Supermetrics vs Improvado: Choosing the Right Marketing ETL (2026)

Supermetrics and Improvado both pull marketing data from ad platforms into your analytics stack. Both automate what used to be manual exports. Both promise to save your team time. But the architectural difference is categorical, not incremental: Supermetrics is an extraction tool that moves data from A to B. Improvado is an end-to-end marketing intelligence platform that extracts, transforms, governs, and delivers insights. Same starting point, entirely different destination.

What You'll Find in This Comparison

This page breaks down how Supermetrics and Improvado compare across data extraction, transformation depth, governance capabilities, support models, and total cost of ownership. We'll show you when each platform wins, back every claim with specific proof points, and help you decide which architecture fits your team's needs. Whether you're a mid-market brand consolidating 15 ad platforms or an agency managing 50+ client accounts, the choice comes down to one question: does your team need just the pipes, or the entire water treatment facility?

Full disclosure: we're Improvado, and this page is written from our perspective. We've tried to represent Supermetrics' capabilities accurately — and where we've gotten it wrong, email us and we'll fix it. Our goal is to help you make the right call, even if that's not us.

Quick Verdict: When Each Platform Wins

Feature Comparison: Improvado vs Supermetrics

Feature comparison: Improvado vs Supermetrics (updated February 2026)

Where the Platforms Diverge: 4 Deciding Factors

Your Marketing Team Operates the Pipeline — No Engineering Tickets

Supermetrics delivers raw data to your destination. What happens next is your problem. If you need to blend Facebook Ads spend with Google Analytics conversions and Salesforce revenue, you're writing SQL in BigQuery or building recipes in DBT. That's fine if you have a data engineering team with capacity. It's a blocker if you don't.

Improvado includes the transformation layer. Marketing ops managers use the no-code interface to create cross-channel datasets, define custom metrics (so "cost per acquisition" means the same thing across all platforms), and set up attribution models without SQL. Engineers can still drop into full SQL when needed — it's a dual-persona design. The difference: marketers don't wait in the engineering backlog to answer a business question.

The outcome is speed. Questions that would take three days (submit ticket, engineer writes query, QA, deliver) happen in 30 minutes. Marketing teams stay in motion instead of context-switching between platforms, spreadsheets, and Slack threads asking for data pulls.

Improvado review

“Everything’s just set up and streamlined, and it all just works. The dashboards update automatically, and I don’t even have to touch them most of the time.”

Shayna Tyler

Analyst

Marketing Data Governance Catches Budget Errors Before Launch

Supermetrics extracts whatever the API gives it. If a campaign is misconfigured, if UTM parameters are inconsistent, if spend is pacing 40% over budget — Supermetrics delivers that data faithfully. Catching the problem is your job.

Improvado includes Marketing Data Governance: 250+ pre-built validation rules that flag issues at extraction. Budget pacing alerts notify you when a campaign is trending over target. Pre-launch checks catch missing UTM tags or naming convention violations before the campaign goes live. End-to-end lineage lets you trace a dashboard number back to the source API in minutes, not hours of detective work.

This isn't just error prevention — it's trust. When the CMO asks why the board deck shows different numbers than the ad platform, you need to explain the discrepancy with lineage, not shrugs. Governance infrastructure turns "the data says…" into "here's exactly why the numbers differ, and which one to trust."

Improvado review

“If we don't trust the data, the agency won’t trust the reports and won't give them to the client. They’ll start pulling data manually to Excel and spend a lot of time comparing platform numbers to reports. With Improvado, we now trust the data. If anything is wrong, it’s how someone on the team is viewing it, not the data itself. It’s 99.9% accurate.”

Tyler Corcoran

500+ Connectors with Custom Builds in 2–4 Weeks

Supermetrics covers the major ad platforms well — Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, the usual suspects. 60+ connectors is enough for most small-to-medium teams. But if you're running campaigns on The Trade Desk, AppsFlyer, or a regional platform that's not in their library, you're stuck waiting or building your own API connector.

Improvado offers 500+ pre-built connectors and commits to a 2–4 week SLA for custom connector builds. When a new ad platform enters your stack, it's integrated within a sprint, not a quarter. That SLA matters when you're onboarding a new client (agencies) or launching in a new market (global brands) and need data flowing immediately.

Connector breadth also determines what questions you can answer. Blending ad spend with CRM data and revenue attribution requires connectors across the entire funnel — not just the top. Supermetrics is strong on paid media; Improvado covers paid, organic, CRM, email, and revenue sources in one platform.

Improvado review

“Improvado handles everything. If it's a data source of any kind, either there's a connector for it, or we get one created.”

Beau Payne

Dedicated CSM vs Ticket-Based Support

Supermetrics users report high satisfaction with support (9.7/10 likelihood to recommend). The model is self-serve first: robust documentation, community forums, and ticket-based help when you need it. For straightforward use cases — pulling Google Ads data into Sheets — that's enough.

Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and professional services as part of the contract, not an add-on. You're not debugging API failures or troubleshooting data discrepancies alone. When Supermetrics users describe connector failures and sync delays in G2 reviews, they're often waiting for vendor fixes. Improvado's CSM is a single point of contact who escalates issues, manages custom connector builds, and helps optimize your data pipeline proactively.

The difference matters at scale. Managing 20+ data sources for 50 clients (agencies) or across 15 global markets (enterprises) generates complexity that self-serve documentation doesn't solve. You need a partner, not a ticketing system.

Improvado review

“Having a single point of contact simplifies everything. If we ever need assistance, we can reach out directly to Improvado instead of managing it internally. That's worth something.”

Jonathan Hemnes

EVP of Engineering

When to Choose Supermetrics

Supermetrics is the right choice in specific scenarios where its extraction-focused design is exactly what you need:

• Your team has SQL and DBT resources. If you already have data engineers who own transformation in BigQuery or Snowflake, Supermetrics delivers clean extraction without the overhead of features you won't use. You're buying the pipes, not the treatment plant.
• Google Sheets and Looker Studio are your primary destinations. Supermetrics excels at delivering data to Google's ecosystem. If your reporting workflow lives entirely in Sheets or Looker Studio and you don't need warehouse delivery, the simplicity is an advantage.
• You're managing fewer than 10 data sources. At small scale, the incremental value of transformation and governance features doesn't justify the cost. Supermetrics' tiered pricing is predictable and cost-effective for teams with limited connector needs.
• Speed to first value is the primary goal. Supermetrics' no-code setup gets data flowing in hours, not days. If you need proof-of-concept quickly or are testing a new reporting workflow, the low barrier to entry is useful.
• You don't need cross-channel metric standardization. If each platform's native metrics (impressions, clicks, conversions) are fine as-is and you're not blending them into unified KPIs, Supermetrics' extraction-only model is sufficient.

What Customers Say: Real Outcomes from Improvado Users

The best evidence for how Improvado performs at scale comes from the teams using it in production. Here's what they report:

Case study

At ASUS, Enhanced data availability not only enabled faster experimentation but also allowed teams across regions to "speak the same language." This increased transparency in global marketing efforts provides a strong foundation for innovative, data-driven strategies that maximize the impact of global marketing investments. Read full case study →

"Now, we don't have to involve our technical team in the reporting part at all. Improvado saves about 90 hours per week and allows us to focus on data analysis rather than routine data aggregation, normalization, and formatting."

Jeff Lee

ASUS

Case study

At Signal Theory, for most clients, the reporting process is now fully automated, taking 30 minutes to an hour at most. For clients with unique data sources requiring manual input, the system is flexible enough to accommodate specific needs without compromising overall efficiency. Read full case study →

“Reports that used to take hours now only take about 30 minutes. We're reporting for significantly more clients, even though it is only being handled by a single person. That's been huge for us.”

Shayna Tyler

Analyst, Signal Theory

These aren't isolated anecdotes — they're consistent patterns. Teams using Improvado report time savings in the range of 70–90%, faster onboarding (days instead of months), and the ability to scale analytics without scaling headcount proportionally. The platform becomes a force multiplier for marketing operations and analytics teams.

Pricing Comparison: What Drives Cost

Supermetrics and Improvado use fundamentally different pricing models, and understanding what drives cost escalation at each platform is critical to evaluating total cost of ownership.

Supermetrics Pricing

Supermetrics uses tiered pricing based on data sources, destinations, users, and refresh frequency. All plans require annual billing — no month-to-month options. Pricing as of February 2026:

• Starter/Core: $37/month (US pricing), 3–5 data sources, 1 destination (Google Sheets or Looker Studio), weekly refreshes, 1–4 users.
• Growth: $177/month, 5–15 data sources, multiple destinations, hourly refreshes, 3–7 users. This is the recommended tier for most SMB marketing teams.
• Pro/Premium: $299–$462/month, 15–50 data sources, unlimited destinations, transformations, 8–10 users.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing (typically $1,500–$2,500+/month), 50+ sources, data warehouse/lake destinations, dedicated support.

Hidden costs: Add-ons for extra data sources, destinations ($149 for two additional), and storage can escalate quickly. Users report unpredictable pricing at scale and annual cost increases with minimal added value. G2 reviews frequently cite cost concerns: "Costs increase annually with marginal to no added value. No credits for downtime when data connectors inevitably break."

Improvado Pricing

Improvado uses custom pricing based on data volume, number of connectors, and feature requirements. Pricing is outcome-based, not per-seat or per-source. What drives cost:

• Data volume: Total rows processed monthly across all sources.
• Connector count: Number of active data sources, including custom connectors.
• Feature tier: Governance, AI capabilities, and advanced transformation features are included in enterprise tiers.

