Stripe Sigma Alternative: Chartsy vs Stripe Sigma (2026)

Side by side

Chartsy vs Stripe Sigma comparison table

Feature	Chartsy	Stripe Sigma
Starting price (Oct 2026)	$9/mo (Starter, 10k events)	$15/mo for 250 charges, then 6¢ per charge ($10/mo annual)
Priced on	Tracked website visits and signups	Successful charges per month
Trial	14 days, no card	30 days
SQL required	No	Yes
AI help	Chat and chart builder that answer directly	Assistant that drafts SQL
Pre-built SaaS metrics (MRR, ARR, churn, LTV)	Yes	No; you derive them in SQL
MRR breakdown (new, expansion, contraction, churn)	Yes	Write it yourself
Billing providers	Stripe, Paddle, Polar.sh, Freemius, Creem.io, Lemon Squeezy	Stripe only
Several Stripe accounts in one MRR	Yes	Not documented
Revenue by marketing channel	Yes	No
Dashboards	Custom dashboards, share links, PDF export	Saved queries
Scheduled reports	Weekly email report and daily briefing	Scheduled query exports
Data freshness	Updated from Stripe webhooks as events arrive	About 3 hours behind
MCP server	Read-only, 19 tools	Stripe MCP stripe_analytics tool in preview, requires Sigma
Join with non-Stripe tables	Not documented	Via Data Pipeline to a warehouse

Why founders look elsewhere

Sigma answers anything, as long as someone writes the query.

Sigma is genuinely powerful. These are the reasons founders without a data team look for something else.

Every metric starts as SQLSigma has no pre-built MRR, churn or LTV. You derive them from raw tables and maintain the queries when plans or pricing change.
Results are tables, not dashboardsYou get saved queries and exports. Charts and a dashboard you can share are extra work.
Stripe onlyPaddle, Polar.sh, Freemius, Creem.io or Lemon Squeezy revenue means exports and spreadsheets. Chartsy adds them all into one MRR.
No view of where customers came fromSigma sees payments, not visits. Chartsy follows each customer from first visit to signup to first payment.

Fact cards

Stripe Sigma and Chartsy at a glance

Same fields for both tools, including what each one is not ideal for.

Stripe Sigma

Best for: Teams with an analyst who wants unrestricted SQL over raw Stripe data, or bespoke questions no standard metric covers.

Sigma is a SQL environment inside your Stripe Dashboard. It gives direct access to charges, subscriptions, customers, invoices and refunds, lets you save and schedule queries, and has an assistant that drafts SQL for you. Stripe's Data Pipeline sends the same data to a warehouse when you need to join it with other tables.

Pricing: $15/mo for up to 250 charges, then 6¢ per extra charge. Annual tiers: $10/mo (250 charges), $60 (2,500), $225 (10,000), $450 (25,000). Data Pipeline from $65/mo. (pricing)
Free tier or trial: 30-day trial.
Billing sources: Stripe only.
Metrics: None pre-built in Sigma; Stripe analytics (0.7% of Billing volume) separately reports MRR, churn and retention.
Freshness: Data lags about three hours.
AI and MCP: Sigma assistant drafts SQL. The Stripe MCP server’s stripe_analytics tool is in preview and requires Sigma.
Not ideal for: Founders without SQL, teams billing through more than Stripe, and anyone who wants revenue by marketing channel.

Chartsy

Best for: Founders and operators who want MRR, churn and LTV already calculated, plus revenue by marketing channel, without writing SQL.

Chartsy connects to Stripe with a read-only restricted key, syncs your last 24 months of history, and calculates MRR, ARR, churn, LTV, NRR and ARPU from your invoices, with an MRR breakdown by new, expansion, contraction, churned and reactivated revenue. Rules are documented in How We Calculate MRR at Chartsy.

With revenue attribution, one script on your website follows each customer from first visit to first payment. Ask a question in the in-app chat or through the read-only MCP server from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor.

