How to choose client reporting software.

Every tool in this market is priced on some unit of your roster. The unit decides what the bill does as you grow, and it matters more than the starting price.

• Per client

  Predictable while clients are similar in size. A client with one ad account costs the same as a client with ten.

• Per dashboard

  Cheap while each client has one report. The cost rises with every extra view you build for a client.

• Per source or connected account

  Low for small clients, steep for large ones. Ten ad accounts for one client can count as ten.

• A plan with caps

  Simple until a cap is reached, then a jump to the next tier.

Some tools read each platform live when a report opens. Some fetch the data and store it on their side. Some write it into a warehouse you own.

The difference shows up twice: when a client asks about a period from two years ago, and when you change tools. History held by a vendor usually stays with the vendor, or leaves as an export.

Ask how far back each source is loaded at the start, and whether history keeps building from there or is limited per source.

These are the parts of the tool a client actually touches, so they are the parts that carry your name.

• White label

  Which plan includes it, and how far it goes: a logo on a PDF, a branded dashboard, or a portal on your own domain.

• Client access

  Whether clients log in and see only their own data, and whether each login costs a seat.

• Delivery

  Links, scheduled email or PDF exports, and whether email arrives from your domain or the vendor's.

Most tools now list an AI assistant or an MCP connection. The useful question is what it reads. An assistant that reads dashboard widgets can only answer what a widget shows; one that reads modelled tables can answer a question across clients and platforms.

Ask, too, whose model key it runs on, and where a client's data goes when a question is asked.

A demo account always reconciles. Before signing, run one real client through the tool end to end: connect their sources, build their usual report, and check three figures against the platforms and the client's own records.

Then watch how long the second client takes. The first is setup; the second shows what the rest of the roster will cost in time.

SightShark writes every client's sources into a data warehouse you own, models them there, and runs reports and alerts from those tables, with the AI chatbot on Growth and above, on your own LLM key. If you leave, the history is already in your account.

Custom branding and your own domain are on the Enterprise plan only. On every plan, clients can log in to your portal and see only their own data. There is no self-serve signup: every plan starts with a booked demo, which is also the place to run the one-client test above.