However, Looker Studio is not the ultimate data visualization and reporting tool out there. Despite being (technically) free and having an abundance of features, it still has some limitations that may prompt you to look for a more rounded alternative.
Today, we give you eight of the best Looker Studio alternatives for your consideration.
Why look for Looker Studio alternatives?
If Google Data Studio (or Looker Studio, as it is called now) is the perfect tool for you, you may not even think about getting another tool. But the reality is that no tool is perfect and despite being made by almighty Google, there are some downsides to this popular data visualization tool.
The most common complaints about Looker Studio include:
Cost
Which is complex and challenging to understand. They claim to be free, but connecting each new data source that is not in the Google ecosystem will cost extra every month. And that is only the beginning since there’s also a paid Pro version. We have a whole guide on Looker Studio pricing if you want to learn what this tool can actually cost you.
No customer support
Unless you go for an expensive Looker Studio Pro, you are left to online discussion forums and Google’s unwieldy help documentation, which is often difficult for a non-technical person to understand. If you get tired of looking at how to fix your bugs online, maybe it’s time to move to a solution with live chat support.
Reports not customizable enough
You need to create every visualization from scratch every time, which takes a lot of time. As far as design is concerned, you’re limited to Docs-style visual solutions that look outdated by today’s standards.
Slow performance
If only we could get a nickel every time we heard Looker Studio reports are slow. The reasons can vary, from underperforming third-party connectors to the number of sources connected to the number of widgets in the dashboards. We have an article that explores the reasons why Looker Studio is slow and offers a few solutions. However, keep in mind that slow performance affects both you as an agency and the clients who use your reports.
Problems with third-party connectors
As mentioned, Looker Studio needs third-party connectors to connect tools outside the Google platform. However, these connectors may have different refresh times and different levels of integration, which may translate as inconsistencies in your reports. Here, you can read more about Looker Studio connectors and alternatives.
Steep learning curve
Very few marketers have a tech background, and learning Looker Studio enough to fully take advantage of its features might take more time than you’re ready to invest—time that could be used to win new business or improve client experience.
These issues are the most common ones that current users complain about on Capterra, G2 and similar software review platforms.
If you consider using the tool, look at our Looker Studio review. It covers all of the main complaints, pros and cons of Looker Studio.
Having said all of that, you might want to consider something that fixes all of Looker Studio’s flaws and provides a superior experience. Here are our top contenders.
1. Whatagraph
Whatagraph is a leading marketing data platform and one of the most common Looker Studio alternatives.
Many marketing agencies and in-house marketers use this platform to manage their data because it’s intuitive and interactive. No matter your expertise and tech knowledge level, you can easily connect your sources, organize the data, and create stunning reports that are shared automatically.
How Whatagraph is better than Looker Studio
- No 3rd-party connectors needed: Whatagraph has direct integrations with popular marketing sources, while Looker Studio natively connects only with the Google ecosystem. You will need third-party connectors like Supermetrics to add other data sources, which slow things down, cost money, and tend to break off. With Whatagraph, on the other hand, you get consistent and speedy performance on whichever platform you connect to because all integrations are created in-house.
- Fast and stable operation: Looker Studio slows down a lot, even when you use just two data sources to create a data blend. In Whatagraph, you can work with 10 sources and 100 widgets simultaneously and won’t notice any speed or stability difference.
- Much fewer limitations: With Looker Studio, you run into a limitation on every corner. You are limited to 5 sources in a data blend. You can’t save and reuse custom metrics in two different widgets without recreating them from scratch. Many actions are limited to the widget level, with no way to scale them. Whatagraph, however, provides unlimited data transformation and visualization options. You can add all the widgets, bars, graphs and charts you want, without compromising the performance. Also you can export parts or whole reports as spreadsheets.
- White-labeling: Moreover, Whatagraph offers a white-labeling option that you can use to improve your client reporting. Simply put, the reports your clients get will have your labeling only, and all mentions of Whatagraph will be gone. These reports can then be automated, allowing clients to see them anywhere and at any time.
