Business Intelligence Software
Metabase review
Open-source BI tool with a free self-hosted edition and cloud plans priced by a base fee plus extra users.
Metabase at a glance
- Category
- Business Intelligence Software
- Starting price
- Free (open source); Starter $100/mo or $1,080/yr
- Pricing model
- base fee plus per extra user
- Public pricing
- Yes
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free trial
- Yes
- Contract
- monthly or yearly
- G2 rating
- 4.4 (141 reviews)
- Founded
- 2015
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, US
- Employees
- 51-200
- Funding or owner
- Series B $30M in Aug 2021 (Insight Partners), $42.5M total then
- Security
- SOC 2 Type II, SOC 1 Type II, GDPR, CCPA
- Integrations
- 20+
Who Metabase is for
Choose Metabase if
- Small teams wanting a free self-hosted start.
- Startups needing cheap per-user cloud BI.
- Teams embedding analytics (Pro from $575/mo)
Look elsewhere if
- Buyers needing SSO on the cheapest plan: SSO starts on Pro.
- Large governed semantic-layer rollouts (not verified)
Metabase pricing
| Plan | Price | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Source | Free | unlimited users | Self-hosted |
| Starter | $100/mo or $1,080/yr | first 5 users; extra $6/mo or $65/yr | 3-day support |
| Pro | $575/mo or $6,210/yr | first 10 users; extra $12/mo or $130/yr | SSO, row/column permissions, auditing, whitelabel, multi-tenant embedding |
| Enterprise | From $20,000/yr | custom | Success engineer, procurement help, air-gap option, 1-day support SLA |
14-day trial on Starter and Pro. Yearly saves 10%. Anyone who logs in counts as a user. Usage add-ons: AI $3.75 per 1M tokens, storage from $2 per 1M rows.
What Metabase really costs
- Per seat per month
- Starter: $6/mo per extra user after first 5 ($65/yr); Pro: $12/mo after first 10 ($130/yr)
- Billing
- Monthly and annual.
- Annual discount
- About 10% vs monthly (page); Starter 1,080 vs 1,200.
- Minimum seats
- Base fee covers first 5 (Starter) or 10 (Pro) users.
- 20 users per year
- Starter yearly: $1,080 + 15 x $65 = $2,055/yr. Pro yearly: $6,210 + 10 x $130 = $7,510/yr.
- Add-ons
- AI tokens $3.75 per 1M; Transforms $0.01 per run after 1,000; Storage from $2 per 1M rows after first 1M.
Cheaper per seat than Metabase
Looker Studio$0 free; Pro about $9 per user per project.
Metabase features by buying criteria
| Criterion | What we found |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | Base fee covering 5 (Starter) or 10 (Pro) users plus per extra user; no extra cost for dashboards, queries or data sources. |
| Target company size | Startups and SMB; Enterprise tier from $20,000/yr. |
| Data connectors | 20+ data sources on open source. |
| Self-service analytics | Strong ease-of-setup and dashboard scores on G2 summaries. |
| Visualization and dashboards | Unlimited questions and dashboards on all plans. |
| Data modeling and governance | Row and column permissions on Pro; transforms with 1,000 runs included on Starter/Pro. |
| Embedded analytics | Advanced embedding needs Pro or Enterprise; starts at $575/mo; whitelabel and multi-tenant on Pro. |
| AI and natural language queries | AI on your preferred model, MCP server on open source; Metabase-hosted AI $3.75 per 1M tokens. |
What reviewers say about Metabase
Praised for
- Easy setup.
- Good dashboards.
Common complaints
- Support quality weaker in G2 summaries.
- Advanced transformation limited.
Themes paraphrased from public reviews on G2 and similar sites, not quotes.
What most Metabase reviews leave out
- SSO requires Pro ($575/mo): Starter has none.
- Cloud hosting options in US, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
- Billing prorated when users added or deactivated; licences non-transferable.
- Enterprise includes an air-gap option and procurement help.
Metabase alternatives
Microsoft Power BIMicrosoft 365 and Azure shops.Free; Pro $14 per user/month (billed yearly)
TableauAnalyst-led teams doing deep visual exploration.$15 per Viewer/month (Standard, billed annually)
LookerData teams that want a central semantic layer (LookML)Contact sales- Looker StudioMarketers reporting from Google Analytics 4 and Search Console.Free; Pro about $9 per user per project per month (third-party)
Qlik SenseMid-size and large teams that want many users on one fixed annual fee (Standard onward adds users at no cost)$300/mo (Starter, billed annually)
DataboxSmall teams and agencies that want KPI dashboards from SaaS data sources without a data team.$0 (Free); paid from $71/mo billed annually (Analyst)
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from Metabase's own pricing, product or documentation pages, G2 and company records, checked on October 24, 2026. Unknown values are left out instead of estimated.