A SaaS-first alternative
to Refine Labs
Refine Labs is a category-leading B2B SaaS demand creation agency for Series B+ teams at $30M+ ARR with seven-figure marketing budgets and an in-house demand gen team. If you are an earlier-stage founder who needs paid search and Meta capture done well, monthly billing, no in-house marketer required, Atlas is built for you
Why Switch
Why some B2B SaaS teams look for a Refine Labs alternative
Refine Labs has a deserved reputation in B2B SaaS marketing circles, with 300+ SaaS clients including Algolia, Cognism and Clari. These are the four reasons the model stops fitting when you are earlier-stage or just need paid done well
The retainer floor is built for $30M+ ARR teams
Refine Labs starts at $20K a month for Paid Media plus Creative Strategy, $31K a month for full-service, with 3 to 4 quarter engagements. The sweet spot is mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS at $30M+ ARR with seven-figure marketing budgets. Out of reach for pre-Series A or bootstrapped SaaS
Demand creation bias, not paid search execution
Refine Labs is heavy on Meta, LinkedIn, content amplification, podcast and dark social, the demand creation playbook the Refine Labs team helped popularise. If your real bottleneck is paid search execution and Meta capture done well week to week, you would be paying for a different specialism
Built for marketing orgs that already exist
They expect you already have an in-house marketer, $50K+/mo paid media spend, and a CRM that can ingest pipeline data. The model is strategy and team enablement, not execution help for a solo founder. Without that scaffolding in place, the engagement struggles to land
Multi-quarter transformation engagement
The Refine Labs framing is 3 to 4 quarter transformations, not a tool you can spin up in a week or pause when budgets tighten. Right for an enterprise demand gen rebuild. Wrong shape for an early-stage SaaS that needs to ship paid experiments this week and have the option to walk away next month
At a Glance
Refine Labs vs Atlas, side by side
| Refine Labs | Atlas | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS, $30M+ ARR with $25K+ ACVs, seven-figure marketing budgets and existing paid media spend of $50K+/mo. 300+ B2B SaaS clients including Algolia, Cognism, Clari, Showpad, Vena and BeyondTrust | B2B SaaS founders and lean marketing teams |
| Core job | Full-service demand generation transformation for established B2B SaaS marketing teams, shifting them from MQL and lead-gen to a pipeline-and-revenue model with paid media, dark social attribution and creative-led demand creation | Builds, launches and improves Google + Meta campaigns for SaaS |
| Builds campaigns | Yes | Yes, full build and launch |
| Platforms | Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads | Google Ads, Facebook Ads |
| Operated by | Founded 2018 by Chris Walker (exited July 2025 to focus on Passetto). Megan Bowen has been CEO since 2024 and sole owner since 2025. HQ Boston, distributed remote team | You, with Atlas doing the heavy lifting |
| Starts at | $20,000/mo | £0 Free, £99/mo Atlas |
How Atlas is Different
Atlas is paid execution, monthly, for founders without a marketing leader
The first difference is who the product is shaped for. Refine Labs assumes a marketing leader in seat, an in-house demand gen team, $50K+/mo of existing paid spend and a CRM that can ingest pipeline data. The engagement is strategy and team enablement on top of that. Atlas assumes the opposite, a founder or solo marketer with no marketing leader yet, who needs the paid layer to mostly run itself with light steering. The product shape is built for that buyer, including a Free tier and £99 a month entry
The second difference is scope. Refine Labs runs an integrated demand creation program across paid, creative, content amplification and dark social attribution, with the PIPE / HIRO Pipeline framework as the backbone. Atlas focuses on paid acquisition only, Google Ads and Facebook capture, and assumes you handle brand, content and demand creation elsewhere or not yet at all. If your bottleneck is the whole demand engine, Refine Labs is doing a job Atlas does not. If your bottleneck is paid done well, Atlas is the focused fit
The third difference is commitment. Refine Labs framing is 3 to 4 quarter transformations, $20K to $31K a month. Atlas is monthly billing, cancel any time, £99 to £899 a month. From sign-up to live ads inside your account is days, including review time. The trade-off is real, you get less strategic depth up front than a multi-quarter transformation, in exchange for shipping experiments this week and keeping the option to walk away
The fourth difference is paid search vs demand creation. Refine Labs is well known for the Meta and LinkedIn-led, content-amplified, dark-social-attributed demand creation playbook. That is not what Atlas is. Atlas is paid capture, Google search intent and Meta retargeting, the bottom-funnel work that turns demand you have already created into pipeline. If your funnel is mostly intent capture, Atlas is the right shape. If your funnel needs demand created from zero through brand, content and Meta TOF, Refine Labs has the framework
The fifth difference is the asymmetry between Google and Meta. On Google, Atlas manages your account every week, search-term cleanup, broad match sweeps, budget pacing, negatives, bid adjustments, all proposed and applied at the approval tier you choose, manual, smart or full auto. Every change clears deterministic safety rails first and is reversible for 30 days. On Meta, Atlas builds the campaigns and ships weekly tools you run in a few minutes alongside it, like fatigue checks and audience refresh prompts, applied with your approval. Atlas keeps you in the loop on Meta
