Counter.dev vs Plausible (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Counter.dev and Plausible share a 2.4 GPA, both have a free plan, and Counter.dev has no paid plan to buy, against $7.50 a month for Plausible.
Checked Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Counter.dev grades higher on value for money and the free plan. Plausible grades higher on features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Plausible
Cookie-free, privacy-first website analytics made and hosted in the EU
Which one is for you
Pick Counter.dev if
- Fits if you only want a daily visitor count and referrers
- Works for hobby sites where cookie banners are unwelcome
Look elsewhere if
- Too light for anyone who needs funnels, events or goals
- Not for you if you want published plan limits: the site shows none
- Watch out: tracking code appears only after you create an account
- Skip it if you need support, as none is described
Pick Plausible if
- Fits if you want traffic numbers without putting a cookie banner on your site
- Works for EU organizations leaving Google Analytics that want data kept in the EU
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want to watch visits or follow one visitor's path
- Tight if you're on Starter, which covers one site
- Pricey if you need funnels or ecommerce revenue, which start on Business at $15.83 a month for 10k pageviews
- Watch out: there's no free hosted plan, and the free Community Edition is self-hosted, updated twice a year, with no funnels or SSO
- Pricey if traffic grows: Starter is $19 a month at 100k pageviews and $69 at 1M, and SSO is Enterprise only
How we grade them
| 2.4GPACounter.devFair | 2.4GPAPlausibleFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BFree hosted, no server needed, with an optional payment. It covers very little, so it can't be an A. | C100,000 pageviews puts Starter at $19 a month billed monthly; the $7.50 yearly price only covers 10k. That lands mid-category, and it climbs to $69 at 1M. The free Community Edition only counts if you run your own server. |
| Free plan and trial | AFree to everyone, with no plan limits stated on the site. | CThere's no free hosted plan, just a 30-day trial with no card. The free Community Edition is yours to keep, but you host it yourself, and it leaves out funnels, ecommerce revenue and SSO. |
| Features | DUnique visitors a day and referrals. A very narrow set of numbers. | CVisitors, sources, pages, goals, campaigns, Search Console queries and visits from AI tools, all on one page. It does the page counting job fully, and it's a smaller job: no recordings or per-visitor profiles, and funnels wait for Business. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. You sign up and paste in a tracking snippet. | BNo rating on record, but the hosted version is a small script and one dashboard page, with nothing else to configure. The free Community Edition is a different story: your own server and your own updates. |
| Platforms and integrations | CWeb only, with open-source code. No integrations. | BWeb only, no desktop or phone app. It works with Google Search Console, WordPress, Tag Manager, Google Data Studio and Slack, imports old Google Analytics data, and has an API. |
| Best for | bare-bones visitor counts, free | simple visitor counts without a cookie banner |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Counter.dev and Plausible. How we grade
Price against what you get
Counter.dev has no paid plan and scores 1.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Plausible starts at $7.50 a month and scores 2.7.
Plausible scores higher, and starts $7.50 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other website and product analytics tools on the chart, none scores higher than Counter.dev for less, and none scores higher than Plausible for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Plausible is self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Counter.dev also covers reports.
At a glance
| Counter.dev | Plausible | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free plan |
| Starts at | Free | $7.50 per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($9 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | None | Plausible Community Edition: the free, AGPL-licensed release you host yourself. It leaves out funnels, ecommerce revenue goals, SSO and the sites API, and has community support only. |
| Free trial | None listed | 30-day free trial of the cloud plans, no credit card required |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Counter.dev | Plausible Analytics |
| Price read from | counter.dev | plausible.io |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Counter.dev
- The site shows no pricing page or plan limits; payment is described only as optional and made when you are ready.
- The vendor says it keeps things simple and shows only the basics, so there is no feature comparison with larger tools.
- Sign-up and tracking code are found after creating an account on counter.dev.
Plausible
- There is no free hosted plan, only a 30-day trial; the free option is the Community Edition you run yourself.
- Stats are aggregate only: there are no session recordings or per-visitor profiles.
- Funnels, ecommerce revenue attribution, custom properties and the Stats API start on Business; SSO is Enterprise only.
- Prices rise with monthly pageviews, and sites above 10M pageviews a month need a custom Enterprise quote.
Key features
Counter.dev
- Unique visitors per day
- Metrics are based on the number of unique visitors per day rather than a per-visitor profile.
- Referrals
- Shows which other websites link to your site and send visitors to it.
- No cookies or IP fingerprinting
- The vendor says it uses no cookies, keeps no logs and does no IP address fingerprinting.
- Live demo dashboard
- A demo dashboard can be opened from the homepage before signing up.
- Open-source code
- The frontend, backend and services are published on GitHub under the AGPL-v3 license.
Plausible
- No cookies or personal data
- Counts visits without cookies, persistent identifiers or cross-site tracking, so the vendor says no cookie banner or GDPR consent is needed.
- One-page dashboard
- Visitors, sources, pages, locations and devices on a single page, with a real-time view that updates every 30 seconds and a consolidated view of all sites.
- Goals, revenue and funnels
- Codeless goals for pages, file downloads, form completions and outbound links; revenue tracking, funnels and user journeys come with Business.
- Search and campaign data
- Connects to Google Search Console for search queries, groups UTM campaigns into channels, and shows traffic arriving from AI tools such as ChatGPT.
- Lightweight script
- The tracking script is much smaller than Google Analytics', with automatic scroll depth tracking and built-in bot and referrer spam filtering.
- Google Analytics import
- Brings in historical Google Analytics stats so older data sits beside new Plausible numbers.
Plans
Counter.dev
Free$0
The vendor offers the service free to everyone and says you can start paying whenever you want.
Plausible
Starter$7.50
per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($9 billed monthly)
One site, 3 years of data, email and Slack reports, goals and custom events. Rises with traffic: $19 a month at 100k pageviews and $69 at 1M, billed monthly.
Growth$11.67
per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($14 billed monthly)
Up to 3 sites and 3 team members, shared links, embedded dashboards and shared segments. $104 a month at 1M pageviews, billed monthly.
Business$15.83
per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($19 billed monthly)
Up to 10 sites and members, 5 years of data, funnels, ecommerce revenue, custom properties, Stats API. $139 a month at 1M pageviews, monthly.
EnterpriseCustom
More than 10 sites or 10M pageviews: SSO, sites API, managed proxy, scheduled raw data exports and priority support.
Community Edition$0
Free AGPL release you host yourself, updated twice a year. No funnels, ecommerce revenue, SSO or sites API; community support only.
Ways to pay less
Counter.dev
No public discounts listed.
Plausible
- Annual discount
2 months free with yearly billing
Yearly billing costs 10 times the monthly price: Starter is $90 a year instead of $108, or $7.50 a month instead of $9.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Counter.dev or Plausible?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Counter.dev is cheaper to start with: it is free, against $7.50 a month for Plausible. Counter.dev is free, and Plausible starts at $7.50 per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($9 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Counter.dev or Plausible?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Counter.dev and Plausible have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.