Detectly vs Lifetimely: Honest Comparison for Shopify Stores

Detectly vs Lifetimely: Attribution-First vs. LTV-First Analytics

Detectly and Lifetimely approach Shopify analytics from different angles. Lifetimely (now part of Triple Whale) is built around customer lifetime value — understanding how much customers are worth over time. Detectly is built around attribution — understanding where customers come from. This comparison helps you decide which starting point matters more for your store right now.

Lifetimely was a standalone Shopify app focused on customer lifetime value (LTV) analytics, cohort analysis, and profit tracking. In 2023, it was acquired by Triple Whale and integrated into their platform. Access to Lifetimely’s features now comes through Triple Whale’s plans, starting at approximately $149/month.

Detectly is a Shopify-native attribution app that captures UTM parameters from storefront visits, attributes orders to marketing sources, sends conversion events via Meta CAPI, and tags customers with their acquisition channel. Plans range from free to $7.99/month.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Detectly	Lifetimely (via Triple Whale)
Starting Price	$0/mo (free tier)	$149/mo (Triple Whale plan)
Core Focus	Marketing attribution	Customer lifetime value
Attribution Model	First-touch & last-touch	Multi-touch (Triple Whale)
LTV Analytics	No	Yes (cohort-based)
Cohort Analysis	No	Yes
Profit & Loss Tracking	No	Yes
Customer Segmentation	By acquisition source (tags)	By LTV, cohort, behavior
Meta CAPI	Yes	Yes (via Triple Whale)
Customer Tagging	Yes (automated by source)	Limited
Order Metafields	Yes	No
Predictive LTV	No	Yes
Revenue Forecasting	No	Yes
Shopify Native	Yes (embedded app)	Yes (embedded app)
Standalone Availability	Yes	No (bundled with Triple Whale)
Best For	Attribution on a budget	LTV optimization and forecasting

Who Should Use Lifetimely (Triple Whale)

Lifetimely’s LTV analytics are genuinely valuable for stores at a certain stage. Consider it if:

• You have enough order history for cohort analysis to be meaningful. LTV analytics require months (ideally 12+) of order data across thousands of customers to produce actionable cohort insights. If you launched six months ago with 500 total orders, LTV analytics won’t tell you much yet.
• Repeat purchases are central to your business model. Lifetimely shines for subscription brands, consumables, and stores where customer retention directly impacts profitability. If your average customer buys once, LTV analytics are less relevant.
• You need to forecast revenue. Lifetimely’s predictive models estimate future revenue based on historical cohort behavior. This is valuable for inventory planning, cash flow management, and investor reporting.
• You want P&L tracking integrated with analytics. Lifetimely’s profit tracking pulls in COGS, ad spend, and shipping costs to show true profitability by channel and cohort.
• You’re ready to commit to Triple Whale’s ecosystem. Since Lifetimely is now part of Triple Whale, you’ll also get access to Triple Whale’s attribution, creative analytics, and other features — but at Triple Whale’s pricing.

Lifetimely built its reputation on making LTV data accessible to Shopify merchants. The cohort analysis and predictive LTV features remain some of the best in the Shopify ecosystem.

Who Should Use Detectly

Detectly solves a different — and often more immediate — problem. Consider it if:

• You need to know where your customers are coming from before you optimize their lifetime value. Attribution answers the question “which marketing channel acquired this customer?” LTV answers “how much is this customer worth over time?” Most growing stores need to answer the first question before the second becomes actionable.
• You’re in the first 1-3 years of your store. In early stages, your priority is finding which acquisition channels work. You don’t have enough repeat purchase data for LTV cohort analysis to be statistically meaningful.
• Your budget is constrained. At $0-7.99/month versus $149+/month, Detectly costs roughly $1,700/year less. For a store doing $500K-$2M in revenue, that’s a meaningful difference.
• You want actionable data in Shopify immediately. Detectly tags customers with their acquisition source and writes attribution data to order metafields within minutes of installation. You can start building source-based segments in Klaviyo or filtering orders by channel in Shopify admin right away.
• Meta ad optimization is a priority. Detectly’s CAPI integration improves Meta’s conversion tracking, which directly impacts ad performance. This provides immediate, measurable ROI.

Different Questions, Different Tools

The fundamental distinction between these tools is the question they answer:

Detectly answers: “Where did this customer come from?”

• This customer was acquired via a Meta ad campaign targeting lookalike audiences.
• This order was driven by an influencer’s UTM link.
• 60% of this month’s revenue came from Google search campaigns.

Lifetimely answers: “How much is this customer worth over time?”

• Customers acquired in Q1 2025 have an average 12-month LTV of $180.
• The Q3 2024 cohort has a 35% repeat purchase rate at the 6-month mark.
• Predicted revenue for the next 90 days is $245K based on cohort trends.

Both are valuable questions. But they matter at different stages:

Early-stage stores (under $2M ARR): Attribution is the priority. You’re still figuring out which channels drive profitable customers. Knowing that Meta drives 3x more customers than TikTok at half the CPA directly informs your next marketing dollar. LTV data is too thin to be actionable.

Growth-stage stores ($2M-$10M ARR): Both become important. You’ve found your channels; now you want to know which channels bring the highest-LTV customers. This is where combining attribution data (from Detectly or another tool) with LTV analysis (from Lifetimely) becomes powerful.

Scaling stores ($10M+ ARR): LTV optimization and predictive analytics drive strategic decisions. You need Lifetimely-level insights, and the $149+/month price is insignificant relative to revenue.

Can You Use Both?

Yes, and there’s a case for it. Detectly writes acquisition source data to customer tags and order metafields. If you later add Lifetimely (via Triple Whale), you can analyze LTV by acquisition source — seeing not just which channels drive the most customers, but which channels drive the most valuable customers.

However, since Lifetimely is now bundled with Triple Whale, you’d be paying for Triple Whale’s full feature set. At that point, you might use Triple Whale’s native attribution instead of Detectly. The overlap would be redundant for most stores.

A more practical approach:

1. Start with Detectly to establish attribution tracking and build a history of source-tagged customers.
2. After 12-18 months, evaluate whether LTV analytics would change your marketing decisions. If yes, consider Triple Whale.
3. Use the historical tag data that Detectly captured to inform your LTV analysis from day one — you’ll already know the acquisition source for every customer.

The Lifetimely Acquisition Factor

It’s worth noting that Lifetimely is no longer available as a standalone product. When you sign up for Lifetimely’s features, you’re signing up for Triple Whale. This means:

• You get more than just LTV analytics (attribution, creative analytics, etc.)
• You also pay more than the old standalone Lifetimely pricing
• Your data lives in Triple Whale’s ecosystem

If you specifically want LTV analytics without the full Triple Whale suite, there are other options in the Shopify ecosystem (like RetentionX or Peel). But none match Lifetimely’s depth in cohort-based LTV analysis.

Summary

Choose Lifetimely (via Triple Whale) if you’re a growth-stage or scaling store with substantial repeat purchase data, and you need cohort-based LTV analytics, revenue forecasting, and profit tracking to optimize long-term customer value.

Choose Detectly if you need to solve the attribution problem first — understanding where your customers come from, which channels drive revenue, and how to optimize your Meta ads via CAPI. At $0-7.99/month, it’s the right starting point for stores that need clear acquisition data before investing in LTV optimization.

Attribution comes first. Lifetime value comes next. Choose the tool that matches where you are today.