Google Analytics vs Simple Analytics
Pricing
Google Analytics: Free
Simple Analytics: From $9/mo
Description
Google Analytics: Google's free web and app analytics for traffic sources, user journeys and conversions, linked to Google Ads and Search Console
Simple Analytics: Privacy-first analytics without cookies or tracking
Pros
- Free of charge, with one property able to cover both your website and your app
- Integrates with Google Ads and Google Search Console
- Machine-learning features estimate which customers are likely to take an action next
- 100% GDPR compliant, no consent needed
- No cookies or user tracking
- Clean, simple dashboard
Cons
- Ties data to cookies and user identifiers, unlike cookie-free tools such as Plausible and Fathom
- The free version keeps user-level and event-level data for explorations for 14 months at most
- Longer retention (26 to 50 months) needs Analytics 360, the paid enterprise version
- No free tier
- Fewer features than GA4
Details
Google Analytics is Google’s own analytics service for websites and apps. You add a tag to your site or app and get reports on where visitors come from, what they do and which of them convert. It costs nothing.
It suits founders who run Google Ads or want the most detail without paying. The reports cover cross-platform journeys, attribution across channels and machine-learning forecasts.
Two limits are worth knowing. Data in explorations and funnel reports is kept for 2 or 14 months on the free version (standard reports are not affected), and the data is linked to cookies and identifiers. If you would rather not use cookies at all, look at Plausible or Fathom.
Simple Analytics provides privacy-friendly website analytics without tracking cookies or collecting personal data. Fully GDPR compliant out of the box.
Founded by Adriaan van Rossum in 2018, bootstrapped to $380k ARR. For founders who believe analytics shouldn’t come at the cost of user privacy.
Google Analytics verified
Simple Analytics verified