Improvado's pricing is higher than Supermetrics' entry tiers but includes the full stack: extraction, transformation, governance, professional services, and dedicated CSM. The comparison isn't Supermetrics Growth at $177/month vs Improvado — it's Supermetrics Growth + DBT Cloud + data engineering time + BI tool subscriptions vs Improvado as a unified platform.

Total Cost of Ownership

Evaluating TCO requires accounting for what's not in the sticker price:

• Engineering time: If your team spends 20 hours/month maintaining DBT transformations or debugging API failures, that's $4,000–$8,000/month in fully loaded labor cost.
• Additional tools: Supermetrics requires separate BI tools, transformation layers, and governance systems. Improvado bundles these into one contract.
• Onboarding time: Supermetrics is faster to first data pull; Improvado is faster to production-ready insights when transformation and governance are factored in.
• Cost escalation at scale: Supermetrics' per-source, per-destination pricing grows linearly with complexity. Improvado's pricing tiers absorb more connectors within the same tier.

For small teams with simple needs, Supermetrics is more cost-effective. For enterprises and agencies managing 30+ sources and needing governed, transformed data, Improvado's TCO is often lower when all hidden costs are accounted for.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main difference between Improvado and Supermetrics?

Supermetrics is an extraction tool (EL layer) that moves data from marketing platforms to destinations like Google Sheets, Looker Studio, or BigQuery. Improvado is an end-to-end marketing intelligence platform that extracts, transforms, governs, and delivers insights in one environment. Supermetrics requires you to handle transformation and governance separately; Improvado includes them in the platform.

Can Supermetrics handle data transformation?

Supermetrics supports basic queries and scheduled refreshes, but transformation happens in the destination tool (BigQuery, DBT, or manually in Sheets). It doesn't include built-in no-code transformation, attribution modeling, or metric standardization. Teams needing advanced transformation use Supermetrics for extraction and build the transformation layer separately.

How many data connectors does each platform support?

Supermetrics supports 60+ marketing platform connectors, focused primarily on ad platforms and analytics tools. Improvado offers 500+ pre-built connectors across paid media, organic, CRM, email, and revenue sources, with a 2–4 week SLA for custom connector builds. If your data stack includes niche or regional platforms, Improvado's breadth is an advantage.

Does Supermetrics include marketing data governance features?

No. Supermetrics provides basic lineage through query logs, but it doesn't include validation rules, budget pacing alerts, or pre-launch campaign checks. Governance must be built separately using additional tools. Improvado includes 250+ pre-built governance rules, end-to-end lineage, and real-time alerts as part of the platform.

How long does it take to migrate from Supermetrics to Improvado?

Typical migration timelines are 2–4 weeks for mid-market brands and 4–8 weeks for enterprises or agencies with complex multi-client setups. Improvado's professional services team handles connector setup, data mapping, and transformation recipe configuration. The timeline depends on the number of data sources, the complexity of your existing transformation logic, and whether you're migrating historical data.

What kind of support does each platform provide?

Supermetrics uses a self-serve model with documentation, community forums, and ticket-based support. Users report high satisfaction (9.7/10) for straightforward use cases. Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and professional services as part of the contract, not an add-on. For teams managing 20+ data sources or complex multi-client environments, the CSM model provides proactive issue resolution and pipeline optimization.

When is Supermetrics the better choice?

Supermetrics wins when you have a data engineering team that owns transformation in DBT or BigQuery, your reporting workflow is entirely in Google Sheets or Looker Studio, you're managing fewer than 10 data sources, and you're optimizing for simplicity and low upfront cost. It's a strong extraction layer when you already have the rest of the data stack built.

Are both platforms enterprise-compliant?

Improvado is SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and GDPR certified across all modules, with governance enforced at extraction. Supermetrics supports core compliance standards, but enterprise-grade governance and multi-tenant isolation typically require additional infrastructure. For regulated industries or global deployments, Improvado's built-in compliance is an advantage.

Making the Decision: Pipes or Platform?

The choice between Supermetrics and Improvado isn't about which product is "better" — it's about which architecture fits your team's capabilities and needs. Supermetrics is an excellent extraction tool when you have engineering resources to handle transformation and governance separately. It's fast, affordable at small scale, and integrates seamlessly with Google's ecosystem.

Improvado is the right choice when marketing teams need to own the entire data pipeline without waiting in engineering backlogs. Transformation, governance, attribution modeling, and insights delivery happen in one platform, with a dedicated CSM managing the relationship. The upfront cost is higher, but total cost of ownership often favors Improvado when engineering time, additional tools, and scaling complexity are accounted for.

If you're managing 30+ data sources, need standardized cross-channel metrics, require enterprise compliance, or operate as an agency with multi-client isolation needs — Improvado's end-to-end platform eliminates the hand-offs and integration failures that plague stitched-together data stacks. If you need fast extraction to Google Sheets and have SQL resources to handle the rest — Supermetrics delivers exactly that, without the features you won't use.

Both platforms handle extraction well. The deciding factor is everything that comes after: who transforms the data, who governs it, who maintains it, and how fast your team can move from question to answer.