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Most buyers should pick Metabase.
Choose Metabase if you want a lower-cost entry, a free self-hosted option, and simpler self-service BI. Its paid Starter plan is $100/month monthly or $90/month with annual billing, with five users included. Choose Looker if governed LookML metrics and AI-assisted analytics matter more than a public price. Google does not publish plan or seat prices; its listed editions include 10 Standard and two Developer users. For many smaller teams weighing cost and ease, Metabase is the safer pick.
01Side by side
| Metabase | Looker | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $90/month with annual billing | Not published |
| Free plan | Free self-hosted Open Source plan | No free plan listed |
| Best for | Teams seeking simpler self-service BI | Teams needing governed LookML analytics |
| Core strength | Semantic layer and AI-guided answers | Governed metrics in LookML |
| Learning curve | Simpler self-service experience | Code-heavy workflows |
| Integrations/data | 20+ data sources listed | Cloud cost view across three providers |
| Team/seat costs | Included seats and add-on prices published | Seat prices not published |
| Support | 3-day Starter; 1-day Enterprise SLA | Support terms not published |
Metabase Choose Metabase if
- Choose Metabase if you need free self-hosted BI.
- Choose Metabase if published prices matter before you contact sales.
- Choose Metabase if your team values simpler self-service analytics.
Looker Choose Looker if
- Choose Looker if governed LookML metrics are central to your BI.
- Choose Looker if you need AI-powered analytics and dashboard agents.
- Choose Looker if you can request a custom quote.
02Pricing compared
Metabase is easier to price before you switch. Its self-hosted Open Source edition is free, with unlimited users, questions, and dashboards. Starter costs $100/month, or $90/month with annual billing, and includes five users; extra users cost $6/month or $65/year each. Pro is $575/month or $517.50/month annually, with 10 users included and extra users priced at $12/month or $130/year. Enterprise pricing is custom, with a listed starting price of $20,000/year.
Looker publishes no plan or seat prices; annual commitments are listed as “Call sales.” Its editions list 10 Standard and two Developer users, with query API allowances from 1,000 to 500,000 calls/month depending on edition. Seat and API overage prices are not published. Metabase’s Starter and Pro transform overage rates are also inconsistent on its pricing page.
03Features and depth
Both products center analytics on a semantic layer, but they frame it differently. Metabase lets teams define canonical tables, metrics, and business logic to guide dashboards and AI answers. Looker uses LookML to define governed metrics as a shared source of truth for users, agents, dashboards, and connected tools.
Metabase supports natural-language questions through Metabot, chart drilldowns, comparisons, and inspection of underlying rows. Its AI Research feature breaks broader questions into dimensions and ranks results. Teams can save findings to dashboards, and embed charts, dashboards, or React components in products.
Looker adds Gemini-powered conversational analytics, dashboard summaries and data deep dives, plus self-service exploration with calculations and local files. It supports embedding through APIs, iframes, and SDKs. It also lists a cloud cost management view combining Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure billing data. Looker’s Conversational Analytics includes monthly token allowances per production instance; extra input and output tokens are separately priced. Metabase supports its AI service or a customer-provided AI key.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Metabase is the more approachable starting point for teams that want self-service BI: its feature set includes plain-English questions, chart exploration, and dashboards, and our review rates its ease of use at 8/10. The free self-hosted edition also gives teams a way to start without a paid license.
Looker may suit teams that want governed LookML metrics, but its workflows can involve more code. Our review describes that code-heavy approach as narrowing its appeal and rates ease of use at 5.5/10. Looker’s pricing is also harder to assess before talking to sales. If low entry cost and simpler exploration are priorities, Metabase is the safer fit; choose Looker when governed metrics take priority.
Questions people ask
Is Metabase cheaper than Looker?
Metabase has published prices: Open Source is free, Starter is $100/month monthly or $90/month with annual billing, and Pro is $575/month or $517.50/month annually. Looker does not publish plan or seat prices, so we can’t make a full cost comparison without a sales quote.
Does Looker have a free plan?
No free Looker plan is listed in the published pricing information. Metabase does list a free Open Source edition with unlimited users, questions, and dashboards. That edition is self-hosted, while Metabase’s paid Starter plan starts at $100/month monthly.
Which platform is better for embedded analytics?
Both support embedding. Metabase lists embedded charts and dashboards on Pro, plus charts, dashboards, and React components for customer-facing products. Looker supports embedding through APIs, iframes, and SDKs, and has an Embed Edition with up to 500,000 query-based API calls per month.
How do Metabase and Looker handle AI analytics?
Metabase offers natural-language questions and AI Research, and its AI service costs $3.75 per million tokens after the included one million tokens; a provider key is also supported. Looker offers Gemini-powered conversational analytics with monthly token allowances per production instance, then charges for input and output token overages.