- Stunning visualizations: Another way in which Whatagraph is better is that its reports and dashboards are visually beautiful and professional, whereas Looker Studio's visualizations are rather plain and similar to those in Excel and Google Sheets.
- Live chat support: Also, Whatagraph provides live chat customer support and onboarding services, whereas with Looker Studio, you are left alone to figure out the tool.
- Clear pricing plans: Lastly, Whatagraph provides clear pricing options with the possibility of getting a customized option. On the other hand, Looker Studio claims to be free, yet their pricing is a bit more complex. Depending on your specific marketing tool stack, you may pay more than $600 per month for Looker Studio.
Where Looker Studio may be better than Whatagraph
- More integrations: First of all, Looker Studio offers 600 data integrations, whereas Whatagraph offers only 45. If your budget is unlimited, Looker Studio could offer you much flexibility, albeit at a greater cost. Still keep in mind that these integrations might offer less-than-consistent experience in speed, refresh rate, and even the available metrics.
- Free with Google products: Second, Looker Studio works the best with the products provided by Google. Their customers express how much they appreciate that there are zero to no bugs when reporting Google Analytics or BigQuery data. If you use Google-based marketing tools only and have simple requirements, Looker Studio is cheap way to get the job done.
Pricing
Whatagraph offers three pricing options, Essential, Advanced, and Custom, based on the number of users and source credits used to connect new sources, create source blends, or transfer data to a warehouse.
2. Klipfolio
Klipfolio is a business intelligence platform that analyzes marketing data and allows marketers to create visual reports. It connects hundreds of databases, cloud applications and APIs to develop an insightful data-driven marketing report for your manager or client.
How Klipfolio is better than Looker Studio
- Easy to use: Klipfolio is known for its user-friendly interface and rapid deployment capabilities, making it easy for marketers and business users to create and share dashboards without extensive technical expertise. The platform offers pre-built dashboard templates, drag-and-drop functionality, and a library of pre-configured data connectors, enabling users to get started with their reporting quickly.
- Real-time data refresh: This BI platform supports real-time data refresh capabilities, enabling marketers to monitor key metrics and KPIs in real-time and make timely decisions based on up-to-date information.
- Customer support: Klipfolio has customer support to offer the best reporting practices and solve any bugs that occur. Looker Studio does not have any customer support.
- White-label options: Klipfolio enables agencies and in-house teams to create custom-branded dashboards for client reporting purposes, with white-labeling options available to showcase reports under their own branding.
- Flexible pricing plans: Klipfolio offers flexible pricing plans that cater to businesses of all sizes, with options for monthly subscriptions or pay-as-you-go pricing based on usage. The platform provides scalability and cost-effectiveness, allowing marketers to access advanced reporting features and capabilities without breaking the budget.
Where Looker Studio beats Klipfolio
- More integrations: To begin with, Klipfolio only has 300 integrations, whereas Looker Studio provides 600.
- Free with Google products: Secondly, Looker Studio can be free if the products provided by Google are used.
- More report templates: Lastly, Looker Studio provides 50+ templates. On the other hand Klipfolio - only 12.
Pricing
Three pricing plans — Free (30 days), Professional, and Enterprise (custom) based on the number of users and the advanced data and reporting options. There are a number of add-ons, as well, that are charged annually.
3. DashThis
DashThis is another powerful marketing data analytics tool. This Google Data Studio alternative creates visual dashboards and reports to get the best insights into the performance of your strategy.
DashThis is one of the rare tools that offer social media reporting and actionable insights.
How DashThis is better than Looker Studio
- Easy multi-channel reporting: DashThis supports reporting across multiple marketing channels and platforms, allowing users to consolidate data from sources such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and more into one unified dashboard. This enables marketers to gain a comprehensive view of their marketing performance and track cross-channel metrics in one place.
- White-labeling and client reporting features: DashThis provides features for client reporting and white labeling, allowing marketers to create custom-branded reports for their clients. Users can add their own logos, branding elements, and custom styling to reports, as well as schedule automated email delivery to clients, enhancing professionalism and client satisfaction.
