Why people leave Google Analytics
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4) sets the _ga cookies for two years by default. Google says that you must collect consent from users in the EEA.
- Standard GA4 keeps event data for at most 14 months.
- Reports for a small product, such as revenue by channel, take setup: purchase events with values, and the right report.
Which Google Analytics alternative is free?
Three have a free cloud plan: Umami (Hobby, up to 100k events a month, one site, six months of data), PostHog (the first 1M events each month) and Simple Analytics (up to five sites, one month of history, a badge on the site). Plausible Community Edition and Umami are also free to host yourself, but you pay for the server and do the updates. twelvebit has no free plan; it starts with a 14-day free trial.
Which GA4 alternatives need no cookie banner?
Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics and Umami say that they set no cookies and that their analytics needs no banner. twelvebit sets two first-party cookies by default; in cookieless mode it stores nothing on the device. PostHog sets a cookie by default and says to use a banner when it does. Whether you need consent depends on the law that applies to you; this page is not legal advice.
Which ones show revenue by channel?
twelvebit reads the payments from Stripe, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Dodo Payments, Shopify or WooCommerce and credits each one to a visit. Umami and Plausible (Business) show revenue that your site sends with events. GA4 shows revenue from purchase events in its traffic acquisition report. PostHog has revenue analytics from Stripe in beta.
How do I move away from GA4?
Add the new script next to GA4 and run both for a week or two. Rebuild your key events as goals, and connect your payment provider if the tool supports it. Compare the totals, then remove the GA4 tag. twelvebit cannot import GA4 history; it imports Plausible exports only. With twelvebit, a coding agent does the setup from one prompt: see agent setup.
twelvebit: for founders who want to see which channels bring paying customers
twelvebit connects your payment provider and credits each payment to the visit that led to it, so you see revenue by channel, campaign and page. Funnels, journeys and the live globe are on every plan. A coding agent sets it up with one prompt, and reads the numbers later through the MCP server. Data is processed in Frankfurt and Vienna. The tracker sets two first-party cookies, or none in cookieless mode. There is no self-hosted version. Plans start at $9 a month. See revenue attribution.
Plausible: simple, cookieless, open source
Plausible sets no cookies and says that you need no cookie banner for it. Data is stored in Germany. A Community Edition can be self-hosted (AGPL, with fewer features). Funnels, journeys and revenue goals are on the Business plan. See twelvebit vs Plausible.
Fathom: many sites on one plan
Fathom sets no cookies, includes 50 sites on every plan, and starts at $15 a month for up to 100k pageviews. EU visitors are processed in the EU. Revenue is an event value that your site sends. See twelvebit vs Fathom.
Simple Analytics: no cookies, data in the Netherlands
Simple Analytics uses no cookies and hosts data in the Netherlands. It has a free plan for up to 5 sites with one month of history, and paid plans from £20 a month. It has funnels and an AI chat in the dashboard. We found no revenue tracking on its pages.
Umami: open source with a free cloud plan
Umami is open source (MIT) and sets no cookies. The cloud Hobby plan is free up to 100k events a month; Pro is $20 for 1M. It has funnels, journeys, first- and last-click attribution, and a read-only MCP server on Pro plans and up.
PostHog: a full product analytics suite
PostHog includes web analytics with product analytics, session replay, feature flags and experiments. The first 1M events a month are free. It sets a cookie by default, with an optional cookieless mode. Revenue analytics from Stripe is in beta. It has a hosted MCP server.
How we compared
We read each vendor's own pricing, privacy and documentation pages on 19 October 2026. Prices are monthly with monthly billing, for the cheapest plan that covers the volume. Where a vendor page did not say something, the table says "None found" instead of a guess. twelvebit is our product, so we say where the others are the better choice.
When to stay on Google Analytics 4
- You buy Google Ads and want the native link between ads and analytics.
- You need a BigQuery export of raw events.
- You want a free tool with no limit on volume, and your consent setup is already done.
Sources
Facts about other tools come from their own pages, read on 19 October 2026. Prices change; check the vendor's page before you decide. Write to hello@twelvebit.io if something here is out of date.
- Plausible: Pricing, Plans, Data policy, Revenue tracking, Self-hosting
- Fathom: Pricing, Features, EU isolation, Ecommerce conversions
- Simple Analytics: Pricing, Compliance FAQ
- Umami: Pricing, Features, MCP
- PostHog: Pricing, Cookies, Revenue analytics, MCP
- Google Analytics 4: GA4 and 360, Cookies, Consent, MCP server