TruStats vs Baremetrics: Which Metrics Dashboard Fits Your Business Model
You're sitting in a coffee shop before an investor call. The VC emails asking for your latest metrics. You can send a PDF screenshot from last week, or you can send a live, API-verified page that updates in real time. One of those conversations closes differently.
If you're choosing between TruStats and Baremetrics, you're solving a real problem: how do you prove your numbers are real without spending hours manually updating spreadsheets or taking screenshots. But these two tools approach the job differently. Baremetrics has owned the bootstrapped founder space for nearly a decade. TruStats is newer—but it's built for a specific use case: public, shareable proof.
This comparison cuts through the marketing. We'll cover what each tool does, who it actually serves best, and where the gaps live so you can make a decision that fits your stage, your budget, and how you talk about your business to outsiders.
What Is Baremetrics, and What Problem Does It Solve?
Baremetrics is a business metrics dashboard built specifically for SaaS founders. It pulls data from Stripe and other payment processors, and it shows you the metrics that matter: MRR, churn, customer lifetime value, growth rate, runway. The interface is clean. The team behind it is founder-first. For over a decade, bootstrapped founders have used it as their "business operations dashboard"—the place they check their metrics before sleep and after their first coffee.
Baremetrics solves the internal problem: helping you understand your own business. It's personal. It's not built for showing investors or customers your metrics. It's built for you to know what's happening in your business without logging into Stripe twenty times a day.
The pricing is straightforward. Baremetrics charges a flat fee (currently around $99–$299 per month depending on your MRR tier) for unlimited access to dashboards, email reports, and forecasting tools.
What Does TruStats Do Differently?
TruStats solves a different job. Instead of asking "How do I track my metrics internally," it asks: "How do I prove my metrics are real to investors, acquirers, and customers without sending screenshots?"
Every metric on a TruStats page is API-verified and source-connected. When you share your metrics page publicly, the numbers pull live from Stripe, PostHog, Plausible, Beehiiv, UptimeRobot, and 14 other tools. Investors see a green checkmark next to your source. They see your data updating in real time. No screenshots. No spreadsheets. No room for doubt.
In practice, this means the moment an investor or acquirer lands on your metrics page, they already trust the numbers before they read a single word of your pitch. YC's guidance on fundraising emphasizes that due diligence slows down conversations. TruStats is built to skip that step entirely by removing the friction of verification.
TruStats has two pricing tiers. The free tier lets you create a basic metrics page with up to 5 connected data sources. The Pro plan ($29/month) unlocks custom branding, priority support, and unlimited data sources. For most bootstrapped founders, the free tier is enough to make an impact.
How Do You Actually Use Each Tool?
Baremetrics: Your Internal Operations Dashboard
You log in daily. You check your MRR, your churn rate, your customer count. You see week-over-week growth. You export reports to send to your co-founder or share privately with advisors. Baremetrics gives you the context and clarity you need to make decisions about your business.
Most founders also use Baremetrics' email reporting feature to get a weekly snapshot without logging in. It's the "check your vitals" tool.
TruStats: Your Public Proof of Metrics
You create a shareable page in 10 minutes. You connect your Stripe account, your analytics tool, maybe your uptime monitor. You customize the look if you're on Pro, add a brief description of your business, and copy the URL. Then you share it when it matters: investor pitches, sales conversations, partnership pitches, public launches.
Every time someone opens your page, they see live numbers. You never have to update it manually. You never have to worry about whether your screenshot is "old" or whether a number has changed since you sent it.
See what this looks like in practice at trustats.live/p/trustats.
Which Metrics Do Each Tool Track?
Baremetrics Metrics Coverage
Baremetrics focuses on the financial and operational core: MRR (monthly recurring revenue), annual run rate, customer count, churn rate, customer lifetime value, growth rate, logo churn, net revenue retention, and cohort analysis. It's purpose-built for SaaS financial health.
TruStats Metrics Coverage
TruStats is source-agnostic. You pick the metrics that matter to your story. If you want to show MRR from Stripe, you do. If you want to add website visitors from Plausible, signups from PostHog, and uptime from UptimeRobot, that's possible too. You can add up to 50+ individual metrics across 16+ data sources. TruStats doesn't prescribe which metrics you should care about—it lets you build the narrative that's true to your business.
This is important. Some founders care most about revenue. Others (especially early-stage) care about growth rate, user engagement, or infrastructure reliability. TruStats lets you lead with what matters to your specific conversation.
Should You Choose Baremetrics or TruStats?
Choose Baremetrics if:
- You want a comprehensive internal business dashboard with financial modeling and forecasting tools.
- You're bootstrapped and spending $99–$299/month for deeper SaaS metrics insights is worth it to you.
- You prefer a single source of truth for all your metrics, not multiple integrations.
- You only need your metrics internally—you're not actively fundraising or doing sales outreach where you'd share them publicly.
- You want pre-built cohort analysis and historical churn insights.
Choose TruStats if:
- You're fundraising, fundraising soon, or actively in sales conversations with customers or partners who ask for proof of traction.
- You want a free way to create a verified metrics page without paying monthly.
- You care about flexibility—showing different metrics to different audiences (investors see revenue, your landing page shows user growth).
- You want live, source-connected proof that replaces screenshots and spreadsheets in your conversations.
- You already have tools like Stripe, PostHog, and Plausible, and you want to connect them without paying another $99+ per month.
Use Both if:
You can. Many founders do. Baremetrics is your internal operations dashboard. TruStats is your external proof. Baremetrics runs in the background. TruStats lives in your investor emails and sales links. They're not competitors—they're solving different jobs.
The Bottom Line on TruStats vs Baremetrics
Baremetrics is the founder's operating dashboard. It's mature, reliable, and built for founders who want to understand their business deeply. It costs money, but it delivers real clarity.
TruStats is the founder's credibility tool. It's built for moments when your word isn't enough—when you need to prove your numbers are real, live, and verified. The best use case is for founders in fundraising, actively selling, or publicly building.
If you're comparing TruStats vs Baremetrics, the real question isn't which one is better. It's which problem are you solving right now. Are you trying to understand your business better (Baremetrics). Or are you trying to prove your traction is real to someone who matters (TruStats).
Most bootstrapped founders find they need both—but if you can only pick one, pick based on your immediate need. If you're in sales or fundraising conversations, start with a free TruStats metrics page. It takes 10 minutes. You'll send fewer screenshots and close conversations faster because investors trust what they can verify themselves.
Create your free verified metrics page at trustats.live and see for yourself how live, source-connected proof changes the conversation.