- Customer support: DashThis offers dedicated customer support and training resources to assist users with setup, customization, and troubleshooting. Users can access help articles, video tutorials, and live chat support to get answers to their questions and resolve issues quickly, ensuring a smooth and seamless reporting experience.
Where Looker Studio wins
- More integrations: Firstly, DashThis has 34 integrations, whereas Looker Studio provides 600.
- Free with Google products: Secondly, Looker Studio can be free if the products provided by Google are used.
- More report templates: Lastly, Looker Studio provides 50+ templates. On the other hand, DashThis provides 37 out of the box.
Pricing
DashThis offers four plans: Individual, Professional, Business, and Standard, based on the number of dashboards you can create and the advanced reporting features.
4. Tableau
Tableau is a business intelligence data visualization tool. It offers business forecasts, analyzes strategies, and allows for data-driven decisions.
How Tableau is better than Looker Studio
- Ease of use: Tableau is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for marketers to create interactive dashboards and reports without extensive technical expertise. The drag-and-drop interface and visual query builder simplify data analysis and visualization, allowing marketers to generate insights quickly and share them with stakeholders.
- Interactive dashboards: This Looker Studio alternative offers extensive customization options for designing visually appealing and interactive dashboards and reports. You can choose from various chart types, color palettes, and formatting options to create custom visualizations that resonate with their audience and effectively communicate key insights. On the other hand, Looker Studio has very limited customization options.
- Advanced analytics: The charting and data exploration features are more sophisticated than Looker Studio, as Tableau provides robust analytics capabilities, including support for advanced calculations, statistical functions, and predictive modeling. Marketers can perform complex data analysis, uncover trends, and identify opportunities for optimization using features such as trend lines, forecasting, and clustering.
- Community and customer support: Tableau has a large and active user community, with a wealth of resources, forums, and online training materials available to help marketers learn and troubleshoot issues. Additionally, Tableau offers comprehensive customer support services, including training, consulting, and technical support, to assist users with implementation and optimization.
Where Looker Studio wins
- More integrations: Tableau has 60 integrations, whereas Looker Studio provides 600.
- Easier to learn: G2 reviews say that Looker Studio is easier to understand and use than Tableau, which requires expert knowledge.
Pricing
Tableau offers three pricing plans: Viewer, Explorer, and Creator based on the user abilities and advanced reporting and analytics capabilities.
5. Databox
Databox is another marketing analytics and BI tool that pulls data from connected sources and creates visual reports. Both Data Studio and Databox are tied in 2 similar feature sets: data discovery and visualization, report output and scheduling.
How Databox is better than Looker Studio
- User-friendly interface: Databox offers a user-friendly interface and intuitive dashboard builder that make it easy for marketers to create, customize, and share dashboards without extensive technical expertise. The drag-and-drop interface, pre-built templates, and visual query builder streamline the reporting process, enabling marketers to quickly generate insights and communicate results effectively.
- Mobile support: This alternative to Looker Studio supports iPhone, Android and web-based apps, whereas Looker Studio only has web-based apps. Users can access their custom dashboards and reports directly from the Databox mobile app, allowing them to view real-time data and track performance metrics from their mobile devices. Databox mobile app also supports push notifications, allowing users to receive alerts and updates on important metrics and KPIs in real time. Users can set up custom alerts and notifications to stay informed about changes and trends in their data.
- Dedicated dashboard feature: Databox provides 140+ pre-built dashboard templates that cover the most common metrics for every department. Looker Studio, on the other hand, only allows users to create dashboards by resizing Reports canvas to a single page. You can easily share your dashboards via link, email, Slack, or even stream them to your TV.
- White-labeling options: Databox provides client reporting and white labeling features, allowing agencies and consultants to create custom-branded reports for their clients. Users can add their own logos, branding elements, and custom styling to reports and dashboards.
- AI features: Databox allows you to spot trends, growth opportunities and set more realistic goals for your clients using Metric Forecasts.
Where Databox loses to Looker Studio
- Fewer integrations: Databox offers access to 70 integrations, whilst Looker Studio - offers 600.
