Short answer
The real alternatives fall into three groups: other managed MMM vendors, free open-source frameworks you run yourself (Meridian, Robyn, PyMC-Marketing), and a custom model built for you and handed over. Which fits depends on whether you have a modeler in-house and how much of your spend is offline.
People look for alternatives for three reasons: the price, the fit, or plain curiosity. Those have different answers.
Why are you looking for an alternative?
Run open source yourself.
Meridian, Robyn, or PyMC-Marketing. Free, credible, and the math is comparable to anything paid.
Watch out · The real cost is a modeler. And nothing validates the model for you.
What is Recast offering?
- Managed Bayesian MMM
- A marketing mix model built on Bayesian methods — where what you already believe, and how uncertain you are, are explicit parts of the model — delivered as a service instead of software you run.
The Bayesian part has a real consequence: you get a range instead of a single number, and the model can take in past test results as a starting point. If you have run market tests, that matters.
How do you compare them?
Feature checklists are useless — every vendor ticks every box. Four questions separate them, and you can ask all four on a first call.
- 01"What was your error on a recent client model, on months it never saw?"
- 02"How do you handle offline media?" Find out now, not in month three.
- 03"How do test results get into the model?" As a starting assumption is strong. As a slide afterward is weak.
- 04"Who runs this in a year — you or us?" This drives your real cost more than the license.
Is open-source MMM comparable to a paid product?
The math is comparable and sometimes better. What you do not get is anyone accountable for the model being right, or someone to argue with when the answer is uncomfortable.
What should an MMM engagement cost?
Too variable to publish. What matters is comparing the cost to the budget it will move. A model informing $50M is not the same purchase as one informing $5M.
Can I switch vendors later?
Yes. Own your data pipeline and channel definitions, and keep the cleaned input data in your own warehouse.
How long until it pays for itself?
Depends entirely on whether anyone acts on it. Models that move budget pay back fast. Models that get admired in a deck never do.
Where we’re different
Click a claim. We’ll show our work.
Marketing mix modeling is a time-series problem. So we hide the last three to six months from the model, then make it predict them. If it cannot get under 10% error on months it never saw, we do not ship it — and you get your money back. Ask anyone else on your shortlist for that number. Most of them do not have it.
We are data scientists, not a software company. We do not sell a tool that competes with the vendors on these pages. That is why we will tell you when one of them — or a free open-source framework — is the better answer for you.
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Book the two-week auditKeep reading
- Google Meridian vs Robyn vs a custom modelTwo free open-source modeling frameworks and the custom alternative. What each assumes, what each needs from your team, and the failure nobody warns you about.
- When you should not buy an MMMMarketing mix modeling gets sold to companies that cannot use it yet. Five situations where the honest answer is to wait, and what to do instead.