8 Best Looker Studio Alternatives in 2024: Reviews & Pricing

Looker Studio gives you the illusion of being “easy to use” and “free” but the reality is quite different. Here are the biggest complaints we hear about Looker Studio from marketers:

❌ Hidden costs: While it’s true that Looker Studio is free for their 21 native integrations (which are Google-based platforms), you’ll need to buy 3rd party connectors if you want to connect to non-Google-based tools. The total cost can come down to 1000s of dollars a month if you’re a large agency.

And if you want necessary features like “automated report sharing” (which is free on Whatagraph), you’ll need to opt for Looker Studio Pro, which costs $9/user/project. Check out our Looker Studio pricing guide to learn more.

❌ Connection breakages: Looker Studio relies on third-party connectors to bring in data from non-Google platforms, and users online say they break very often. These connectors also have different refresh times and different levels of integration, which can lead to data inconsistencies in your reports. You can read more about Looker Studio connectors here.

❌ Slow: Looker Studio has a 6-minute limit on handling queries, which means reports with large volumes of data, widgets, and charts take a long time to load. This not only makes report editing a hassle for your team but also frustrates clients who need to review these reports.

❌ Difficult to use: Looker Studio’s report-building interface is clunky and confusing with different widgets and menu items that can be intimidating to first-time users. Many users online say it’s difficult to get all your data connected properly and create charts and graphs on Looker.

Most marketers we’ve talked to had to hire dedicated data engineers or an implementation agency to create and maintain reports.

❌ No customer support: Unless you pay more for Looker Studio Pro, you’re left to online discussion forums and Google’s unwieldy help documentation, which is often difficult for a non-technical person to understand.

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Sounds like a lot? That’s what we’re here for.

In this article, we’ll take you through 8 best Looker Studio alternatives that are easier to use, faster, and more stable.

8 Best Looker Studio Alternatives in 2024

In a nutshell, here are the 8 best Looker Studio alternatives we’ll review in this article:

1. Whatagraph
2. Klipfolio
3. DashThis
4. Tableau
5. Databox
6. PowerBI
7. AgencyAnalytics
8. Geckoboard

Don’t want to read through walls of text? Here’s a summary table:

Features
Ease of Use	Easy	Hard	Easy	Medium	Easy	Hard	Easy	Easy
Integrations with Key Marketing Channels
Data Transfers
Data Blending			(a basic "Merge" widget only)
Custom Metrics and Dimensions							(only custom metrics)
Native Visualization Dashboards
White-labeled Reports	(included in all pricing plans)	(only available as an add-on)		(no custom domains)	(only available as an add-on)	(possible, but difficult to achieve)		(no custom domains)
Ready-made Report Templates
Native Report Sharing
Customer Support	Fast	Slow	Fast	Slow	Slow	Slow	Fast	Fast
G2.com Rating (out of 5.0)	4.5	4.5	4.7	4.1	4.4	4.5	4.7	4.3
Pricing (with $$$ being the highest)	$	$$	$	$$	$	$$$	$	$

Let’s dive into each of these tools.

1. Whatagraph

Most suitable for: Medium to large marketing agencies with 10+ employees

If you’re looking for an easier, faster, and more stable Looker Studio alternative, Whatagraph is the best choice.

It's an all-in-one data platform that makes it refreshingly easy to connect, organize, and visualize your data in one place.

Unlike Looker Studio, you don’t need to hire a data scientist or spend hours creating reports on Whatagraph. Anyone from your organization—whether that’s an Account Manager or an intern—can simply log into Whatagraph and start using it right away.

In a nutshell, here’s how Whatagraph works:

1. Connect to your data sources and channels in a few clicks. Your data will flow in automatically.
2. Organize and unify your data to be analysis-ready. Make custom metrics, dimensions, and blends without writing a single line of code. Whatagraph also converts one currency to another automatically on your dashboards.
3. Visualize your data using drag-and-drop widgets or ready-made templates. Create white-labeled reports with custom logos, domains, and color schemes. It's as easy as 1-2-3.
4. Monitor key metrics from your unified sources and data in one place. Analyze performance, spot trends, and use these insights to deliver better results for clients.
5. Share reports as live links, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, or automated emails. You can also transfer your data to BigQuery through Whatagraph.