- Limited trial: Second, both Databox and Looker Studio offer free trials. However, Databox’s free trial is extremely limited as you can only get access to 3 panels. With Looker Studio, you get access to all panels for free, for as long as you want.
- Complicated custom mapping: Last, users complain that it is fairly difficult to do custom mapping within Databox. Whereas with Looker Studio, this is is quite easy.
Pricing
Databox offers four pricing plans, Starter, Professional, Growth and Premium, based on the number of users, access to historical data and advanced reporting and data options. There’s also a Free plan that allows you to connect up to 3 data sources.
6. PowerBI
Microsoft PowerBI is a business intelligence software suite that includes apps, services, and data connectors. It is a cloud-based solution that allows marketers to combine data from multiple sources into a single data set.
How PowerBI is better than Looker Studio
- Advanced visualization options: The first-way PowerBI is better than Data Studio is that it offers a range of attractive visualizations. When you look at Data Studio reports and provided templates, they look rather Excel-like. PowerBI, on the other hand, creates beautiful visualizations, including interactive charts, graphs, maps, and custom visuals from the Power BI community. Marketers can create visually appealing and interactive reports that effectively communicate insights and trends to stakeholders.
- Scalability and performance: This business intelligence tool is highly scalable and can handle large volumes of data and complex analytics workloads. With its cloud-based architecture and support for in-memory processing, Power BI offers fast performance and responsiveness, enabling marketers to analyze and visualize data in real time. Another thing worth mentioning would be the auto-refresh of data of a cloud-based data source. This is a significant thing because Data Studio needs to be updated manually.
- Wide Range of Data Sources: Power BI offers broad connectivity to a wide range of data sources, including Microsoft products (such as Dynamics 365 and Azure), databases (SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc.), cloud services (Google Analytics, Salesforce, etc.), and many others. This extensive connectivity allows marketers to consolidate data from multiple sources into one unified dashboard for comprehensive reporting.
- Great customer service: PowerBI comes with a 24/7 customer support service help desk, which is helpful when bugs occur. On the other hand, there is no one at Google to answer your questions because there is no customer support for Data Studio as a product.
- Natural language querying: Power BI offers natural language querying capabilities, allowing users to ask questions about their data using plain language and receive relevant visualizations and insights. This feature can make it easier for marketers to explore data and uncover insights without the need for complex queries or technical expertise.
Where PowerBI loses to Looker Studio
- Fewer integrations: To begin with, PowerBI connections are limited to 59 apps. To add, most users notice that the tool works the best with other Microsoft platforms such as Microsoft Edge and Office 365.
- Even steeper learning curve: The second thing worth knowing is that according to GetApp reviews, Looker Studio is way easier to use than PowerBI. Apparently, it takes a long time to properly understand how to use the tool and it has a steep learning curve.
- Fewer sharing options: Lastly, when it comes to sharing your marketing reports or real-time dashboards, keep in mind that with a PowerBI Desktop licence, you will only be able to share them via email or drive. If you are deciding between the two tools, sharing with Looker Studio might be easier as you can generate a link and manage permissions.
Pricing
Microsoft PowerBI offers three plans Free, Pro, and Premium.
7. AgencyAnalytics
AgencyAnalytics is an all-in-one robust client reporting tool. It allows marketers to manage their team workflows, collaborate with them effectively and monitor their work progress. Additionally, it is also an excellent data reporting tool that creates beautiful reports and offers many great marketing features that we will mention above.
How AgencyAnalytics is better than Looker Studio
- SEO analytics options: AgencyAnalytics is a solution that can work as a keyword research tool. They offer keyword suggestions, relevant terms, and metrics to measure them. If your strategies aim to improve your client’s SERPs, or any other SEO-related experiment, then getting this tool may be more beneficial than Looker Studio, as they simply don't offer this option.
- Pre-built templates and dashboards: This alternative to Looker Studio offers a wide range of pre-built report templates and dashboards tailored to different marketing channels and platforms, including SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, and more. These pre-built templates can save time and effort for marketing agencies by providing ready-made reports that can be customized to meet client needs. Moreover, AgencyAnalytics provides 350+ templates. That’s more than 300 extra compared to what Looker Studio offers.
