Databox vs Klipfolio: Which One Is Better For Your SaaS?
As SaaS companies have a ton of data across many tools, they need solutions to pull data from different sources and create dashboards.
Databox and Klipfolio are two well-known tools in this industry right now. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages that make them appealing for some businesses and not for others.
In this article, I will explain their features, integrations, go over their pros and cons, and reviews, so that you can choose the best tool for your SaaS.
Klipfolio
Klipfolio is a cloud-based analysis tool focusing specifically on your data. It offers its users many metrics that can be followed from one place.
With Klipfolio, you can gather and process data in real-time. You can also compare your real-time performance with your historical data to have a better insight into your company’s performance.
Klipfolio’s Features
- Reports Interface
- Score Cards
- Dashboards
- Calculated Fields
- Automodeling
- Data Discovery
- Collabration and Workflow
- Integration API’s
Klipfolio’s Integrations
- Bitly
- ChartMogul
- DoubleClick Campaign Manager
- Excel
- Google AdWords
- HubSpot
Klipfolio Pricing
Klipfolio has three different pricing options. The base version is free to use and it comes with unlimited metrics and dashboards. The paid versions start from 99 dollars per month. You can also customize your Klipfolio profile in accordance with your SaaS company’s needs.
Databox
Databox is an analytics tool that helps users connect their data from any tool and track it from any device. Databox minimizes the use of multiple tools to analyze and understand your website’s performance.
Databox is used by over 20.000 businesses.
Databox’s Features
- Stream Dashboards on Your Smart TV.
- Create Reports Once & Use Them Anytime with Account Templates
- Share only your data, not editing access
- Share Important Performance Updates via Slack Messages
- Present Live Views of ALL Your Data
- Connect & Track Even More Data With 3rd Party Automations
- Use Query Builder to Explore & Build More Metrics
- Calculate Important KPIs From Different Data Sources
Databox’s Integrations
- Google Ads
- Microsoft Advertising
- Mailchimp
- Google Play
- GitHub
- Wistia
- Vimeo
Databox Pricing
Databox offers its users one free plan and three paid plans. The price range for the paid plans varies between 72 dollars /month for the Starter option and 231 dollars/month for the Performer option. SaaS companies that register annually get a discount of 20%.
What are Klipfolio’s Advantages?
Most of the reviews show that Klipfolio is vital in the followings:
User Interface
User experience and interaction are very positive on Klipfolio. The visual appeal of Klipfolio’s dashboards is world-class. Klipfolio offers several layouts for dashboard designs.
Tons of API connections
Klipfolio comes with numerous pre-built API connections to gather data from all of your company’s different data sources. Klipfolio can combine ITSM, Google ads, and website traffic in a single dashboard for better understandability.
Licensing
Licensing of Klipfolio is not user-based, and this can be very important for some large-scale corporate companies.
Pricing
Even if pricing is a highly subjective issue, Klipfolio is affordable when what it offers and its flexibility is taken into account. If it were not for Klipfolio, large-scale companies which operate on different platforms and different data would have spent more amount money on other tools to put all those data together into something processable and valuable.
Strong Support Service
Klipfolio is said to be a user-friendly tool. However, users can always face difficulties at any moment; when that happens, Klipfolio’s impressive and responsive support service helps and solves the issue In less than 24 hours.
What are Klipfolio’s Disadvantages?
Groups generally like Klipfolio and its features; therefore, the disadvantages that I will list are personal complaints.
Integrations
Even if Klipfolio comes with tons of solid integrations, it might be challenging to use without mid-level knowledge.
Learning Curve
There is a steep learning curve meaning that understanding the platform and its features takes time as well as setting up the platform.
Speed
When filters are applied it takes some time to load and sync.
Existence of Data Source Limit
The existence of a Data Source Limit of 10MB limits most of Klipfolio’s users who work on Excel/CSV files.
Improvements and Troubleshooting
If you or your employees do not have a solid technical background, you might fail to improve and troubleshoot your website’s problematic parts.
What are Databox’s Advantages?
Users prefer Databox for the following reasons:
UX
Databox offers its users an enhanced user experience. Reviews show that some users find it easier to use than even Google Data Studio. Databox provides simple, easy-to-edit templates for its users.
