Metabase

What it is

Metabase connects to your database and lets people ask it questions. Someone who cannot write SQL builds a question by clicking through fields and filters; someone who can writes SQL directly, and both end up with charts that go on a shared dashboard. It supports more than 20 data sources, includes AI-assisted questions and SQL generation, and allows unlimited questions and dashboards.

The open source edition is free and genuinely complete for the core job, including unlimited users. Paid tiers add the things organizations need around it: permissions, SSO, caching controls, usage analytics, white-labelling and embedded analytics with row and column level security.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

It fits companies with data in a database and questions that currently require a developer. A support lead who wants weekly ticket volumes, or a founder who wants revenue by plan, can self-serve instead of queuing behind engineering.

It is a weaker fit if your data does not live in a database yet. Numbers spread across spreadsheets, an accounting tool and a CRM need consolidating first, and Metabase is not the tool that does that. It is also not the right answer for a business whose reporting need is satisfied by the dashboards already inside HubSpot or Airtable.

Pricing

Metabase is freemium in an unusual way: the open source edition is free with unlimited users, which is the entire product for many small companies, provided you can host it. Starter is $100 per month or $1,080 per year and includes 5 users, with additional users at $6 per month. Pro is $575 per month or $6,210 per year and includes 10 users, with additional users at $12 per month. Enterprise is custom, starting at $20,000 per year. AI tokens are an optional add-on at $3.75 per 1 million.

The real cost of the free edition is hosting and maintenance, so compare "free plus someone's time" against $100 per month honestly rather than assuming free is cheaper.

Set it up

Official guide: Ask a question

1. Sign up for Metabase Cloud on the Starter plan ($100/mo or $1,080/yr including 5 users, then $6/user/mo). Cloud means Metabase runs the server for you, while the free Open Source edition needs you to install and run it yourself. Click "Get started" in the header of metabase.com and finish checkout. You now land in your own Metabase.
2. Ask your first question on the Sample Database, a practice database that comes with every Metabase. Click "+ New", select "Question", switch to the "Tables" tab, choose the Sample Database and click the Invoices table. Click the "Play" button to the right of the Data section. You now see the first rows of the table.
3. Narrow the data down. In the purple "Filter" block click "Add filter", pick the Payment column, set "Greater than" and enter 295. In the green "Summarize" block add an "Average" of Payment by Plan. Click "Visualize" at the bottom. You now see a bar chart of the average payment per plan.
4. Click "Save" in the top right and choose a collection, which is a folder for your questions and dashboards. Your chart is now saved and you can find it again later.
5. Create a dashboard, which is one page that holds several charts. Click "+ New" in the top right, choose "Dashboard", enter a name and click "Create". Click the pencil icon, then the "+" icon in the top right, pick your saved question and click "Save". You now see your chart on the dashboard.
6. Add your own data from a CSV file, which is a spreadsheet saved as plain text. Click "Add data" (the "+" icon next to "DATA" in the sidebar), choose "CSV", select your file, choose a collection and click "Upload". On Cloud, uploads run through the Metabase Cloud Storage add-on, billed separately. Your file now appears as a table that you can query.
7. Invite a colleague to view the dashboard. Open it, click the "Sharing" icon and select "Invite someone to view this". Starter includes 5 users, then $6/user/mo for each extra person you invite. The person you invite can now open the dashboard with their own login.

When this works, you have a saved chart on a dashboard, your own data in Metabase and a colleague who can view the dashboard. Next, repeat steps 2 to 5 with your uploaded table and a question people ask you every week.

Strengths and limitations

The strength is self-service without a data team. The click-based query builder is good enough that non-technical colleagues genuinely use it, and the free open source edition removes the budget conversation entirely.

The limitations are prerequisites and jumps. Your data must already be in a supported database and reasonably modelled, otherwise the questions are hard to phrase and the answers are wrong in ways nobody notices. Self-hosting is real work. And the step from Starter at $100 per month to Pro at $575 is large, so check which tier holds the feature you actually need before committing.