website, 50k events/mo, 1 seat. Pro $49/mo: 3 websites, 100k events/mo, 5 seats. Yearly billing saves 17%. 7-day free trial.
Google Analytics 4
Marketing analytics
Free
No Stripe join, consent-banner data loss, no per-channel revenue.
PostHog
Product analytics
Free to 1M events/mo
Usage-based after — from $0.00005 per event, rates drop with scale.
Mixpanel
Product analytics
Free to 1M events/mo
Growth plan: $0.28 per 1K events beyond the free million.
Amplitude
Product analytics
Free to 2M events/mo
Plus plan scales from there; Growth and Enterprise are custom-priced.
ChartMogul
Revenue metrics
Free to $10K MRR
Starter from $69/mo ($59 billed annually) once you cross $10K MRR.
Baremetrics
Revenue metrics
From $75/mo
Launch plan covers $0-360K ARR; add-ons like Recover are extra.
Prices as of July 2026, from each vendor's public pricing page. Always verify current pricing on their sites before buying.
The bootstrapped math
Under $10K MRR, the entire three-layer stack costs about $9.99/month: Attrifast at $9.99/mo for marketing analytics, PostHog or Mixpanel on their free tiers for product analytics, and the Stripe dashboard plus ChartMogul free tier for revenue metrics. The layer that tells you where revenue comes from is the only one you need to pay for early — and it is the cheapest.
What Attrifast does not do
- —Product analytics funnels, cohorts, or session replays — use PostHog or Mixpanel
- —Ad-platform bid optimization — Attrifast reports revenue per channel, it does not push bids
- —Call tracking for sales-led pipelines
- —Competitor traffic estimates — only first-party data from your own site
SaaS analytics FAQ
What analytics should a SaaS startup use?
Start with marketing analytics — a tool that shows which channels drive trials and paid subscriptions, because that decides where you spend your limited time. Attrifast covers this layer for $9.99/month with a direct Stripe join. Add product analytics (PostHog, Mixpanel, or Amplitude — all have free tiers) once you have enough users to study in-app behavior, and revenue metrics (Stripe dashboard, ChartMogul free up to $10K MRR) for churn and LTV reporting.
What are the best SaaS analytics tools?
It depends on the layer. For marketing analytics (channel to revenue): Attrifast. For product analytics (funnels, cohorts, in-app behavior): PostHog, Mixpanel, or Amplitude. For subscription revenue metrics (MRR, churn, LTV): the built-in Stripe dashboard, ChartMogul, or Baremetrics. No single tool does all three layers well, so pick one per layer instead of forcing one tool to do everything.
How do I track MRR by marketing channel?
Add the Attrifast script tag to your site and connect Stripe with a restricted API key — setup takes about 2 minutes. When Stripe fires the customer.subscription.created webhook, Attrifast matches the new subscription to the visitor session that signed up, so every dollar of new MRR is attributed to the channel, campaign, and landing page that produced it, on both first-touch and last-touch models.
Is Google Analytics good enough for SaaS?
GA4 counts traffic but cannot answer the SaaS question: which channel produced paying subscribers. It has no Stripe join, loses visitors who decline the cookie consent banner, and misattributes AI referrals — in the Attrifast 200-site benchmark, 34% of GA4 Direct traffic was actually AI-referred. For a SaaS business, revenue per channel matters more than pageviews per channel.
Does Attrifast replace PostHog or Mixpanel?
No. PostHog and Mixpanel are product analytics — funnels, cohorts, and in-app behavior. Attrifast is marketing analytics — which channel drove the trial and the MRR. They answer different questions and work well side by side. Many Attrifast customers run PostHog on its free tier for the product layer.
Can I see ChatGPT and Perplexity as revenue sources for my SaaS?
Yes. Attrifast tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and Copilot as separate revenue lines, each with its own Revenue Per Visitor. This matters for SaaS: in the Attrifast 200-site benchmark, AI traffic converted at 2.7% versus 1.4% for Google organic on B2B SaaS sites, and Perplexity visitors averaged $1.42 RPV versus $0.87 for ChatGPT.
How much does an analytics stack cost for a bootstrapped SaaS?
Under $10K MRR, about $9.99/month total: Attrifast at $9.99/month for marketing analytics, PostHog or Mixpanel on their free tiers (1M events/month each) for product analytics, and the Stripe dashboard plus ChartMogul free tier for revenue metrics. Paid product-analytics or revenue-metrics tiers only become necessary well after product-market fit.
See which channels drive trials and MRR
Connect Stripe, add one script tag, and get revenue attribution for your SaaS in about 2 minutes. $0 due today.
- One script tag and a Stripe key — live in minutes
- Cookieless, so no consent banner for analytics
- Every AI referral matched to the payment it produced
7-day free trial · $0 due today · then $9.99/mo · cancel anytime
