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Triple Whale vs Northbeam

Two DTC attribution platforms, compared on price, models, and fit.

Both tools answer the same question for ecommerce brands: which ad dollars actually drive revenue. Triple Whale is the broader operations product, wrapping attribution inside dashboards, AI agents, and automations, with a free tier and published pricing. Northbeam is the measurement specialist, pairing multi-touch attribution with media mix modeling, and publishes no pricing at all. Both have moved upmarket: the sub-$150 Triple Whale entry point that older comparisons still quote is gone. I checked current pricing and capabilities in August 2026; here is where each one fits.

At a glance

Triple WhaleNorthbeam
Core focusAll-in-one DTC analytics and operationsAttribution and MMM measurement
Free tierYes: tracking, blended ROAS, 12-month lookbackNo
Published entry priceFoundation, from $549 per monthNone published; about $1,500 per month reported
Higher tiersAutomate from $1,349 per month; Enterprise custom above $20M GMVCustom quotes; roughly $2,500 to $3,500 per month reported
Pricing basisGMV plus feature set; two months free on annual billingAd spend and data volume, sales-quoted
Multi-touch attributionYes, from the Foundation plan upYes, core product
Media mix modelingUnified measurement and incrementality at the Enterprise levelBuilt in, with an MMM option
AI layerMoby agents and automationsNorthbeam Apex
Best fitShopify DTC from startup through mid-marketBrands spending six figures a month on ads

Pricing

Triple Whale publishes its pricing, which I verified in August 2026. There is a free plan covering tracking, blended ROAS, and a 12-month lookback. Foundation, which adds multi-touch attribution, custom metrics, and a SQL editor, starts at $549 per month. Automate, which adds automations and the prebuilt Moby AI agents, starts at $1,349 per month. Enterprise pricing is custom and aimed at brands above $20 million in GMV. Prices scale with your store's GMV, and annual billing takes two months off. Note that the $129 per month figure still floating around older comparisons reflects a retired pricing model.

Northbeam does not publish pricing. Third-party pricing guides in 2026 consistently report entry around $1,500 per month, billed month to month, for brands under roughly $125,000 in monthly ad spend, with the Professional tier custom-quoted in the reported range of $2,500 to $3,500 per month. Treat those as reported figures rather than quotes; the only real number is the one Northbeam's sales team gives you for your spend level.

When to pick Triple Whale

Pick Triple Whale if you want one place where the whole business shows up: blended ROAS, product-level margins, cohorts, creative reporting, and attribution in a single dashboard. It is built around Shopify data, and the free tier means you can start using it before you pay anything, which matters when you are deciding whether attribution software is worth it at all.

The pricing shape also fits a growing brand. You can run the free plan while small, move to Foundation when you need multi-touch attribution, and only pay four figures a month once you want the automation and AI layer. At each step the cost stays a small fraction of ad spend for the brands the tier targets.

When to pick Northbeam

Pick Northbeam when measurement is the whole job. Its pitch is precision: multi-touch attribution with configurable models, media mix modeling, and creative analytics aimed at teams who make weekly budget-shifting decisions across several channels. That toolset is aimed at brands spending six figures a month, where a few percentage points of misallocated budget cost more than the subscription.

The price is the filter. If a measurement bill in the $1,500 to $3,500 per month range would exceed one or two percent of your ad spend, you are probably not the customer yet, and Northbeam's own positioning reflects that. For the brands above that line, paying for a dedicated measurement vendor that is not also selling you dashboards has real appeal.

What most comparisons miss

Entry price is not the price. Both platforms scale with your size, Triple Whale on GMV and Northbeam on spend, so two brands can pay very different amounts for the same feature list. Get a quote at your actual volume before comparing.

Stale numbers are everywhere in this category. Many published comparisons still cite Triple Whale at $129 per month and Northbeam at figures years out of date. Both companies have repriced upward as they moved upmarket, which is exactly why I dated the figures on this page.

Finally, both sell modeled numbers. No pixel-based attribution is ground truth, whatever the marketing says. Whichever you choose, sanity-check the model with occasional incrementality tests and post-purchase surveys, and pick one source of truth so your team stops relitigating whose dashboard is right.

My verdict

For most Shopify DTC brands the answer is Triple Whale, mostly on fit and price shape: the free tier and the $549 Foundation plan let you grow into the tool instead of committing four figures up front. Northbeam earns its reported $1,500-plus price when you spend six figures a month across many channels and MMM-grade measurement will change real budget decisions. Below that line, buy the cheaper tool and spend the difference on creative.

Further reading