Northbeam vs Recast
Marketing Attribution pricing comparison · 2026
Northbeam pricing ranges from $1500–$1500/user/month, while Recast ranges from $5000–$50000/month. Northbeam is typically 90% more affordable, though your actual cost depends on tier and team size.
Northbeam and Recast are both marketing measurement platforms, but they take fundamentally different methodological approaches. Northbeam uses multi-touch attribution (MTA) — tracking ad views and clicks across platforms and connecting them deterministically to revenue using its Apex model. Recast uses Bayesian Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) — a statistical approach that measures the incremental causal effect of each marketing channel on revenue without requiring pixel-level tracking, making it privacy-resilient and cookie-independent.
Plan-by-Plan Pricing
| Plan | Northbeam | Recast |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $1.5K /user/month | Custom |
| Professional | Custom | — |
| Enterprise | Custom | — |
Our Verdict
Choose Northbeam if you're an ecommerce brand (especially Shopify-based) that needs real-time, channel-level attribution for daily media buying decisions. Northbeam's Starter plan at $1,500/month includes multi-touch attribution, creative analytics, and correlation analysis with a direct Shopify integration. Its usage-based pricing model ties costs to your data volume and media spend.
Choose Recast if you want incrementality-validated, privacy-safe MMM that gives you a strategic view of how each marketing channel causally drives revenue — especially if you're a Fortune 500 or CPG brand with significant media budgets and strong offline or upper-funnel spend. Recast's Bayesian model is updated weekly and backtested against 3,000+ production models. Custom pricing means it's designed for organizations with budget for enterprise-grade attribution.
Frequently Asked Questions
01 Is Northbeam cheaper than Recast?
Northbeam has a published starting price of $1,500/month, making it more accessible to mid-market ecommerce brands. Recast uses custom enterprise pricing with no published floor — it's positioned for Fortune 500 and CPG brands with larger budgets. For growth-stage DTC brands, Northbeam's Starter at $1,500/month is likely the more accessible option. Recast is targeted at organizations spending millions in media annually.
02 What is the key difference between Northbeam's MTA and Recast's MMM?
Northbeam uses multi-touch attribution, which tracks individual user-level click and view events across ad platforms and deterministically assigns conversion credit. This requires pixel tracking and works best in cookied environments. Recast uses Marketing Mix Modeling, a statistical regression approach that measures channel-level effects from aggregate spend and revenue data — no user-level tracking required, making it resilient to iOS privacy changes, cookie deprecation, and walled-garden attribution gaps.
03 Which is better for ecommerce brands: Northbeam or Recast?
Northbeam is optimized for ecommerce with a direct Shopify integration on its Starter plan and real-time creative analytics — useful for day-to-day media buying and creative performance decisions. Recast is better for brands with significant offline or upper-funnel media spend (TV, OOH, podcasts) where user-level tracking is impossible, and for teams who need statistically rigorous incrementality measurement rather than last-touch or MTA proxies.
04 Does Northbeam or Recast offer free trials?
Neither Northbeam nor Recast offers a free trial of their core platforms. Recast does offer a separate GeoLift product with a 6-month free trial followed by approximately $100/month, but the main Recast MMM platform requires a custom sales contract. Northbeam requires a sales conversation before access, with no self-serve signup path.
05 How quickly do Northbeam and Recast update their attribution models?
Northbeam updates attribution data with enhanced refresh frequency options at Professional and Enterprise tiers. Recast's Bayesian MMM model is updated weekly with out-of-sample backtesting across 3,000+ production models — weekly is standard for MMM, which requires aggregated spend data across multiple weeks to produce reliable estimates. Real-time attribution is not how MMM works by design.
06 What are the hidden costs of Northbeam vs Recast?
Northbeam's Starter plan uses usage-based pricing tied to data volume and media spend, so fast-scaling brands will see their costs increase as their ad spend grows. Professional and Enterprise plans add a dedicated Media Strategist but require custom pricing negotiations. Recast's hidden costs are in the implementation phase: Bayesian MMM requires historical media spend and revenue data modeling, which often involves onboarding time and potentially professional services for data integration.