Used For

• +**Your analysts spend 6 hours a week copying data between tools for executive reports** → Real-time dashboards pull directly from your database, no more manual exports
• +**Different teams report conflicting revenue numbers in every meeting** → Semantic layer ensures everyone sees the same trusted metrics
• +**Your CEO asks 'can you slice this by region?' and it takes 3 days** → Self-service exploration lets business users answer their own questions
• +Natural language queries - type 'show me sales by region this quarter' instead of writing SQL
• +LookML modeling language defines relationships once, reuse everywhere without rebuilding logic

Best For

• >Your company runs on BigQuery and executives want dashboards that don't break
• >You need 50+ people exploring data without bugging the analytics team constantly
• >Building customer-facing analytics into your SaaS product and need unlimited embedding

Not For

• -Startups under 100 people — you're paying enterprise prices for features you'll use twice
• -Teams not already committed to Google Cloud — the setup friction isn't worth it for occasional dashboards
• -Anyone wanting plug-and-play BI — this needs dedicated modeling time or your dashboards will be useless

Pairs With

• *BigQuery (the database it's designed to live on top of - other connections feel like afterthoughts)
• *dbt (for data transformations before Looker makes them pretty)
• *Google Sheets (where executives still export everything despite having fancy dashboards)
• *Slack (for scheduled report deliveries and dashboard alerts)
• *Salesforce (as a data source that needs constant connector babysitting)
• *Snowflake (alternative data warehouse that works but without the native Google Cloud magic)

The Catch

• !No monthly pricing or free tier beyond trials — everything's annual contracts through Google Cloud sales
• !The modeling layer (LookML) requires 2-4 weeks to learn and constant maintenance or your metrics drift
• !API limits hit fast in lower tiers — Core caps at 1,000 queries/month which disappears quickly with real usage

Bottom Line

Enterprise BI that requires Google Cloud commitment and annual contracts even when you just want to make some charts.