For context, Refine Labs leadership has shifted recently, founder Chris Walker exited in July 2025 to focus on his new firm Passetto, with Megan Bowen now CEO and sole owner. The brand is still meaningful in B2B SaaS marketing circles. We mention it because the public chatter sometimes conflates Refine Labs and Passetto, and the buyer should know who is currently running which
Honest Rail
Not every SaaS team should choose Atlas
Refine Labs is a real product with real strengths. Here is how we would decide, on your behalf, if you asked
Choose Refine Labs if
- You are a Series B+ B2B SaaS company at $20M to $100M+ ARR with a seven-figure marketing budget and an in-house demand gen team that needs strategic transformation, not execution help
- You are trying to move off the MQL and lead-gen model toward pipeline reporting, dark social attribution and brand-led demand creation, and you want a proven framework plus senior creative and paid media operators in one shop
- You can commit to a 3 to 4 quarter engagement at $20K to $31K/mo or a $35K diagnostic project, and you want category-leading brand association in the B2B SaaS marketing community
Choose Atlas if
- You are an early-stage or bootstrapped B2B SaaS founder where £99 to £899/mo is realistic and a $20K/mo retainer floor is not
- You need someone (or something) to actually build and run Google Ads campaigns weekly, not transform an existing in-house team. Atlas does the operating work, Refine Labs does the strategy and team enablement
- Your priority is paid search and intent capture for high-fit B2B SaaS keywords, not Meta and LinkedIn demand creation and dark social podcast plays
- You want a month-to-month tool you can start, pause or cancel without a multi-quarter agency contract, and you want to keep direct control of the ad accounts rather than handing them to an agency pod
Pricing
What each one costs, honestly
Refine Labs
$20,000/moto start
From $20K/mo for Paid Media plus Creative Strategy, $31K/mo for full-service Demand Gen, $35K one-off Marketing Strategy and Digital Media Assessment. Sweet spot is mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS at $30M+ ARR with seven-figure marketing budgets and $50K+/mo existing paid media spend.
Pricing scales with connected ad spend and accounts
Atlas
£0 to £99/mo to start
Free tier to try Atlas with no card. £99 Atlas tier builds and runs Google + Facebook Ads. £249 adds weekly human review. £899 VIP for hands-on senior oversight
Flat tiers, no overage fees based on your ad spend
Pricing current at time of writing. See Atlas pricing and Refine Labs pricing for the latest
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Atlas a direct replacement for Refine Labs?
For an early-stage or growth-stage B2B SaaS founder who mainly needs Google and Meta paid ads built and managed, yes. Atlas drafts the campaigns inside an hour, runs weekly Google management with your approval, and ships weekly Meta tools you run alongside it, all from £99 a month with monthly billing. Refine Labs is the better fit if you are Series B+ at $30M+ ARR, you have an in-house demand gen team, and you want a multi-quarter strategic transformation toward pipeline reporting and dark social attribution. Different jobs, different stages of SaaS.
Does Atlas have a framework like the PIPE / HIRO Pipeline?
Atlas is built on the patterns of £10M of real SaaS Google and Meta spend, including SaaS-specific keyword intent, demo and trial funnel structure, and the differences between Google search intent and Meta demand creation. It is not a written framework you can audit publicly the way the PIPE / HIRO Pipeline is, it is the AI executing those patterns inside your account. If a recognisable demand creation framework you can show your board matters, Refine Labs has the public methodology to anchor that. Atlas leans on outcomes and weekly execution.
What about the demand creation work Refine Labs does on Meta, LinkedIn, content and dark social?
Atlas focuses on demand capture rather than demand creation. On Google, Atlas runs the search and shopping intent capture. On Meta, Atlas builds the campaigns and ships weekly tools you run alongside it for retargeting, fatigue and audience refresh. Atlas does not run LinkedIn ads, dark social podcast amplification or content distribution. If those pillars are the gap you need filled, Refine Labs covers ground Atlas does not. If your team handles content and brand elsewhere and you only need someone to run the paid capture layer, Atlas is the focused fit.
How does Atlas compare for early-stage SaaS without a marketing leader?
Atlas is built specifically for that buyer, a founder or solo marketer with no marketing leader yet, who needs the paid layer to mostly run itself with you steering. The product shape includes a Free tier to try, £99 a month to start, and a plain-English explanation for every weekly change so you learn the SaaS PPC playbook by watching. Refine Labs assumes the opposite, an in-house marketing leader coordinating paid plus content plus RevOps with a senior agency team. The Refine Labs engagement does not really land without that internal counterpart.
What about pipeline reporting and dark social attribution?
Atlas surfaces weekly performance summaries with plain-English explanations for every change and decision, plus the spend, conversions and weekly trend lines you need to brief the team. For self-reported attribution, dark social tracking and a hybrid attribution framework wired into Salesforce or HubSpot pipeline data, Refine Labs goes much further than Atlas does. Most early-stage SaaS find the Atlas reporting layer enough at our price point. As you scale toward enterprise demand gen, Refine Labs is doing a job Atlas does not try to do.
Skip the multi-quarter retainer,
get Atlas building today
Start free, no card. Atlas drafts your first Google and Facebook campaigns inside an hour