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Northbeam vs Cometly

By Marcus Flynn, tracking and attribution editor. Updated 24 September 2026.

You are down to two attribution platforms that look similar on the surface and serve almost opposite businesses underneath. Neither routes traffic or rotates offers; both read conversions and feed them back to the ad platforms. Northbeam is a marketing measurement platform for scaled direct-to-consumer ecommerce, sitting over your whole paid-media mix and crediting new revenue across Meta, Google, TikTok and the rest, with media-mix modeling on top. Cometly is a revenue-attribution tool built for B2B SaaS: it stitches ad clicks to Stripe MRR and CRM pipeline, right through to closed-won ARR. The pick turns on the shape of your business, not a feature checklist.

Pick Northbeam if you run a scaled direct-to-consumer ecommerce brand and need independent cross-channel attribution and media-mix modeling across every ad platform you spend on; pick Cometly if you run a B2B SaaS business and want ad spend tied to Stripe MRR and CRM pipeline through to closed-won ARR.

Quick answer

Northbeam is our top pick for most people. For this site's reader, a direct-response operator scaling an owned offer across Meta, Google and TikTok, Northbeam is the pick. It applies one independent, first-party model across your whole media mix, credits new revenue past last click, and with Apex feeds conversions straight back into Meta and AppLovin. You pay for that at scale: it is quoted after a demo, buyers report $30,000 to $50,000 a year, and there is no free trial. That price is the honest catch, and it is a scoped one. Below high six or seven-figure monthly spend the ROI rarely covers it, so Northbeam earns its keep once your spend is large enough that a few points of attribution error cost more than the platform does. Demand proof on your own orders during onboarding, since you cannot self-serve trial it first.

  • Northbeam. Best for Scaled DTC brands buying across many ad platforms. From $1,500/mo.
  • Cometly. Best for B2B SaaS teams tying ad spend to Stripe revenue and CRM pipeline.

Side by side

Feature comparison across 2 tools
Tool Core job Measures Server CAPI From
Northbeam DTC ecommerce attribution Store + media mix Meta, Google + Apex $1,500/mo
Cometly B2B SaaS attribution Stripe MRR & ARR Meta, Google, LinkedIn Not listed

Northbeam: pros and cons

What works

  • Independent, cross-channel attribution built for direct-to-consumer brands: it stitches Meta, Google, TikTok, email and more into one first-party view instead of trusting each platform's self-reported ROAS.
  • Northbeam Apex sends first-party conversion data straight into Meta and AppLovin ad algorithms, a step past a standard conversions API, with no dev work to wire it up.
  • Goes beyond clicks: long lookback windows, view-through revenue, and optional budget forecasting and incrementality, so top-of-funnel spend gets credited.
  • Media Mix Modeling Plus forecasts revenue by budget scenario and measures spend that clicks alone cannot see, including retail and seasonality.

What to watch

  • Priced for scale and quoted after a demo. Published starting rates are $1,500/mo (Starter) and $3,500/mo (Professional), and buyers report real costs near $30,000 to $50,000 a year. Below high six or seven-figure monthly spend the ROI rarely covers it.
  • No free trial and no free tier. You book a demo and get a custom quote tied to your ad spend, so there is no cheap way to try it before committing.
  • Its numbers will disagree with Meta and Google by design. That independent read is the value, but it means reconciling models and windows against backend revenue, not one ROAS you can take as truth.
  • It is a measurement layer built for ecommerce, not a B2B SaaS pipeline tool: it does not tie ad spend to Stripe MRR, trials and closed-won ARR the way Cometly does.

Cometly: pros and cons

What works

  • Server-side Conversion API is the genuine strength. Cometly sends deduplicated conversions back to Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok, and reports Meta event match quality up to 9.3 out of 10 where a manual setup sits at 4 to 5.
  • Revenue attribution built around Stripe and the CRM, not just clicks. The native Stripe sync ties trials, new customers, recurring revenue and LTV to the originating ad, right through to closed-won ARR. That is the report a SaaS finance team will actually defend.
  • Modern data plumbing under it. A cookieless Comet Pixel with cross-device identity, 70-plus native integrations, an Agent you query in plain English, and on Enterprise a warehouse sync to Snowflake or BigQuery plus an MCP server. The vendor puts setup at hours rather than weeks.
  • Established and reviewed, not a new app. Comet LLC has tracked paid spend for years, with named case studies (ClickFunnels reports a 31% ad-return lift, Trainual a 40% improvement in 90 days).

