Northbeam vs Wicked Reports in 2026: Enterprise MMM and MTA vs published-price new-customer attribution
Both fix the same problem, platform-reported ROAS lying to you, but Northbeam does it with sales-led media mix modeling while Wicked Reports does it with a published price tag and a weekly Scale/Chill/Kill call for every campaign.
Northbeam
Wicked Reports- Northbeam requires a sales conversation with no public pricing on any of its three tiers. Wicked Reports publishes pricing from $499/month up to Enterprise at $4,999/month.
- Wicked Reports separates new-customer conversions from repeat-buyer conversions at the attribution level, which Northbeam does not do; Northbeam's attribution treats all conversions the same regardless of buyer history.
- Northbeam runs media mix modeling that estimates the contribution of channels with no click-level tracking, like streaming or podcast ads. Wicked Reports has no MMM layer; its Attribution Time Machine is click-based only.
- Wicked Reports' 5 Forces AI runs a weekly Scale/Chill/Kill classification on every campaign automatically. Northbeam's budget scenario planning requires a media buyer to model scenarios manually rather than generating an automated weekly recommendation.
- Northbeam includes a BI connector to push data into Power BI, Tableau, or Looker on Scale and Enterprise tiers. Wicked Reports has no equivalent BI connector feature.
- Wicked Reports' Advanced Signal feeds verified new-customer conversion data back to Meta via CAPI to retrain the ad algorithm. Northbeam has no equivalent signal-feedback feature described in its own materials.
- Both tools target brands with meaningful ad spend, Northbeam's own guidance points to $50k or more monthly, while Wicked Reports prices its Measure tier for brands as low as the $0-2.5M annual revenue band.
Northbeam and Wicked Reports both exist because Meta, Google, and TikTok take credit for the same conversion, and both replace that inflated view with first-party, click-based attribution. Past that shared starting point they diverge hard. Northbeam layers multi-touch attribution with media mix modeling so it can estimate the contribution of channels with no user-level tracking at all, like streaming or podcast spend, and it does this entirely through a sales conversation with no public pricing. Wicked Reports narrows the problem to one specific question, which ads are bringing genuinely new customers rather than recycling retargeting credit for repeat buyers, and it answers that question at a published price starting at $499 a month with a weekly AI-driven Scale/Chill/Kill recommendation for every campaign. One is built for brands with the ad spend to justify a demo. The other is built for brands that want a fixed number before they commit.
The tools at a glance
Northbeam
Multi-touch attribution and media mix modeling platform for DTC and ecommerce brands managing spend across paid social, search, and streaming channels
Northbeam combines multi-touch attribution with media mix modeling in a single platform, which is unusual since most standalone MTA tools stop at the user-level journey. The MTA layer uses a first-party pixel plus server-side data to track individual customer paths across Meta, Google, and TikTok, while the MMM layer uses statistical modeling across historical spend and revenue to estimate the contribution of channels that have no click-level tracking at all, streaming ads and podcast sponsorships among them.
The refresh speed is the differentiator against legacy MMM providers, most of which run weekly or monthly model cycles. Northbeam updates near real-time to daily depending on plan, which makes the budget scenario planner and creative-level breakdowns usable for weekly, sometimes daily, reallocation decisions rather than only quarterly strategy reviews.
None of this is quick or cheap to access. There is no self-serve tier and no published pricing across Growth, Scale, or Enterprise, all three require a sales conversation. Onboarding runs two to four weeks of pixel implementation and data connector setup, and Northbeam's own guidance is that brands under roughly $50k in monthly ad spend will not generate enough data volume for the models to be statistically reliable.
| Feature | Growth Contact sales | Scale Contact sales | Enterprise Contact sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-touch attribution | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Media mix modeling | No | Yes | Yes |
| Budget scenario planning | No | Yes | Yes |
| BI connector | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated CSM | No | Yes | Yes |
Wicked Reports
First-party attribution that shows which ads bring new customers, not just clicks
Wicked Reports narrows in on one specific distortion in ad attribution: retargeting campaigns claiming credit for purchases from customers who already knew the brand. Its attribution layer separates new-customer conversions from repeat-buyer conversions, and the Attribution Time Machine matches every sale back to the original click that introduced the customer, even if that click happened weeks or months earlier, which matters for products with longer consideration cycles than a standard 7-day attribution window covers.
The weekly 5 Forces AI turns that clean attribution data into an actual decision: every campaign gets classified as Scale, Chill, or Kill based on verified new-customer ROI, removing the need for a manual weekly dashboard audit. Advanced Signal complements this by feeding the same verified new-customer conversion data back to Meta via CAPI, which retrains Meta's algorithm toward finding more people who match real new-buyer patterns rather than repeat purchasers.