Plus, all our pricing plans come with a dedicated Customer Success Manager and 18/5 live chat support. Our amazing Customer Support team responds to chats within 4 minutes.

All this on one marketing data platform means:

✅ You don’t need to spend hours compiling data from different sources and tools and pushing it to more tools.

✅ You can see marketing performance under one roof and stay on top of all your campaigns.

✅ You get clean, organized, and white-labeled reports in minutes and share them instantly with teams or clients. No need to hire a data scientist to maintain them either.

✅ There are less chances of data inconsistencies and breakages.

But how does Whatagraph compare against Looker Studio exactly? Let’s take a look:

Looker Studio vs. Whatagraph: Head-to-Head Comparison

Our Product team did extensive research on how Whatagraph compares against Looker Studio and you can find the full breakdown here.

In a nutshell, here are five key ways Whatagraph outperforms Looker:

1. Stable and fast platform

Looker Studio relies on third-party connectors to pull data from channels and sources that are not in the Google ecosystem (e.g. Facebook Ads, Salesforce, Shopify).

Third-party connectors are unstable, finicky, and prone to data breakages and inconsistencies.

Looker Studio also comes with a 6-minute limit on handling queries, which means if your reports have large volumes of data or widgets, they’ll take up a long time to load.

In fact, slowness and connection breakages are the two biggest complaints we hear about Looker Studio. Here’s a review from G2.com:

Whatagraph eliminates these two pain points.

Our data integrations are fully-managed, which means they’re more seamless, stable, and reliable. And our Product engineers regularly maintain these integrations so there would be less breakages and outages.

Fully-managed integrations also mean if there are bugs, our Product team can resolve them quickly without having a third-party company involved.

In terms of speed, you can work with 10 sources and 100 widgets at the same time without slowing down the platform.

Our current users love how seamless, stable, and simple the data connection process is. Here’s what one of them said on G2.com:

2. Easier to use

Looker Studio is slow, clunky, and incredibly difficult to use for non tech-savvy users, taking you anywhere from 1-3 hours to create a report from scratch.

Marketers we’ve talked to say they needed to hire a dedicated data engineer to create and edit Looker Studio reports. This means extra costs, and if the engineer leaves, you're left with complicated reports that are hard to manage.

Here’s what one user said on Capterra:

This is mainly due to Looker Studio’s clunky and confusing user interface. For instance, this is what a report “canvas” looks like as you start building one—I don’t know about you but this immediately overwhelmed me as a non-tech savvy person.

Source: Digital Culture Network

Looker Studio reports are also very static. You’ll need to go through complicated steps to resize widgets, graphs, and charts, or to add images and shapes.

All in all, this review really captures how difficult it is to create reports on Looker:

In contrast, we built Whatagraph to be incredibly simple and easy to use.

Once you’ve connected to your data sources, you can create a report easily in three ways:

• Choose from one of our ready-made report templates or dashboard examples.
• Start from a blank page and use our drag-and-drop widgets to add metrics onto the dashboard.
• Use our Smart Builder to instantly create dashboards for your favorite marketing channels (e.g. Google Analytics 4, Google Ads).

This video breaks it down:

When it comes to adding metrics, you can do so in 5 different ways:

1. Drag-and-drop pre-made metrics
2. Build your own metrics
3. Widget templates
4. Offline data
5. Use Smart Builder

For new users, we always recommend starting from pre-made widgets, which makes life easier and is much faster to build your report. You don’t need to write any codes or work with any spreadsheets — just drag and drop onto your dashboard and that’s it.

The widgets are also fully-responsive. You can resize them however you want – horizontally and vertically.

Whatagraph also comes with thoughtful design features that make your user experience smooth as butter. You can:

✅ Change the orientation of your reports as Landscape or Portrait

✅ Adjust the width and height of your charts and graphs right on the dashboard

✅ Save reports as “templates” and re-use them the next time

✅ Edit linked reports in one go, rather than one by one

✅ Add multiple “Tabs” within a single report to visualize performance from different channels or campaigns

Thanks to this simple and intuitive interface, “Ease of use” is our biggest pro on G2.com, and one user raved:

3. Powerful data organization features

Want to organize and transform your data before visualizing it? With Looker Studio, you'll run into limitations at every corner.