Pricing: Starter from $9/mo, Growth from $29/mo, priced on tracked website visits and signups, not on queries or charges. Yearly billing gives two months free. (pricing)
Free tier or trial: 14-day trial, no card. No free plan.
Billing sources: Stripe, Paddle Billing, Paddle Classic, Polar.sh, Freemius, Creem.io, Lemon Squeezy, plus a Custom Billing API. Two sources on Starter, 20 on Growth.
Metrics: MRR breakdown, churn, LTV, NRR, ARPU, plan and country breakdowns, cohort retention charts, goals, revenue by marketing channel.
AI and MCP: In-app chat and chart builder (200 questions/mo on Starter, 2,000 on Growth), and a read-only MCP server with 19 tools.
Sharing and reports: Custom dashboards, share links, PDF export, weekly email report, daily briefing.
Not ideal for: Analysts who want raw SQL over every Stripe field, questions that need Stripe joined with your own product tables, and teams that want to stay entirely inside Stripe.

Pricing

What each costs

Sigma charges by the successful charges you process; Chartsy charges by the website events you track. Neither charges per question.

Stripe Sigma (monthly)

Charges per month	Price
Up to 250 (monthly plan)	$15 + 6¢ per extra charge
Up to 250 (annual)	$10
Up to 2,500 (annual)	$60
Up to 10,000 (annual)	$225
Up to 25,000 (annual)	$450

Chartsy (monthly)

Monthly events	Starter	Growth
10,000	$9	$29
100,000	$29	$49
500,000	$59	$109
1,000,000	$79	$149

Sigma’s bill grows with charges processed, so a subscription business pays more each month as it grows, even if it asks the same questions.
Sigma’s price doesn’t include the analyst time to write and maintain queries. Chartsy ships the metrics already built.
Chartsy’s bill grows with website traffic, not with revenue or charges.

Rule of thumb: if you already pay an analyst who writes SQL, Sigma is cheap; if you don’t, the queries are the real cost.

Decide

Which should you choose?

You have an analyst comfortable with SQLSigma gives them every Stripe field. Chartsy can still save them from rebuilding standard metrics.
Nobody on the team writes SQLChartsy. MRR, churn and LTV are calculated for you.
You need Stripe joined with product or warehouse tablesSigma plus Data Pipeline, or a BI tool on your warehouse.
You bill through Stripe and another providerChartsy, which adds Stripe, Paddle, Polar.sh, Freemius, Creem.io and Lemon Squeezy into one MRR.
You want to know which channels bring paying customersChartsy. See revenue attribution for SaaS.
You only need headline MRR and churn inside StripeStripe analytics, which is included with Stripe Billing.

Other options

Other Stripe Sigma alternatives

Prices from each vendor’s pricing page, October 2026.

Stripe analytics

Best for: Headline subscription metrics without leaving Stripe.

Included with Stripe Billing (0.7% of Billing volume). Counts active and past-due subscriptions in MRR, and lets you choose whether discounts are subtracted. Stripe only. See Stripe analytics alternative.

ChartMogul

Best for: The most complete pre-built subscription metrics on mainstream billing systems.

Free up to $10K MRR, then from $69/mo. 30+ billing integrations, cohorts and a read-only MCP server. See ChartMogul alternative.

Baremetrics

Best for: A polished Stripe dashboard with forecasting and optional dunning.

From $75/mo on monthly billing, priced by ARR, with $129/mo add-ons. See Baremetrics alternative.

Metabase + Stripe Data Pipeline

Best for: Teams with a warehouse that want to join revenue with product or CRM data.

Metabase is free to self-host; cloud from $100/mo. Data Pipeline from $65/mo. You model MRR and churn yourself in SQL.

Background

What is Stripe Sigma?

Stripe Sigma is a SQL environment inside your Stripe account. It gives analysts direct access to raw data (charges, subscriptions, customers, invoices, refunds) and lets them write custom queries, save them, export results and schedule reports. A query for monthly revenue looks like this:

SELECT DATE_TRUNC('month', created) AS month,
       SUM(amount) / 100.0 AS revenue
FROM charges
WHERE status = 'succeeded'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1 DESC

For a team with an analyst, that's a powerful environment. For everyone else the workflow is slow: write SQL, run it, inspect the table, turn it into a chart. There's no pre-built SaaS metrics layer, so MRR, churn and LTV have to be derived from raw tables. For a deeper look, see What Is Stripe Sigma? Features, Pricing and Limitations.

