These three get compared more than any other attribution tools I hear about, usually by a brand somewhere between $2M and $20M that has stopped trusting Meta’s ROAS column. They solve the same core problem, crediting sales across channels instead of letting each ad platform grade its own work, but they are built for different buyers and priced on completely different bases. (Disclosure: ThoughtMetric sponsors this site.)
The short version
ThoughtMetric is the simplest of the three and the only one with a published price a small brand can start on. Triple Whale is the broadest platform, with attribution sitting inside a larger dashboard, reporting, and AI product. Northbeam is the most expensive and the most modeling-heavy, aimed at brands spending serious money across several paid channels.
How each one prices
Pricing is where the three diverge most, so I start there.
ThoughtMetric prices on monthly pageviews. Its pricing starts at $99 a month for 50,000 pageviews, every feature is on every plan, and you can pay monthly or take a discount for annual billing. (ThoughtMetric is our sponsor.)
Triple Whale has a free plan, then Foundation, Automate, and Enterprise. Paid plans are priced by annual GMV and package, quoted through a demo, and run on 12-month terms. Its Shopify App Store listing shows Foundation from $219 a month at the lowest revenue band, and the number climbs as you grow.
Northbeam lists Starter at $1,500 a month for brands spending under $1.5M a year on ads, Professional at $3,500 a month for brands spending up to $500K a month, and a custom Enterprise tier. A Growth option is sold through agency partners. Northbeam says the final price depends on pageview volume, Starter is month to month for Shopify brands, and Professional and Enterprise are annual terms.
In practice, a $5M brand with ordinary traffic will usually find ThoughtMetric cheapest, Triple Whale somewhere in the middle depending on its GMV band, and Northbeam in a different budget category altogether.
How they attribute
All three run a first-party pixel and offer multi-touch models, but they lean in different directions.
ThoughtMetric offers five attribution models with lookback windows from 7 to 90 days, and it folds post-purchase survey answers into the same reports. It does not model view-through conversions, so the survey is how it catches buyers who saw an ad and never clicked. Results go down to the campaign, ad set, ad, and SKU level, split by new and returning customers.
Triple Whale’s Triple Pixel feeds its attribution models, and more models and windows open up on the paid tiers. Its measurement suite for MMM and incrementality testing, Compass, sits at the top end of the range.
Northbeam is the most model-driven. Its pitch rests on its own device and identity graphs, Clicks + Deterministic Views for crediting impressions that never got a click, and Apex, which feeds its attribution back into the ad platforms to steer delivery. Professional adds a dedicated media strategist, and incrementality and MMM Plus are optional on the higher tiers.
Platform coverage
This settles it for a lot of brands before anything else. ThoughtMetric integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and custom stores on every plan. Northbeam’s Starter plan is Shopify only, and other e-commerce platforms start at Professional. Triple Whale is built Shopify first, so if you run on something else, confirm support for your exact setup early in the demo.
Ease of use
Triple Whale has the most surface area: dashboards, creative reporting, cohorts, custom metrics, and Moby, its AI assistant. If your team will actually use all of it, that is a lot of tool. If you mostly want to know which channels and ads are working, the breadth can get in the way.
Northbeam expects someone on the team to understand modeled attribution. Its own FAQ says your numbers will look different from Ads Manager by design. That is the right answer, but someone has to explain the gap to leadership every month.
ThoughtMetric is the narrowest of the three and the quickest to read. Every customer gets an onboarding call, and most stores are set up the same day. The tradeoff is that you will not get Triple Whale’s breadth of reporting or Northbeam’s view modeling.
AI access
All three now have an AI angle. Triple Whale builds Moby into its own app. Northbeam lists access to its MCP on its published plans. ThoughtMetric’s AI Connectors use MCP to put attribution data into Claude and ChatGPT, so you ask questions in the assistant you already use. I compared the two main approaches in ThoughtMetric MCP vs Triple Whale Moby.
Which one to pick
- Under $10M, on any major platform, and want a published monthly price with everything included? ThoughtMetric (our sponsor).
- Want attribution inside a wider analytics and AI platform, and comfortable with a 12-month term priced on GMV? Triple Whale.
- Spending more than $125K a month across several paid channels and want view-through modeling plus a media strategist? Northbeam.
- Not on Shopify and not ready for $3,500 a month? That rules out Northbeam Starter, so compare ThoughtMetric and Triple Whale on your platform.
For the two-way breakdowns, see ThoughtMetric vs Triple Whale and ThoughtMetric vs Northbeam.
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