❌ You’re limited to 5 data sources and 10 dimensions in a data blend.

❌ You can’t save and reuse custom metrics and blends in two different widgets without recreating them from scratch.

❌ Many actions are limited to the widget level, with no way to scale them.

What’s more, users online also complain about data breakages when creating blends, adding to the frustration.

With Whatagraph, there are no limits to:

• How many data sources you can blend together
• How many custom metrics and dimensions you can create

You can also save these custom blends, metrics, and dimensions and re-use them across all your reports and dashboards. No need to start from scratch.

For instance, say you want to report on the total number of “Add to Cart” from both Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads. You can set up a custom metric on Whatagraph, like so:

You can then visualize your new metric, dimension, or source instantly on your marketing reports and dashboards.

We also recently launched Performance Monitoring, which makes it even easier and faster to organize your scattered data and get actionable insights from it.

You can:

• Group 100s of data from scattered sources into unified metrics—without complicated data blends
• Slice and dice your data by client, business type, location, Account Manager, or whatever makes sense for your business
• Visualize your key metrics in one view and easily spot performance trends

…all through simple workflows that only take seconds to set up.

Powerful and easy data organization on Whatagraph means:

✅ Your reports are easier to read, neat, and tidy.

✅ Your clients clearly see the value you’re delivering rather than being stuck interpreting data.

✅ You can analyze and compare performance any way you want, and use these insights to deliver better results for clients.

4. Easy white-labeling

To white-label your reports on Looker Studio, you’ll need to spend hours designing individual widgets, charts, and graphs.

And again, you can’t save reports as templates, so you’ll need to create a new report from scratch, even if you want the same colors, logos, and texts.

On Whatagraph, white-labeling is as easy as 1-2-3. You can simply go to “Settings” and:

• Upload your logo or your client’s logo
• Create custom color schemes
• Add footer and header texts
• Create custom domains to host and share your reports

These custom features will then be applied across all your reports, saving you massive time.

This video breaks down how white-labeling works on Whatagraph:

When the time comes for sharing these reports, you can either:

1. Send automated emails to specific people at specific times, days, and cadence. Customize the email subject lines, body copy, and even domains.
2. Send instant live links to anyone.
3. Download PDFs or Excel spreadsheets.

(To send automated emails on Looker Studio, you’ll need to pay for the Pro plan.)

5. Straightforward pricing with Customer Success and Support included

Looker Studio is only free for their 21 native integrations with Google-based platforms.

But if you want to create reports with data from other SEO, social media, and paid media tools, you’ll need to buy third-party connectors and pay for monthly subscription plans.

This can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand, depending on how many extra connectors you need, and how much each cost.

On top of this, Customer support is only included in the Looker Studio Pro plan which starts from $9/user/project.

All this means you need to deal with different invoices and third-party companies which can be very time-consuming and frustrating.

In comparison, Whatagraph’s pricing is straightforward. All our plans include:

✅ 55+ fully-managed integrations

✅ Custom integrations via APIs, Google Sheets, and BigQuery

✅ Unlimited dashboards and reports

✅ Unlimited data blends, custom metrics, and dimensions

✅ Data transfer to BigQuery and Looker Studio

✅ Dedicated Customer Success Manager

✅ Fast customer support

Your CSM will help you with:

• Migrating data from your current platform
• Connecting to channels and data sources
• Organizing your data
• Creating reports
• Anything else you need

And if you need urgent help, you can reach out to our Customer Support team member through live chat or email at no extra cost.

Want to learn more? Book a call and tell us exactly how we can help.

Key Features

• 55+ native integrations
• Custom integrations through Custom API, Google Sheets, or BigQuery
• Versatile drag-and-drop widgets for reports and dashboards
• Custom metrics, dimensions, and data blends
• Currency conversions
• Library of pre-made dashboard and report templates
• Export to Excel and CSV
• Custom branding and white-label features
• Automated report sharing via email
• Links to live dashboards
• No-code data transfer to BigQuery and Looker Studio

Whatagraph Reviews from Real Users

“To me, Whatagraph is like the Tesla or Mercedes of digital analytics tools, their clean and simple way to present complex marketing data. I highly recommend it to anyone working with marketing analytics who values efficiency and clarity in their reporting.” (Source)

