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Business Intelligence · head to head

Baremetrics vs Cortex

Baremetrics logo

Baremetrics

Business Intelligence

Subscription analytics for SaaS

From
$75/month
Free plan
No
Visit BaremetricsFull review
Cortex logo

Cortex

Developer Tools

Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services

From
On request
Free plan
No
Visit CortexFull review

The short version

  • Baremetrics starts at $75/mo; Cortex prices on request.
  • Only Baremetrics lists revenue Metrics; only Cortex lists service catalogue.
  • Where Baremetrics falls short: payment Recovery and Cancellation Insights are separate add-ons at $129 a month each.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Baremetrics and Cortex actually diverge.

Attributes where Baremetrics and Cortex differ
AttributeBaremetricsCortex
Starting price$75/monthOn request
Pricing modelSubscriptionQuote
CategoryBusiness IntelligenceDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: free tier (No), platforms (Web, API).

Not yet recorded: founded for Cortex.

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Baremetrics

  • Revenue Metrics
  • Forecasting
  • Benchmarking
  • Cancellation Insights
  • Email Reports
  • Stripe
  • Braintree
  • Recurly

Only in Cortex

  • Service catalogue
  • Scorecards
  • Initiatives
  • Self-service templates
  • Query language
  • Eng intelligence
  • Integrations layer
  • On-call and ownership mapping

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Baremetrics

  • Subscription metrics and MRR reporting from Stripe and similar billing systemsnot Cortex
  • Churn and retention analysisnot Cortex
  • Failed payment recovery through the add-onnot Cortex
  • Cancellation surveys to understand why customers leavenot Cortex

Cortex

  • A platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a Kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of servicesnot Baremetrics
  • An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot Baremetrics
  • Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot Baremetrics
  • Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot Baremetrics

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Baremetrics

  • Priced on the revenue it measures, so the bill rises with your ARR rather than with usage: $75 a month up to $360K ARR, $255 to $3.6M and $1,152 above that
  • Payment Recovery and Cancellation Insights are separate add-ons at $129 a month each
  • The advertised prices assume annual billing with a discount of up to 35 percent
  • There is no free tier, only a trial

Cortex

  • Pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first
  • The catalogue is only as accurate as the metadata you supply, so an organisation with inconsistent repository conventions spends its first quarter cleaning data before any scorecard means anything
  • Scorecards create political friction: publishing a per-team grade turns an engineering standard into a performance metric, and teams will game the rules rather than fix the underlying issue
  • It is closed source and hosted, so organisations with strict data residency or air-gap requirements have limited options compared with running Backstage themselves
  • Value scales with organisation size, so a company with fifty engineers and thirty services will find the catalogue tells them nothing they did not already know while still paying an enterprise contract

Pricing, plan by plan

Baremetrics

$75/month
  • Launch$75/mo
    • Target $0-360K ARR
    • Single integration
    • Core analytics features
  • Growth$255/mo
    • Target $360K-$3.6M ARR
    • Two integrations
    • Advanced features
  • Scale$1,152/mo
    • Target $3.6M+ ARR
    • Unlimited integrations
    • Enterprise features

Cortex

On request
  • CortexOn request
    • Service catalogue and ownership mapping
    • Scorecards and initiatives
    • Self-service templates

Which should you pick?

Choose Baremetrics if

  • You need revenue metrics.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want forecasting.
Baremetrics review

Choose Cortex if

  • You need service catalogue.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want scorecards.
Cortex review

Questions people ask

Is Baremetrics or Cortex better?
Neither clearly leads. Baremetrics starts at $75/month and Cortex at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Baremetrics or Cortex?
Baremetrics starts at $75/month and Cortex at On request.
Does Baremetrics or Cortex run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, API, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Baremetrics best used for?
Baremetrics is most often used for subscription metrics and mrr reporting from stripe and similar billing systems, churn and retention analysis, failed payment recovery through the add-on, cancellation surveys to understand why customers leave. Of those, subscription metrics and mrr reporting from stripe and similar billing systems and churn and retention analysis are not what Cortex is typically brought in for.
What can Baremetrics do that Cortex cannot?
Baremetrics covers Revenue Metrics, Forecasting, Benchmarking, Cancellation Insights. Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Baremetrics: How much does Baremetrics' Launch plan cost per month?

Baremetrics' Launch plan starts at $75 per month with annual billing, or $49 per month with annual prepayment (35% discount when paying yearly).

Source
Cortex: How is Cortex different from Backstage?

Backstage is an open source framework you build and staff. Cortex is a hosted product with scorecards and initiatives out of the box and no platform team required to keep it running.

Baremetrics: What is the difference between Baremetrics plans?

Launch includes one integration and core analytics; Growth ($255/month) adds a second integration and advanced dashboards; Scale ($1,152/month) includes unlimited integrations and enterprise features.

Source
Cortex: Is pricing published?

No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.

Baremetrics: What add-ons are available in Baremetrics?

Payment Recovery and Cancellation Insights are available as add-ons at $129 per month each to automate failed payment recovery and churn reduction.

Source
Cortex: Can it self-host?

It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.

Baremetrics: Is there a free trial for Baremetrics?

Yes, Baremetrics offers a free trial available for new users to test the platform before committing to a paid plan.

Source
Cortex: What is the main adoption risk?

Bad or missing service metadata. The catalogue and every scorecard on top of it inherit whatever quality your repositories already have.

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