Pricing is published and scales with annual revenue, starting at $499/month on Measure and reaching $999/month on Maximize before jumping to a $4,999/month Enterprise floor. The catch is that 5 Forces AI and Advanced Signal, the two features that do the most work, are bundled only on Maximize and cost an extra $199/month each as add-ons on the lower tiers.
| Feature | Measure $499/month | Scale $699/month | Maximize $999/month | Enterprise From $4,999/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| API Integrations | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 5 Forces AI (Weekly Budget AI) | Add-on +$199/mo | Add-on +$199/mo | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced Signal Meta CAPI | Add-on +$199/mo | Add-on +$199/mo | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom Conversions | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Priority Support | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Northbeam | Wicked Reports |
|---|---|---|
| Primary attribution focus | Cross-channel ad spend attribution plus media mix modeling for scaled paid media | New-customer attribution for ecommerce, filtering out repeat-buyer credit |
| Multi-touch attribution | Yes | No (click-based first-party attribution, not multi-touch modeling) |
| Media mix modeling (MMM) | Yes (Scale and Enterprise tiers) | No (not a stated feature) |
| New vs repeat customer separation | No (not a stated feature) | Yes (core differentiator) |
| Automated weekly budget decision | No (scenario planning is manual, not an automated weekly classification) | Yes (5 Forces AI, Maximize+, add-on below) |
| Attribution lookback window | Standard attribution models only, no stated lifetime lookback | Lifetime lookback and lookforward (Attribution Time Machine) |
| Ad platform signal feedback (CAPI) | No (not a stated feature) | Yes (Advanced Signal Meta CAPI, Maximize+, add-on below) |
| Creative-level analytics | Yes (creative analytics) | No (not a stated feature) |
| Cohort / LTV reporting | No (not a stated feature) | Yes (FunnelVision and cohort/LTV reports) |
| API access | Yes (tagged, not itemized on the pricing table) | Yes (Scale tier and above) |
| BI / dashboard connector | Yes (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) | No (not a stated feature) |
| White-label delivery | Yes (agency/enterprise-scoped) | No (not a stated feature) |
| Self-serve signup | No | Yes |
| Starting price | Contact sales (all tiers) | $499/month (Measure) |
Which should you choose?
Wicked ReportsNorthbeamWicked ReportsNorthbeamWicked ReportsNorthbeamWicked ReportsThese two solve overlapping but distinct versions of the same trust problem. Northbeam's answer is breadth: model every channel, including the ones with no click-level data, and refresh it fast enough to act on weekly. Wicked Reports' answer is precision on one specific distortion: strip repeat-buyer credit out of your acquisition numbers and turn the clean data into an automated weekly decision. A brand running six-figure monthly spend across paid and upper-funnel channels will lean toward Northbeam's modeling depth; a brand whose retargeting campaigns are quietly making new-customer acquisition look cheaper than it really is will get a faster answer from Wicked Reports.
Bottom line
Book the Northbeam demo if your spend already crosses $50k a month, includes channels without click-level tracking, and you need the output to feed an existing BI stack. Sign up for Wicked Reports at $499 a month if the immediate question is whether your retargeting campaigns are inflating apparent new-customer performance, and you want a published price and a weekly Scale/Chill/Kill call without a sales cycle. Brands running both upper-funnel spend and a real new-customer-cost problem may find themselves needing the depth of one and the precision of the other rather than picking a single winner.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wicked Reports a cheaper alternative to Northbeam?
Wicked Reports is cheaper on paper, with published pricing from $499 a month versus Northbeam's fully custom, sales-only pricing, but the two are not solving identical problems. Wicked Reports focuses specifically on new-customer attribution and weekly budget decisions, while Northbeam adds media mix modeling for channels with no click-level tracking, which Wicked Reports does not attempt.
Does Northbeam separate new customers from repeat buyers like Wicked Reports does?
No. Northbeam's multi-touch attribution and media mix modeling treat conversions uniformly regardless of buyer history. Wicked Reports built its entire attribution model around isolating new-customer conversions, which is the specific feature Northbeam does not offer.
Can Wicked Reports estimate the impact of channels with no click tracking, like streaming ads?
No. Wicked Reports' Attribution Time Machine is click-based, matching sales back to an original click even months later, but it has no statistical modeling layer for channels without user-level tracking. Northbeam's media mix modeling is built specifically to estimate contribution from channels like streaming and podcast ads that have no click to attribute.
Which tool gives a weekly action list instead of just a dashboard?
Wicked Reports' 5 Forces AI runs automatically every week and classifies each campaign as Scale, Chill, or Kill based on verified new-customer ROI. Northbeam's budget scenario planning lets a media buyer model reallocation scenarios manually, but it does not generate an automated weekly classification the way Wicked Reports does.
Is Wicked Reports only for ecommerce, like Northbeam?
Yes, both tools are built around ecommerce transaction data and short-to-medium purchase cycles. Wicked Reports' new-customer attribution model assumes cart-platform transaction data from Shopify or WooCommerce, and Northbeam is similarly focused on DTC brands with high-volume ad spend, meaning neither is a strong fit for B2B or long-cycle sales.