“Whatagraph has a simple user interface that is easy to navigate even for those who don't have analytical skills.” (Source)

“What I like best about Whatagraph is having the ability to create reports fast and easy. No more spreadsheets to do reports, they have a great variety of templates.” (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• All-in-one marketing performance monitoring and reporting solution
• Easy to use by anyone on your team
• Fast campaign performance and insights
• Stunning visual reports
• Makes results easy to interpret
• Excellent live chat customer support

Cons:

• No freemium plan
• Can be expensive for small agencies (under 10 employees) and freelancers

Pricing

Whatagraph offers three pricing plans based on the amount of “source credits” and access to customization and data organization capabilities.

You can use source credits to connect data sources, send data from a source to a warehouse, and blend cross-channel data together.

Reach out to us for a custom pricing plan, just for you.

2. Klipfolio

Most suitable for: Large data teams at companies and large agencies

Klipfolio is a data analytics and a business intelligence tool in one. It offers two key products:

1. PowerMetrics: Suitable for data teams at large companies, this is a data analytics solution to centralize, standardize, and share accurate metrics throughout the organization. Non-data teams can then use these certified metrics for their dashboards and reporting needs.
2. Klips: These are your regular data visualization dashboards and reports. Klips integrates with 130+ platforms and you can also use a Rest/URL option for custom integrations.

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.

Key Features

• 130+ integrations including warehouses, SQL databases, and file-sharing services
• Data blending, unifying, aggregating
• Custom metrics and dimensions
• AI insights
• Custom dashboards and reports
• Export dashboards as PDF or image files. Export only individual clips as CSV
• Scheduled reports

Klipfolio Reviews from Real Users

“Klipfolio has a user-friendly interface. It can be easily connected with databases, Excel sheets, and Google sheets which makes data integration very smooth and easy.” (Source)

“I love the full range of capabilities that are possible when building a Klipfolio dashboard (specifically with their Klips product).” (Source)

“Every time I contact support I get the impression that I am bothering them. I will not be renewing this platform because I do not feel valued as a customer.” (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Easy to use and set up
• Powerful data analytics and organization options
• AI insights to help make data-driven decisions

Cons:

• Expensive with important features only available as add-ons or in Enterprise plans
• Limited customization for dashboards and templates
• Unhelpful customer support

Pricing

Klipfolio offers three pricing plans for two of their products: PowerMetrics and Klips.

As of October 2024, here are the plans for PowerMetrics:

• 30-day free trial
• Professional: $300/month for 10 users and unlimited metrics.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for 10 users, unlimited metrics, and priority support.

It’s also important to note that important features like data warehouse integrations, AI insights, and custom domains are only available as add-ons, unless you purchase the Enterprise plan.

Klips’ pricing is further divided into plans for businesses and for agencies.

As of October 2024, here are the plans for businesses:

• Grow: $190/month for 15 dashboards and 1 hr data refresh rate. No priority support or custom onboarding available.
• Team: $350/month for 30 dashboards and 15 min data refresh rate. No priority support or custom onboarding available.
• Team+: $690/month for 60 dashboards and up to the minute data refresh rate. Includes priority support and custom onboarding

As of October 2024, here are the plans for agencies:

• Agency Lite: $190/month for 20 dashboards, 20 clients, and 1 hr data refresh rate. No priority support or custom onboarding available.
• Agency Pro: $420/month for 40 dashboards, 40 clients, and 30-min data refresh rate. No custom onboarding available.
• Agency Premier: $1025/month for 70 dashboards, 70 clients, and 30-min data refresh rate.

Side note: On Whatagraph, you can get unlimited dashboards, unlimited clients, 30-min data refresh rate, priority support, and custom onboarding on ALL our plans. Reach out to us for a pricing plan just for you.

3. DashThis

Most suitable for: Small businesses and freelancers

DashThis is a simple marketing reporting tool that connects to 30+ marketing platforms and visualizes KPIs on dashboards.

If you don’t see a built-in integration you need, you can also upload your own data using a nifty CSV file or a Google sheet.

Once your data is connected, you can visualize it using three key dashboards:

1. Periodic dashboards: These are dashboards based on specific time periods and cadence, like daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annually, and annually.
2. Campaign dashboards: These dashboards are used to isolate and highlight a specific campaign for a custom date range.
3. Rolling dashboards: These dashboards show trends of metrics for three different date ranges.