What to watch

  • It is a B2B SaaS attribution tool, not a DTC ecommerce measurement platform. It does not run media-mix modeling or incrementality across a whole store's media mix the way Northbeam does, so a scaled ecommerce brand is buying the wrong shape of product.
  • It has left the DTC and ecommerce market it once served. Cometly's own site now names Triple Whale as the ecommerce tool. Shopify still integrates, but reviewers report weaker matching on cash-on-delivery and email-less orders, so an ecom brand should demand proof on its own orders.
  • No public price and no free trial. Every plan is usage-based on monthly pageviews and quoted on a sales call, and Cometly says it does not run a trial because attribution needs setup first. Buyers who want to test against their own numbers before paying get neither.
  • Support and journey timing draw the recurring complaints. The long-running r/FacebookAds thread reports support replies measured in business days and trouble seeing the full pre-purchase journey. The sample is small, but consistent enough to test response times during onboarding.

The real differences

What each one actually is

Northbeam is a marketing measurement platform for scaled direct-to-consumer ecommerce. It sits over your entire paid-media mix and answers one question: across Meta, Google, TikTok, YouTube, email and the rest, which channels and creatives are actually driving new revenue, and which are taking credit for sales that would have happened anyway. Multi-touch attribution stitches every touchpoint into one first-party view with lookback windows long enough to credit an ad that pays off days later, Media Mix Modeling Plus forecasts revenue by budget scenario, and Northbeam Apex feeds first-party conversions straight back into Meta and AppLovin so the algorithms optimize on real revenue. Read the full Northbeam review for the detail.

Cometly is a revenue-attribution tool for B2B SaaS. Its core move is to connect the ad click to the money it eventually made: a native Stripe sync ties trials, paid conversions, recurring revenue and LTV to the originating ad, audience and creative, and a CRM sync carries that through pipeline to closed-won ARR. Its server-side Conversion API is the standout, reporting Meta event match quality up to 9.3 out of 10. The Cometly review covers what it does and does not do now.

The one thing they share, and where it splits

Both platforms do the same two things at the top: they attribute conversions using a first-party model instead of trusting each platform's self-reported ROAS, and they push server-side conversions back to the ad platforms to lift signal quality. Neither is a route-through tracker. Neither rotates offers, splits traffic across landers by rule, or distributes clicks the way Voluum, RedTrack or Binom do. If routing traffic across many offers is the job, look at a route-through tracker instead.

The split is what they measure revenue against. Northbeam measures a store: physical-product orders, blended and channel-level ROAS, view-through revenue, and a media mix you forecast against budget. Cometly measures a funnel: a visitor becomes a trial, a trial becomes a paying subscription, a subscription renews, and each of those is tied to the ad that started it. One is built for a checkout, the other for a signup and a renewal.

Which business each one is built for

Northbeam is for a scaled DTC brand or a direct-response operator selling an owned offer across several ad platforms at real volume. That is the business Northbeam prices for, and its media-mix modeling and incrementality only earn their cost once spend is large enough that a few points of attribution error outweigh the platform fee.

Cometly is for a B2B SaaS company where the sale is a subscription, not a cart. It has moved off ecommerce deliberately: its own site now names Triple Whale as the ecommerce tool, and reviewers report weaker matching on cash-on-delivery and email-less orders. A SaaS team that needs to defend ad spend against MRR and pipeline is exactly who it is now built for. A DTC store is not.

What the numbers will not do

Neither tool will match your Meta or Google dashboards, and that is the point. Each applies one independent model while the ad platforms each claim the same sale, so expect both to report fewer conversions than the platforms do. The gap is the over-attribution you are paying to see. Treat either as a decision layer reconciled against backend revenue, not a single source of truth, and keep the pixel and tracking parameters clean or the model under-reports through no fault of its own. Neither will fix a weak offer or low event match quality either; they make the attribution clearer, not the funnel better.