- Client communication and collaboration features: AgencyAnalytics offers features for client communication and collaboration, including client portals, email reports, and live dashboards. These features enable agencies to share reports with clients, collaborate on campaign strategies, and provide ongoing support and insights, fostering strong client relationships and loyalty.
- White-labeling: Lastly, AgencyAnalytics reports can be white-labeled and automated. This is significant for marketing agencies or marketers who want to improve client reporting. Users can add their own logos, branding elements, and custom styling to reports, as well as schedule automated email delivery to clients, enhancing professionalism and client satisfaction.
How AgencyAnalytics is worse than Looker Studio
- Not so intuitive: According to G2 reviews, current AgencyAnalytics users are dissatisfied with how unintuitive the tool is. Especially when looking for metrics to include in reports. Some of the namings are odd and unusual, making it difficult for them to find metrics quickly. The same problem was not discovered among Looker Studio users.
- No custom metrics: Moreover, depending on the metrics you need to track, not all tools will have all of them. However, some of the tools allow you to create and customize metrics. If you have this requirement, keep in mind that AgencyAnalytics does not offer this feature, whereas Looker Studio does.
Pricing
AgencyAnalytics offers three plans: Freelancer, Agency, and Enterprise, based on the custom options and advanced data management and reporting capabilities.
8. Geckoboard
Last but not least, we have Geckoboard. This tool is a marketing and business data monitoring and analytics platform for small businesses. It can be a very useful tool for marketers who need to handle huge volumes of data and display some values using basic pre-made widgets.
How Geckoboard is better than Looker Studio
- Customization and personalization: To begin with, Geckoboard offers customization options that allow marketers to tailor their dashboards to their specific reporting needs and branding requirements. Users can customize dashboard layouts, colors, fonts, and branding elements to create visually appealing and informative reports that align with their brand.
- Alerts and notifications: Next, Geckoboard supports alerts and notifications, allowing marketers to set up custom alerts for key metrics and receive notifications when performance thresholds are met or exceeded. This feature helps marketers stay informed about changes in their data and take timely action to address issues or capitalize on opportunities. Moreover, for marketers who use Slack and want to introduce more automation - Geckoboard can deliver daily/weekly/monthly snapshots to your Slack channels, which Looker Studio cannot.
- Focus on key metrics and KPIs: Geckoboard focuses on displaying key metrics and KPIs that are most relevant to marketers, enabling them to track performance across various marketing channels and campaigns. Geckoboard's dashboards provide at-a-glance visibility into important metrics, making it easy for marketers to monitor performance and make data-driven decisions.
- Real-time data visualization: Lastly, Geckoboard specializes in real-time data visualization, allowing marketers to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics in real time. Geckoboard's dashboards provide live updates and visualizations that help marketers quickly identify trends, anomalies, and opportunities for optimization.
How Geckoboard is worse than Looker Studio
- Expensive: One of the most common reviews on G2 says that Geckoboard is too expensive. If you have a limited budget, you may be more linear towards the free version of Looker Studio.
- Fewer integrations: Another thing we noticed was that Geckoboard doesn’t have enough integrations for the price they are paying. If you want to receive more value from your data reporting tool investments, Looker Studio may offer you more advantages.
Pricing
Geckoboard offers three pricing tiers, Essential, Pro, and Scale based on the number of users and dashboards you can create.
Bottom line
Looker Studio is a powerful tool, and it is hard for any other tool to compete with it. Yet, because they don’t update their features according to user needs, marketers are looking for Looker Studio alternatives that offer more flexibility.
This list provided 8 alternatives with better functionalities and data reporting capabilities to marketers than Looker Studio. Depending on your niche, clientele, and strategies, choose the one that best fits your needs.
Whatagraph is well known as one of the top marketing agencies’ choices. Test it out yourself and see what the buzz is all about. You have seven full days to play with widgets, create data blends, review our marketing report templates, and create amazing reports that will impress your clients. Sign up today to get started!