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.

Key Features

• 30+ integrations
• Custom data upload via CSV file or Google sheets
• Visualization dashboards
• Automatic data refreshes
• Upload client or band logos
• Create custom widgets, domains, color schemes, and email addresses
• Library of report templates
• Report sharing via email, URL, or PDF

DashThis Reviews from Real Users

“DashThis is super user friendly. I am someone who doesn't know too much about Data Dashboards, but this platform was super easy to use.” (Source)

“There are some limitations to what you can bring in and they don't yet offer custom calculations.” (Source)

“It is a little annoying to move things around in a dashboard. You have to move each individual widget to a new section rather than moving an entire section in a dashboard.” (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Easy to use and set up
• Many templates and dashboard examples available
• Relatively inexpensive

Cons:

• Limited data organization and customization features
• Limited data integrations
• Basic-looking reports

Pricing

As of October 2024, DashThis offers four pricing plans:

• Individual: $49/mo or $42/mo, paid yearly. Includes 3 dashboards. No white-labeling features, personalized onboarding, or priority support.
• Professional: $149/mo or $127/mo, paid yearly. Includes 10 dashboards. No personalized onboarding or priority support.
• Business: $289/mo or $246/mo, paid yearly. Includes 25 dashboards, white-labeling, personalized onboarding, and priority support.
• Standard: $449/mo or $382/mo, paid yearly. Includes 50 dashboards, white-labeling, personalized onboarding, and priority support.

4. Tableau

Most suitable for: Data teams at large enterprises

Tableau is an AI-powered business intelligence and marketing analytics 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.

Key Features

• 90+ integrations
• Custom metrics and dimensions
• Data blending
• Drag-and-drop dashboard interface
• AI-powered insights

Tableau Reviews from Real Users

“Tableau allows me to create my own structured data from a lot of unstructured data.” (Source)

Tableau has an uncanny ability to transform complex data into visually stunning and easily understandable representations.” (Source)

“Tableau can be costly, particularly for startups.” (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Powerful data analytics and visualization
• Easy to use and implement
• Seamless data integrations

Cons:

• Can be expensive if you need advanced features
• Takes a lot of time to load for large datasets
• All the preprocessing of the data (data cleaning) has to be done beforehand. Data cleaning cannot be done in Tableau

Pricing

As of October 2024, Tableau offers three pricing plans:

• Viewer: $35/user/month, billed annually
• Explorer: $70/user/month, billed annually
• Creator: $115/user/month, billed annually

5. Databox

Most suitable for: Boutique agencies and small businesses

Databox is a data reporting and analytics platform for growing businesses.

You can integrate with 100+ software tools, and bring in custom data through Google Sheets or Excel. Then, you can visualize this data directly on Databox using pre-built metrics and templates.

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.

However, Databox users online say the platform is clunky and has an unappealing user interface. For instance, in the screenshot below, you’ll see that your data is visualized in a “box” format and the metrics look “squished” together and hard to read.

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.

Key Features

• 100+ integrations
• Native visualization dashboards and reports
• Dashboard and report templates
• Slack, email, or in-app alerts
• KPI benchmark groups

Databox Reviews from Real Users

“Databox makes it simple to interact with data in ways you never thought possible.” (Source)

“I'm not sure what has happened with the customer support team at Databox but they are fairly unresponsive these days.” (Source)

"After 2 years I left. Templates always break, individual metrics always break, lack of good support." (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Wide variety of integrations
• Interactive data

Cons:

• Slow customer support
• Bugs and lag issues
• Broken metrics and templates

Databox Pricing

Databox offers five different pricing plans as of October 2024:

• Free: Limited to 3 users, data sources, and dashboards. No custom metrics, data calculations, or report automation available.
• Starter: $341/month for 50 data sources, 5 users, and unlimited dashboards.
• Professional: $451/month for 50 data sources, 15 users, and unlimited dashboards. Includes custom metrics and data calculations.
• Growth: $681/month for 50 data sources, and unlimited users and dashboards.
• Premium: $999/month for 100 data sources, and unlimited users and dashboards.

