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Baremetrics Case Study: Scaling Beyond Heroku with Build
How Baremetrics scaled to 200+ dynos per deploy and 32,000+ database writes per second with predictable infrastructure on Build.
How Baremetrics scaled beyond Heroku and gained predictable infrastructure with Build
Baremetrics at a glance
- Product: SaaS analytics platform for Stripe
- Deployment scale: 200+ dynos per deploy
- Peak database writes: 32,000+ writes/sec
Key Outcomes
- Large-scale deployments (200+ dynos) running smoothly without platform resource limits
- Infrastructure workarounds eliminated, simplifying architecture previously constrained by Heroku
- Predictable pricing model, replacing complex enterprise negotiations and opaque billing
- Infrastructure designed to support SOC 2 without requiring upgrades to enterprise packages
The Company
Baremetrics is one of the best-known analytics platforms in SaaS, helping businesses understand key metrics like MRR and churn directly from Stripe data.
Behind the product is a large-scale analytics platform processing massive data volumes. At peak, Baremetrics infrastructure can exceed 32,000 database writes per second, and production deployments regularly involve 200+ dynos.
Operating at that scale exposed the limitations of traditional PaaS platforms.
The Challenge
Baremetrics had originally chosen Heroku for its simplicity. The platform offered a developer experience that allowed the team to ship quickly without managing infrastructure directly.
But as Baremetrics grew, the experience that made Heroku attractive began to break down.
Large deployments introduced resource constraints, infrastructure became more complex, and pricing models made it difficult to scale cleanly. The team introduced non-standard workarounds simply to avoid hitting platform limits or escalating costs.
At the same time, compliance requirements such as SOC 2 added additional friction. Achieving these requirements on Heroku required upgrading into significantly more complex and costly enterprise environments.
Baremetrics wanted to keep the developer experience they valued while gaining the infrastructure depth required to operate at scale.
The Solution
Build provided the same developer experience the team valued on Heroku, while removing constraints and offering a clearer long-term platform roadmap.
Migration was straightforward because Build supports direct synchronization with Heroku. Once Heroku-specific workarounds were removed, the Baremetrics team transitioned at their own pace, moving workloads to Build one component at a time without interrupting uptime.
For engineers, the workflow remained familiar but more powerful. Build offers a near-identical CLI and deployment model, allowing the Baremetrics team to continue using the same development patterns:
- Git-based deployments
- Command-line driven workflows
- Automated staging environments
- Promotion to production through a clean deployment pipeline
At the same time, the platform underneath offered significantly more headroom. Build operates its own infrastructure stack, from hardware through to the platform layer. That control allows the platform to offer more capacity, fewer artificial limits, and more predictable pricing than platforms building on top of hyperscalers.
The Impact
Moving to Build allowed Baremetrics to operate their infrastructure at scale without the complexity they had encountered previously.
Deployments that previously pushed platform limits now run routinely as part of the Baremetrics release process, with 200+ dynos running smoothly on the platform. Higher memory dynos removed long-standing resource constraints, allowing the team to simplify their deployment architecture and eliminate workarounds introduced to offset Heroku's pricing model.
Pricing also became dramatically more predictable. Instead of negotiating complex enterprise contracts or dealing with opaque billing models, the Baremetrics team now runs on a straightforward infrastructure pricing model that scales cleanly with their usage.
Compliance became easier as well. Build environments are designed to support SOC 2 requirements, allowing the Baremetrics team to move through their compliance process without introducing additional platform complexity or cost.
Built for Growing, Complex SaaS Platforms
Today, Baremetrics depends on Build as an essential part of their business. With a platform that continues to evolve and a clear path forward, the team now has confidence their infrastructure will scale alongside the company for years to come.
The team has retained the simplicity they always wanted while gaining the capacity and feature set needed to operate at scale.
With infrastructure designed for high-throughput workloads and a close engineering partnership, Baremetrics now has a foundation that can support the continued growth of their platform.