What each one costs

Northbeam does not publish a self-serve price. Its plans start at $1,500 a month (Starter, for brands under $1.5m a year in ad spend) and $3,500 a month (Professional, up to $500k a month in spend), with custom Growth and Enterprise tiers, all quoted after a demo and tied to your spend. Media Mix Modeling and incrementality are optional add-ons. Buyers report the real annual cost lands near $30,000 to $50,000, and there is no free trial to test it first.

Cometly also refuses a public number. It runs two plans, Core and Enterprise, both usage-based on monthly pageviews and quoted on a sales call, with annual billing about 20% cheaper than monthly. There is no free trial: Cometly says attribution needs setup before it can show anything, so you get a guided onboarding rather than a self-serve look.

Neither is cheap and neither lets you price it without a call, so there is no clean headline number to compare. Both scale with the size of the business. The practical difference is what you buy at that price: Northbeam is measuring a whole DTC media mix, Cometly is measuring a SaaS funnel from ad click to renewal.

Prices read from each vendor's own pricing page, current as of 24 September 2026.

Our pick

Northbeam

For this site's reader, a direct-response operator scaling an owned offer across Meta, Google and TikTok, Northbeam is the pick. It applies one independent, first-party model across your whole media mix, credits new revenue past last click, and with Apex feeds conversions straight back into Meta and AppLovin. You pay for that at scale: it is quoted after a demo, buyers report $30,000 to $50,000 a year, and there is no free trial. That price is the honest catch, and it is a scoped one. Below high six or seven-figure monthly spend the ROI rarely covers it, so Northbeam earns its keep once your spend is large enough that a few points of attribution error cost more than the platform does. Demand proof on your own orders during onboarding, since you cannot self-serve trial it first.

Frequently asked questions

Northbeam or Cometly: which should I pick?
Pick by the business you run. Pick Northbeam if you run a scaled direct-to-consumer ecommerce brand and need independent cross-channel attribution and media-mix modeling across Meta, Google, TikTok and the rest. Pick Cometly if you run a B2B SaaS business and want ad spend tied to Stripe MRR, LTV and CRM pipeline through to closed-won ARR. They serve almost opposite operators, so the answer is usually clear once you know which one you are.
Do Northbeam and Cometly even compete?
Only loosely. Both attribute revenue with a first-party model and feed conversions back to the ad platforms, and neither routes traffic. But Northbeam measures a DTC store's media mix while Cometly measures a B2B SaaS funnel from ad click to renewal, and Cometly has left the ecommerce market it once served. They overlap on the plumbing and diverge on the business, which is why the choice comes down to what you sell rather than a feature checklist.
Is Northbeam or Cometly cheaper?
Neither publishes a price, and both are quoted after a demo, so there is no clean number to compare. Northbeam's published rates start at $1,500 a month (Starter) and $3,500 (Professional), and buyers report real costs near $30,000 to $50,000 a year. Cometly is usage-based on monthly pageviews, with annual billing about 20% cheaper than monthly. Neither runs a free trial, so plan to prove either one against your own numbers during a guided onboarding rather than a self-serve test.
Can Northbeam or Cometly route paid traffic like Voluum or Binom?
No. Neither is a route-through tracker. Both attribute the traffic that lands on a site you already run and push conversions back to the ad platforms; neither rotates offers, splits traffic across landers by rule, or distributes clicks. If routing many offers through a redirect is the job, you want a click tracker like Binom, Voluum or RedTrack, not a measurement platform.

Sources

Other sources

4 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context.

  1. [nb-home] Northbeam - The marketing intelligence platform for profitable growth Vendor,
  2. [nb-pricing] Northbeam - Pricing Vendor,
  3. [cometly-home] Cometly | Marketing Attribution Software Vendor,
  4. [cometly-stripe] Cometly | Marketing Attribution Software Vendor,

How we compared these

We do not run paid campaigns through either tool. We read each vendor's own documentation and pricing, verify every number against the source, and weigh the long-term reports of operators who run them at real spend. The full rubric is on the methodology page.

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