Comparison
Thonest vs ProfitWell Metrics
ProfitWell is free, it is genuinely good, and Thonest does not compete with it. The difference is direction. Everything ProfitWell shows points inward, at you and the people you have given access to. Nothing in it was built to be handed to somebody outside the company — which is the entire job Thonest does, and why running both is the normal outcome rather than a compromise.
What ProfitWell Metrics is
ProfitWell Metrics is free subscription analytics from Paddle, used by more than 30,000 companies. It connects to Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, Braintree, Recurly and Zuora, and turns them into MRR, churn, lifetime value, customer counts, upgrades and downgrades and cohort breakdowns, plus benchmarks against the other companies on it. There is no paid tier and no trial to run out — the whole product is free.
| ProfitWell Metrics | Thonest | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Free subscription analytics for you and your team | A verified revenue timeline built to be shown to other people |
| Who reads it | You, your co-founder, your investors — people you have already given access to | A customer, investor or candidate with thirty seconds and no reason to trust you yet |
| What someone outside your company can see | Nothing. It is a dashboard behind a login, with roles controlling who gets in | Your whole revenue history, on your own domain, at a link anyone can open |
| Depth of metrics | Deep. Churn, lifetime value, cohorts, upgrades and downgrades, customer health | Revenue and customers, and the decisions behind them. Nothing else |
| Benchmarking | Against tens of thousands of companies, anonymised into an aggregate | None. Your own history is the comparison, and your row has your name on it |
| Explains why the numbers moved | It gives you the metrics to work it out yourself | It shows the reader what you did and what followed, with the figures either side |
| Billing systems it reads | Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, Braintree, Recurly, Zuora | Stripe, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, RevenueCat, Superwall, Creem, Dodo Payments |
| Price | Free, with no paid tier at all | Free. $79/month only if you run more than one business |
When ProfitWell Metrics is the better choice
- You need to understand your own business. Churn, cohorts, lifetime value, expansion revenue — ProfitWell does all of it for nothing, and Thonest does none of it.
- You bill through Chargebee, Braintree, Recurly or Zuora. ProfitWell reads all four. Thonest reads none of them today, and wanting it does not change that.
- You want to know how you compare to other subscription businesses. Benchmarking across that many companies is something we cannot do and are not trying to.
When Thonest is the better choice
- The person you need to convince does not work for you. ProfitWell will never show them anything — not because it falls short, but because that was never what it is for.
- A screenshot of a dashboard proves nothing to a stranger. It is an image, and everyone knows images are editable. A page measured from your processor under a published rule is a different kind of claim, because the reader can check it instead of trusting it.
- You want the decisions attached to the numbers. Analytics can tell you revenue rose in March. It cannot tell your reader that you repriced in February, and what the ninety days after that looked like.
- You want it on your own domain, beside your own pricing, where the doubt actually happens — not in a tab only you can log into.
The short version
Run ProfitWell. It is free, it is better analytics than we will ever build, and every founder needs the question it answers answered. It just answers it for you. When the person who needs convincing is on the other side of the table, a dashboard only you can log into is not evidence, and no amount of depth makes it any. That is the gap, and it is the only one we are claiming.
See what a timeline looks like.
Connect your billing and yours is ready in about a minute, and nothing is public until you say so.