White-labeling and “guided onboarding” is also only available as an add-on on Databox ($250 and $500 per month respectively). In contrast, these are included in all of Whatagraph’s pricing plans.

6. Power BI

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.

Key Features

• 100+ integrations
• AI-powered insights and “Co-pilot”
• Data transformation and unification
• Native visualization dashboard and reports
• Shareable reports with other Microsoft services, including Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, and Power Platform

Power BI Reviews from Real Users

“For anyone already used to the Microsoft ecosystem, PowerBI delivers a combination of a user-friendly interface and powerful analytics.” (Source)

“Power bi has a eye catchy user interface and tons of customizing options.” (Source)

“The DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) which is used to creating complex calculations in Power Bi need a deep learning curve for the new users.” (Source)

Pricing

As of October 2024, Power BI offers three pricing plans:

• Pro: $10/user/month
• Premium: $20/user/month
• Power BI in Microsoft Fabric: Custom pricing

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.

Key Features

• 80+ integrations
• Ready-made report templates
• White-labeling
• Client and staff management
• SEO tools
• AI insights

AgencyAnalytics Reviews from Real Users

“AgencyAnalytics helps me create quick, automated, and clean reports for our clients which saves me a ton of time.” (Source)

“It can sometimes be a little buggy and take time to load. Adding new integrations can sometimes be challenging because of this.” (Source)

“I would like the capability of merging data from different platforms in graphs and metrics (e.g. using data from Google Ads with GA4) in the same section. I also don't like that some platforms aren't yet available (e.g. Reddit).” (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Easy to set up and use
• A wide library of ready-made report templates
• Cost-effective

Cons:

• Buggy
• Lack of advanced data calculations and organization features
• Limited integrations

Pricing

As of October 2024, AgencyAnalytics offers three plans:

• Freelancer: $79/month for 5 client campaigns
• Agency: $179/month for 10 client campaigns
• Custom: For established agencies with 50+ clients

8. Geckoboard

Most suitable for: Medium to large businesses in the Customer Service, Sales, and eCommerce sectors

Last but not least, we have Geckoboard: an easy to use dashboard building tool for Customer Service, Sales, and eCommerce businesses.

With it, you can connect to 90 data sources, design your dashboard, and share the dashboard with your team members or the C-Suite.

Geckoboard’s main advantage over DashThis is its wider variety of data sources (90 vs. 35). You can connect to major marketing platforms, as well as CRM, Sales, Finance, and eCommerce tools. Some examples include Shopify, Stripe, Dixa, Intercom, and Pipedrive.

However, some of these integrations (like Safesforce and Zendesk) are only available on pricier “Pro” plans.

Once your data is connected, you can create three main types of dashboards:

1. A blank dashboard (similar to Whatagraph’s)
2. TV dashboards for internal presentations
3. Mobile dashboards
4. Snapshots and reports

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.

Key Features

• 90+ integrations with Customer Service, Sales, Finance, and eCommerce channels
• Drag-and-drop dashboard builder
• KPI notifications
• Slack integration
• Automated email reports
• TV dashboards
• Mobile-friendly dashboards
• Dashboard examples for businesses

Geckoboard Reviews from Real Users

“I love how simple it is to use. That you can connect data from so many different sources in an easy way.” (Source)

“Connecting the dashboard with the Tv works like a charm.” (Source)

“Geckoboard could use more features and options for customization. Compared to other tools like Power BI or Tableau, Geckoboard didn't have as many advanced tools for analyzing data or changing how things looked. I wished I could make more complicated charts and do special calculations.” (Source)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Easy to use and set up
• A wide variety of integrations
• Great customer service

Cons:

• Can be pricey if you want to add more dashboards
• Limited customization options for dashboards
• No advanced calculations, blends, and custom metrics and dimensions supported

Pricing

Geckoboard’s pricing is based on the number of dashboards. But unlike DashThis (which includes unlimited users), Geckoboard has limitations on the number of users.

As of October 2024, Geckoboard offers three pricing plans:

• Essential: $149/month for 5 dashboards, 3 users, 1 TV share, and core data sources
• Pro: $199/month for 5 dashboards, 10 users, 3 TV shares, and pro data sources
• Scale: $699/month for 30 dashboards, 25 users, 10 TV shares, pro data sources, and dedicated Support rep