Where each fits

Stripe Dashboard vs Sigma vs Chartsy

Most Stripe teams already use the Dashboard for quick monitoring and Sigma for deep analysis. They sit at opposite ends, and most everyday questions fall in the gap between them.

Stripe Dashboard and Billing analytics: fixed reports and headline MRR, churn and retention. Good for daily monitoring.
Stripe Sigma: full SQL access to every Stripe field. Good for analysts and bespoke questions.
Chartsy: MRR, churn, LTV, NRR and revenue by channel built in, custom dashboards, and answers without SQL. Good for founders and operators.

Be honest

When Stripe Sigma is the better choice

Sigma is the right tool in three situations:

You have an analyst already. Someone who writes SQL gets unrestricted access to every field Stripe stores. No metrics layer is as flexible as the raw tables.
Your questions are genuinely bespoke. If your analysis depends on logic no tool ships by default, SQL is the honest answer.
You need Stripe joined with other data. Combining Stripe records with product or warehouse tables is a SQL job, usually through Data Pipeline.

Outside those cases, the SQL requirement is a cost rather than a feature. If your questions are the ones every subscription business asks (what's my MRR, which plans churn, where is expansion coming from), rebuilding those answers in SQL is hard to justify.

How we compared

What this page answers, and how

Questions founders ask

How much does Stripe Sigma cost?
Do I need SQL to use Stripe Sigma?
Is there a Stripe Sigma alternative without SQL?
Does Sigma calculate MRR and churn for me?
How fresh is Sigma data?
Can I combine Stripe with Paddle or other providers?

How we compared the tools

Price. What you pay at your stage and what the price is based on.
Skills needed. Whether someone has to write SQL to get an answer.
Metrics. Whether MRR, churn, LTV and the MRR breakdown are built in.
Coverage. Which billing providers and accounts can be combined.
Beyond revenue. Attribution, dashboards, reports, AI and MCP.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Stripe Sigma alternative?

For founders who don’t write SQL and want MRR, churn and LTV already calculated, plus revenue by marketing channel: Chartsy. For headline metrics without leaving Stripe: Stripe analytics. For a warehouse-based setup that joins Stripe with product data: Metabase on top of Stripe Data Pipeline.

How much does Stripe Sigma cost?

Sigma costs $15/mo for up to 250 charges, plus 6¢ per extra charge, on monthly billing. Annual plans start at $10/mo for 250 charges and go up to $450/mo for 25,000 charges. New users get a 30-day trial. Prices checked October 2026.

Do you need to know SQL to use Stripe Sigma?

Yes. Sigma is a SQL environment. Its assistant can draft SQL for you, but every report is still a query against Stripe’s schema that someone has to check and maintain.

Does Stripe Sigma calculate MRR and churn?

Not by itself. Sigma gives you raw tables and you derive MRR and churn in SQL. Stripe analytics, a separate part of Stripe Billing, reports headline MRR, churn and retention.

How fresh is the data in Stripe Sigma?

Stripe’s documentation says Sigma data is about three hours behind, so it suits historical analysis better than checking today’s numbers.

When is Stripe Sigma the better choice?

When you have an analyst who needs unrestricted SQL over raw Stripe objects, when your questions are genuinely bespoke, or when you need to join Stripe data with your own tables in a warehouse.

Does Chartsy replace Stripe?

No. Chartsy connects to Stripe with a read-only restricted key and calculates analytics from your data. You keep using Stripe to process payments.

Does Chartsy work beyond Stripe?

Yes. Chartsy connects Stripe, Paddle Billing, Paddle Classic, Polar.sh, Freemius, Creem.io and Lemon Squeezy, and adds them into one MRR. Sigma is Stripe-only.

The Stripe Sigma alternative for founders who don’t write SQL

Short answer

Choose Chartsy if

Choose Stripe Sigma if