DriftcheckCompare · Baremetrics
Baremetrics vs Driftcheck
Baremetrics and Driftcheck both connect to Stripe, but they answer different questions. Baremetrics turns your Stripe data into dashboards — MRR, churn, LTV, forecasts — and, through its Recover add-on, chases failed payments for you. Driftcheck does one narrow thing: it compares Stripe against your own application database (or a CSV export) and flags every place the two silently disagree.
An analytics dashboard reconciles Stripe to itself. It can't tell you that Stripe thinks a customer is active while your app cut them off, or that your database still bills a plan Stripe stopped charging. That gap is what Driftcheck reads. The two are complementary: Baremetrics tells you how the business is doing; Driftcheck tells you where the books and the product no longer match.
What Baremetrics does
Baremetrics is a subscription-analytics platform for Stripe and other payment processors. It connects to your billing system, pulls the data, and renders dozens of metrics — MRR, ARR, churn, LTV, trial conversion — plus forecasting and cancellation-reason analysis. Its Recover add-on runs automated dunning to win back failed payments, and Cancellation Insights collects churn feedback.
The key difference
Baremetrics reads Stripe and reports on it (and Recover acts on failed payments). Driftcheck reads Stripe and your own database and reports only on where they disagree — it never retries a payment, never duns, never predicts churn. It's a read-only reconciliation layer, not a dashboard or a recovery tool.
Side by side
| Driftcheck | Baremetrics | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Detect drift between Stripe and your app DB / CSV | Report subscription metrics (MRR, churn, LTV, forecasts) |
| Acts on findings? | No — detection only. You decide what to do | Yes, via the Recover add-on: automated dunning + retries |
| Data access | Stripe (read-only key) + your own database or CSV | Stripe and other processors — the billing system, not your app DB |
| What it uniquely catches | Where Stripe and your DB disagree: ghost customers, subscription-state mismatch, plan/price drift, uncollected subs | Trends and totals: revenue movements, churn rate, cohort LTV, forecasts |
| Failed payments | Flags uncollected / past-due as findings (no action taken) | Recover actively retries and emails to recover them (add-on) |
| Output | Ranked PDF of findings, each traced to the Stripe object + the CSV cell that disagrees | Live dashboards, segments, forecasts, email reports |
| Pricing | $12.99 one-time (key) · $20 one-time (key + CSV) · $29/mo monitor | Monthly subscription; Recover is a paid add-on (see baremetrics.com/pricing) |
| Who it's for | Solo founders who suspect Stripe and their app are out of sync | Founders and teams who want metrics, forecasting, and recovery |
When Baremetrics is the better fit
Choose Baremetrics when your main need is visibility and action on your billing data: MRR/ARR/churn/LTV dashboards, cohort and trial analytics, revenue forecasting, churn-reason feedback, or automated failed-payment recovery via Recover. If you want one tool that both reports the numbers and acts on dunning, Baremetrics is the stronger fit — Driftcheck deliberately does none of that.
When Driftcheck fits
Choose Driftcheck when you suspect Stripe and your own application database no longer agree — a gap an analytics dashboard, which only reconciles Stripe to itself, can't show you. Driftcheck's 10 deterministic detectors surface ghost customers, subscription-state mismatches, plan/price drift, expired coupons still applied, and uncollected subscriptions, each traced to the exact Stripe object and the CSV cell that disagrees. Many teams run both: Baremetrics for metrics and recovery, Driftcheck as the read-only reconciliation check underneath.
Questions
Does Baremetrics already catch billing drift?
Not in the same way. Baremetrics reads Stripe and reconciles it to itself for reporting — it doesn't compare Stripe against your own application database, so a mismatch between what Stripe charges and what your app provisions stays invisible to it. That cross-system disagreement is exactly what Driftcheck reads.
Is Recover still part of Baremetrics?
Yes. Recover is Baremetrics' payment-recovery product — automated dunning and retries on failed payments, offered as a paid add-on. Driftcheck takes the opposite stance: it flags uncollected and past-due subscriptions as findings but never retries or emails customers. You decide what to do.
Do I have to pick one?
No. They solve different problems and work well side by side. Baremetrics gives you metrics, forecasting, and (with Recover) failed-payment recovery; Driftcheck is a read-only check that finds where Stripe and your database silently disagree.
See it on your own Stripe
Find out where you’re actually leaking.
Driftcheck reads your Stripe with a read-only key and emails a ranked PDF of every silent leak — each one traced to the exact Stripe object behind it.
Sources: Baremetrics pricing · Baremetrics Recover