HockeyStack is for enterprise revenue teams.
If you’re not enterprise, you don’t need it.
Lead attribution for SMBs that just want to know what worked. Without the $1K/month bill.
HockeyStack is a good product. It’s built for a real problem. enterprise B2B SaaS teams trying to attribute revenue across long, complex, multi-touchpoint sales cycles with sales-assisted motions and revenue ops teams.
It’s also expensive (starts around $1,000/month, annual contract), heavy to implement (weeks, not minutes), and assumes you have a revenue ops function. None of that applies to a small business spending $3-10K/month on ads and trying to figure out which campaigns produced customers.
The honest framing: HockeyStack is the right tool when the question is “what does our multi-channel marketing mix actually contribute to enterprise revenue?” Lead Source is the right tool when the question is “which of these Google Ads campaigns produced paying customers last month?”
Where the line actually is.
It’s not about features. It’s about your size.
You’re an enterprise revenue team.
- 10+ person marketing team with a dedicated revenue ops function
- $100K+/year in ad spend
- 6+ month sales cycles with sales-assisted demos, BANT qualification, and deal stages
- Multi-touch attribution modelling is part of your reporting
- You need MQL scoring, opportunity influence, and pipeline attribution dashboards for your CMO and CRO
- You can absorb $1K+/month and a multi-week implementation
You’re an SMB that just wants to know what worked.
- 1-3 person marketing function (often: the founder, the founder’s spouse, an agency)
- $3-30K/month in ad spend
- Sales cycle measured in days or weeks, not months
- You want to know “which ad produced this customer?” in one click, not a dashboard
- You want $19/month, not $1,000/month
- You want to be live in 5 minutes, not 5 weeks
Capability and cost, honestly compared.
Same product category. Completely different scale and audience.
| What you get | HockeyStack | Lead Source |
|---|---|---|
| Core attribution | ||
| Capture source on every form submission | Yes | Yes |
| Per-lead source detail with full journey | Yes | Yes |
| Write attribution into CRM contact | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise features (you probably don’t need) | ||
| Multi-touch attribution modelling | Yes | No |
| MQL scoring & qualification rules | Yes | No |
| Opportunity / pipeline influence dashboards | Yes | No |
| Account-based attribution (ABM) | Yes | No |
| Revenue attribution with deal-stage modelling | Yes | No |
| Custom event tracking & SDK | Yes | No |
| Setup & commitment | ||
| Install time | Multi-week implementation | ~5 minutes |
| Requires revenue ops / dev resources | Typically yes | No |
| Contract | Annual, typically | Month-to-month |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | No | free tier |
| Entry price | ~$1,000+/month | $19/month |
| Pricing transparency | Quote-based | Public, fixed |
What you actually need at SMB scale.
At $100K+/year in ad spend with a six-month sales cycle, attribution modelling matters. Because the question gets genuinely complex. Which of the six touchpoints across the buying committee actually moved the deal?
At $5K/month in ad spend with a one-week sales cycle, attribution modelling is overkill. You don’t need a model. You need to know: this person submitted a form, they came from this campaign, they bought, you should run more of that campaign.
That’s the entire job. A $1,000/month tool that does it via a multi-touch model isn’t better than a $19/month tool that does it directly. It’s just more expensive and more complicated.
Common questions, answered.
Why doesn't Lead Source do multi-touch attribution?
Multi-touch attribution is useful when (a) your sales cycle is long enough that a buyer has multiple meaningful touchpoints, and (b) you have the volume to make a statistical model actually meaningful. Below those thresholds, multi-touch is theatre. You're using a model to make confident statements about data that's too sparse to support them. For SMBs running form-led acquisition, last-touch on the converting session is usually the right answer: "this person was on Google Ads when they submitted, that's the source." Simpler, honest, decision-ready.
Why no MQL scoring?
MQL scoring matters when you have a sales team that needs to triage hundreds of inbound leads per month and decide which to call back. If you're an SMB owner answering your own enquiries, scoring is solving a problem you don't have.
Will Lead Source scale if I grow?
For form-based lead capture. Yes, easily. We have plans for higher volumes and the underlying capture mechanism is the same at any scale. For the "enterprise revenue ops" world (multi-touch modelling, MQL scoring, pipeline attribution). No, and we don't intend to. If you grow into that territory, HockeyStack or similar is the right answer for that piece. Lead Source would still capture the raw source data underneath.
Is Lead Source actually cheaper if I'm comparing apples to apples?
If you genuinely need the enterprise capabilities, then no. HockeyStack is doing more for the money. If you don't need those capabilities, then yes. Lead Source is dramatically cheaper because you're not funding the parts you don't use. The test: ask yourself if you would build out an MQL scoring rule, an opportunity-influence dashboard, or an ABM account list this month. If those don't register as real to-dos in your business, you're paying for what won't get used.
Is Lead Source data secure?
Yes. Lead emails and phone numbers are encrypted at rest and in transit, with access tightly controlled. Aligned with GDPR, UK GDPR, and the Australian Privacy Principles. Privacy details.
Free to start, $19/month after.
If HockeyStack feels like overkill, it probably is.
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