Integrations
Databox comes with robust integrations, just like Klipfolio. However, user reviews show that integrating Databox with databases is more accessible than that of Klipfolio.
No need for deep technical knowledge
User’s of Databox do not have to have a solid technical background because normalization of data in advance is very easy.
Training videos
Even if Databox is very intuitive with its dashboards and interface, they still provide their users with training videos to fully understand the tool.
Responsive Customer Service Team
The customer service team is very quick and solution-oriented. Databox has most of the necessary connections and integrations, but it might not include some of them. At such a point, when the customer service team is contacted, they implement the connection as soon as possible.
What are Databox’s Disadvantages?
Databox is an overall robust tool with improved tools and features; however, it can also have some setbacks.
Lacks Functionality
Even if the dashboards and tables are understandable, you are limited when those data are shown on the screen. For example, Databox does not allow its users to drag to zoom into a specific section of a chart or hover over lines to see the exact value when the metrics are on the dashboard.
Lacks Customization and Filter
Databox provides very detailed well-written reports. Despite this fact, when you want to access some specific information, it isn’t easy, especially when you are dealing with considerable amounts of data. That is because you can not customize the data range in reports. For example, when you have a report for the past five years, you can not choose between Feb 15 and Feb 19 of 2018; you can only sort weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
Insufficient Free Trial
Databox offers its users unpaid access for an unlimited time. This free plan includes 3 data source connections, all standard features, and 60+ Databox integrations. Despite these, user reviews show that free plan is not sufficient since it is limited to only three dashboards on the free version.
Learning Curve
The learning curve can be steep, especially for those with a strong technical background. As a result, marketers can not utilize the exact metric they want. Also, some reviews show that initially, some users had problems in getting the correct filters and segments from Google Analytics.
Lack of Templates
Even if there are numerous templates that you can choose from, this is not the case in the bigger picture. All templates are very similar. The reviews also show the same complaints about Databox. Users need and want more templates with multiple resources.
A Better Alternative: HockeyStack
HockeyStack is an end-to-end analytics platform for your SaaS. It unifies marketing, product, revenue, and sales data to uncover hidden insights, such as the LTV of a campaign or the churn rate of each marketing channel. No setup. No code.
HockeyStack’s Features
In HockeyStack you can find the following features:
- Step-by-step user journey
- Custom dashboards
- Funnels and goals
- Insights
- Surveys
- Revenue analytics
- Segments
HockeyStack’s Integrations
- Paddle
- Stripe
- Hubspot
- Salesforce (coming soon)
- Zapier (coming soon)
HockeyStack Pros and Cons
HockeyStack Pros
- HockeyStack allows you to integrate with Stripe, Paddle, and Hubspot and build every single dashboard that you can think of, using all sales, marketing, revenue, and product metrics.
- You can create funnels, goals, and surveys, which are rare to get with other tools on this list.
- Since HockeyStack is a no code analytics tool you don’t need any developers, tracking is cookieless, and the script is small, so it doesn’t increase your site loading time.
HockeyStack Cons
- HockeyStack doesn’t have weekly e-mail reports
- The tool lacks some integrations, such as Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Zapier. (which are on the roadmap)
HockeyStack Pricing
HockeyStack comes with a free forever plan and 3 different pricing options. You can try the paid version for 14 days for free with a 30-day refund guarantee. You can see the pricing options here.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Databox and Klipfolio are very similar in terms of what they offer and what they lack. Both of these business analytics platforms put all of your data into one place for you to follow your performance data in a more coordinated way. Even if these two products seem very similar in what they do, Klipfolio is more sophisticated. However, this sophistication comes with a price as Klipfolio’s cheapest version costs 99 dollars per month while Databox’s most affordable version costs 16 dollars per month. I should also add that the margin between these two is not that big, especially when the price gap is considered. I would definitely suggest you to take a look at HockeyStack before making the final choice.
Klipfolio is very helpful for creating useful visualizations for data in disparate sources and displaying it in a consistent interface.
Klipfolio is a more accepted tool by the community. It has a more extensive user base; however, its price is high compared to Databox.
