When Should You Use ChartMogul vs. TruStats?
You're standing in front of your cap table. An investor asks for your latest metrics. You pull up a screenshot. They ask when you last updated it. You don't remember. This moment—the moment you realize your social proof is static, outdated, and manual—is where TruStats vs ChartMogul becomes more than a comparison. It becomes a decision about how you prove traction.
Both platforms connect to your revenue data. But they solve fundamentally different problems. ChartMogul is built for SaaS finance teams who need subscription analytics, cohort analysis, and historical revenue tracking. TruStats is built for founders who need to share live, verified metrics with investors, customers, and the internet—and prove those numbers are real.
This comparison will show you what each does, who each suits, and which one actually solves your problem.
What Does ChartMogul Do?
ChartMogul pulls subscription data from Stripe, Recurly, Zuora, and other payment platforms. It calculates MRR, ARR, churn rate, expansion revenue, and cohort retention. It gives you dashboards, historical trending, and detailed cohort analysis. It's the internal financial nervous system of a SaaS company.
ChartMogul's Strengths
- Deep subscription analytics: ChartMogul specializes in SaaS metrics. If you need to understand which customer cohorts have the best retention or how expansion revenue trended over 18 months, ChartMogul was built for this.
- Historical data: It stores and analyzes months or years of revenue history, so you can see patterns and trends your team might otherwise miss.
- Multiple revenue source support: It connects to most major payment platforms and billing systems, so if you use Recurly or Zuora alongside Stripe, ChartMogul handles it.
- Enterprise-grade: If you have a finance team that lives in dashboards, ChartMogul has the permissioning, audit logs, and data governance they expect.
ChartMogul's Limitations
- Not designed for sharing: ChartMogul lives behind a login. You can't point an investor, customer, or press outlet to a live public page showing your real numbers. Screenshots are your only option.
- High pricing: ChartMogul starts at $249/month and scales with data volume. For a bootstrapped founder, that's a fixed cost that doesn't shrink as you grow.
- Overkill if you're early: If you have one revenue stream and simple subscription logic, you're paying for features you don't need.
- No integration with non-revenue tools: ChartMogul won't pull data from Plausible, PostHog, Beehiiv, or UptimeRobot. It's revenue-only.
What Does TruStats Do?
TruStats solves a different job. It creates a publicly shareable, API-verified metrics page. Every metric is pulled live from your actual tools—Stripe, PostHog, Plausible, Beehiiv, Metabase, UptimeRobot, and 14 others—and displayed on a page you can share with anyone. Investors see real numbers. Acquirers see live proof of traction. Customers see honest transparency. No screenshots. No manual updates. No stale data.
TruStats's Strengths
- Verified proof: Metrics pull directly from your source. An investor clicking your metrics page knows the number is real because they can see it's connected to your actual Stripe account or PostHog instance. This is more credible than a screenshot.
- Works with any metric: Revenue, DAU, churn, uptime, email subscribers, API calls, feature adoption—TruStats connects to tools across your stack. You're not limited to SaaS subscription metrics.
- Public sharing: This is the key difference. You own a link (like trustats.live/p/trustats) that you can share everywhere. Investors can bookmark it. Acquirers can track it over time. You don't have to send screenshots anymore.
- Founder-friendly pricing: TruStats offers a free tier for founders sharing up to 5 metrics. The Pro plan is $29/month if you need more metrics or branding control.
- Low friction: Setup takes 20 minutes. Connect your Stripe account (or PostHog, or Plausible, etc.), add metrics, share the page. No spreadsheets. No manual refreshing.
TruStats's Limitations
- Not for internal financial analysis: TruStats doesn't give you cohort analysis, historical trending, or the kind of deep subscription diagnostics a finance team would run. It shows current and recent metrics, not historical deep-dives.
- Simpler than specialized tools: If you need advanced SaaS metrics like net dollar retention by cohort, TruStats shows simple MRR or ARR, not the detailed breakdowns ChartMogul offers.
- Public by design: If you want to keep your metrics private, TruStats isn't the answer. It's built for transparency. (That's a feature, not a bug—but it matters if you don't want your numbers public.)
Who Should Use ChartMogul?
Use ChartMogul if you have a dedicated finance person, operate multiple subscription tiers with complex logic, or need to analyze historical cohort behavior. ChartMogul shines for teams who are past Series A and need rigorous, auditable revenue tracking. The cost makes sense at scale because you're not duplicating spreadsheets.
Example: A $3M ARR SaaS company with three pricing tiers, annual and monthly plans, and usage-based add-ons needs ChartMogul. The finance team runs reports, calculates unit economics by cohort, and hands audited numbers to leadership. ChartMogul is the source of truth.
Who Should Use TruStats?
Use TruStats if you're a bootstrapped founder, pre-Series A, or simply want to prove your traction to investors and customers without sending screenshots. Use it if your metrics matter for your pitch, your positioning, or your credibility. Use it if you want investors to see that your numbers are live and real, not cherry-picked or outdated.
Example: A founder raising a seed round tells investors, "My metrics are live at trustats.live/p/yourcompany." The investor clicks it, sees MRR, churn, DAU, and uptime all connected to real APIs. They bookmark it. They check it three weeks later and see the numbers have grown. This is more persuasive than a screenshot from last month.
Another example: A bootstrapped founder with a Beehiiv newsletter and a Stripe subscription product wants to show her full picture—subscribers, churn, and MRR—in one transparent page. ChartMogul only handles Stripe. TruStats handles both.
TruStats vs ChartMogul: A Quick Side-by-Side
- Best for: ChartMogul is best for subscription analytics and internal financial reports. TruStats is best for public proof of traction.
- Pricing: ChartMogul starts at $249/month. TruStats is free for 5 metrics, $29/month for Pro.
- Public sharing: ChartMogul doesn't support it. TruStats is built for it.
- Tools supported: ChartMogul: payment platforms only. TruStats: Stripe, PostHog, Plausible, Beehiiv, Metabase, UptimeRobot, and 14+ others.
- Setup time: ChartMogul: hours (data mapping, reconciliation). TruStats: 20 minutes.
- Historical analysis: ChartMogul: yes, detailed. TruStats: limited.
The Bottom Line: Which Should You Choose?
If your problem is "I need to prove my real metrics to investors and customers," choose TruStats. If your problem is "I need to understand my subscription finances deeply," choose ChartMogul.
Many founders use both. ChartMogul stays internal for your finance team. TruStats becomes your public proof—the link you send to investors, embed in your pitch deck, and share when someone asks, "Show me the traction."
For bootstrapped founders, indie hackers, and early-stage teams, TruStats usually solves the more urgent problem first: credibility. You need investors to believe your numbers are real. A live, verified metrics page does that better than a screenshot.
The TruStats vs ChartMogul decision isn't either-or. It's about which solves your immediate need. Start with TruStats if you want to share your traction publicly. Build with ChartMogul later if your team needs deeper financial analysis.
Ready to replace screenshots with live proof? Create your free verified metrics page at trustats.live and see what a live, API-connected page looks like. You can add your first 5 metrics without a credit card.