Web analytics
Each provider is profiled from its own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure. Unusually for this site, they all meter the same thing — monthly pageviews — so the prices below are directly comparable rather than merely adjacent. What separates them after that is where the data sits, whether a consent banner is needed, and whether you can run the thing yourself.
Web analytics
| Provider | Entry paid plan | Works without cookies | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataFast | Not readable. The pricing block renders its plan contents in full and then prints "$ /month" with an empty figure and "Save $NaN" — in a headless browser, after twenty seconds, on every extraction tier this site has. | Not documented | Traffic-based plans metered in monthly events rather than pageviews, from 10,000 to over 10 million, monthly or yearly with two months free on yearly. |
| Fathom Analytics | $15/month for up to 100,000 monthly page views — the first band. It rises to $25 at 200,000, $45 at 500,000 and $60 at one million. | Supported | Fixed bands by average monthly page views rather than a per-view rate: eight published steps from 100,000 views at $15 to 15 million at $290. |
| GoatCounter | None. The hosted service is free for what GoatCounter calls reasonable public usage and funded by donations; beyond that the answer is to self-host rather than to pay. | Supported | Not documented |
| Pirsch Analytics | $6/month for 10,000 monthly page views on Standard, which includes 50 websites, unlimited members and unlimited data retention. | Supported | By monthly page views only. Websites, team members and data retention are not metered — 50 sites, unlimited members and unlimited retention come with the $6 entry plan. |
| Plausible Analytics | $9/month for Starter at up to 10,000 monthly pageviews: one site and three years of data retention. Growth is $14/month for up to three sites. | Supported | Banded by monthly pageviews, with a slider from 10,000 to 10 million and above; site and team-member counts rise with the tier. The page picks its currency in JavaScript, so the figures are origin-dependent and $9 is the default. |
| Simple Analytics | $20/month at 100,000 monthly pageviews on the self-serve plan, which includes one user. Extra users are $20/month each. | Supported | Two axes: a pageview slider from 100,000 to 2.5 million, and $20 a month per user on top of the first one. Monthly or annual, with two months free on annual. |
Which to consider
Tying revenue back to the channel that produced it. DataFast connects a payment provider per website and reports revenue per visitor rather than pageviews alone, which is a different question from the one the rest of this category answers.
Many sites under one bill. Every plan includes 50 sites and the price moves only with page views, so the $15 entry band covers a portfolio as easily as a single domain — and no cookie banner is required on any of them.
A personal site or a small business that wants real analytics and no bill. The hosted service is free for what GoatCounter calls reasonable public usage, the script is around 3.5 KB, and there is a JavaScript-free tracking-pixel option.
The cheapest way into this category that still gives you everything: $6 a month for 10,000 page views, with 50 websites, unlimited team members and unlimited data retention at that price rather than three tiers up.
A site that wants one clear dashboard, no cookie banner and its data in the EU, at $9 a month for the first 10,000 pageviews — the cheapest EU-hosted option here that is a product rather than a favour.
A one-page dashboard nobody has to be taught, EU-hosted and cookie-free, with a free hobby tier to start on before the $20 self-serve plan at 100,000 pageviews.