Google Analytics
Google's free web and app analytics (GA4), with traffic sources, conversions and a native link to Google Ads.
- Price
- Free; Analytics 360 price is not public
- Free plan
- Yes
- Setup
- A little code
- Up and running
- 30 minutes for the tag; numbers can take 24 to 48 hours to settle. Add an afternoon for the consent banner.
What Google Analytics is for
Google Analytics (GA4) shows how many people reach your site, where they came from (Google, Instagram, an ad) and how many of them signed up or bought. It's free and links straight to Google Ads, so you can see which campaign pays off. It measures traffic and conversions, not what each user does inside your app over time.
How it plugs into your product
- 1Create a GA4 property with your Google account and add a web data stream for your domain.
- 2Paste the Google tag on every page, directly or through Google Tag Manager.
- 3Add a cookie consent banner and wire it to consent mode, since GA4 sets cookies.
- 4Mark sign-up or purchase as a key event, change data retention to 14 months and link Google Ads.
Does it fit your idea?
It fits if
- You run Google Ads to a landing page and need to know which campaign brings sign-ups, at no cost.
- Your product is a content site or online store where traffic sources matter more than per-user behavior.
- Your marketing agency already works in GA4 and asks for access to report results.
Look elsewhere if
- You need to follow a logged-in user through onboarding and retention inside a SaaS: use PostHog or Mixpanel.
- You don't want a cookie banner on a simple landing page: Plausible works without cookies.
- You need to compare this month with the same month two years ago at the user level; free GA4 keeps that data for 14 months at most.
What people only find out after building
Read this before you build on it. Each item links to the official page that says so.
Explorations and funnel reports only see 2 or 14 months of data on the free version; longer retention is only for Analytics 360. Pick 14 months on day one.
Official source: support.google.comWhen a query needs more than 10 million events, GA4 samples: it reads part of the data and scales it up, so the numbers become estimates.
Official source: support.google.comConsent mode doesn't come with a banner; you supply one. With the basic setup, visitors who decline aren't counted at all.
Official source: support.google.comToday's numbers aren't final: daily data can take 24 to 48 hours to process, so don't judge a launch in its first hours.
Official source: support.google.com
Price
Free; Analytics 360 price is not public
Standard Google Analytics is free.
- Free tier
- Free, no price on the site
- First paid plan
- Analytics 360: not public
- Self-host
- No
Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing
What it costs in practice
Standard GA4 is free at any small-SaaS volume: $0/month. The real cost is the cookie banner and the time to set up events and consent. Analytics 360, the paid version, has no public price.
Estimate from the official price. Check it before you decide.
At a glance
- Free plan: yes
- Open source: no
“Not stated” means the official site doesn’t say.
Alternatives
Compare side by side
PlausibleLightweight, cookie-free web analytics hosted in the EU, with a one-page dashboard and open-source code.
PostHogAll-in-one product platform: event analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys and error tracking.
MixpanelEvent-based product analytics for funnels, retention and cohorts, with self-serve reports for the whole team.
Faundr
Picked your tools? Build it with AI, safely.
Faundr keeps your project’s memory, blocks what can’t be undone and tells you if it’s safe to launch, inside Claude Code and Codex.