Fathom Analytics vs Google Analytics
We give Fathom Analytics a 2.4 GPA and Google Analytics a 3.4, out of 4.0. Google Analytics grades higher on value for money, the free plan and features. They get the same grade on ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Fathom Analytics
Cookie-free, privacy-first website analytics priced by pageviews
Google Analytics
Google's free website and app analytics, with a paid 360 tier
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAFathom AnalyticsFair | 3.4GPAGoogle AnalyticsVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | B$12.50 a month billed yearly ($15 monthly) covers up to 100k pageviews, which fits a 10,000-visitor site, across 50 sites. That's inside the cheapest quarter of what this category charges, with every feature on every plan. | A$0 for a 10,000-visitor site, or one a hundred times that size: the standard version is free, with reports, explorations, attribution and BigQuery export. Only Analytics 360, quoted by Google's sales team, costs money. |
| Free plan and trial | DNo free plan. The 7-day trial needs a card and the plan renews by itself, though Fathom emails you before billing starts. A week is short to judge traffic stats. | AFree for sites and apps of any size, with no traffic cap a normal business would reach. The limits that do exist are about history: user- and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months. |
| Features | CPages, referrers, countries, campaigns, events with revenue, Search Console terms and client email reports. It does the page counting job fully, but it's a smaller job than the suites: no recordings, funnels or visitor-level data on record. | BTraffic and acquisition reports, funnel and path explorations, cohorts, data-driven attribution, predicted audiences and BigQuery export. The whole traffic analytics job, graded against Matomo, Plausible and Fathom. It doesn't record visits; that's Clarity's job. |
| Ease of use | BNo rating on record, but there's nothing to set up beyond a small script, or a plugin for WordPress, Ghost and the like. One page shows everything. | B4.6 from 5,249 App Store ratings for its phone app. You can ask questions in plain words, but explorations, events and attribution settings take some learning to get the most from. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, no desktop or phone app. It works with WordPress, Ghost, Webflow, Next.js and Nuxt, pulls in Search Console and old Google Analytics data, and has an API. | BWeb plus iPhone and Android apps, with links to Google Ads, Search Console, BigQuery, Tag Manager, Firebase and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. No desktop app, which keeps it off an A. |
| Best for | cookie-free stats across lots of client sites | free traffic reports for any size of site |
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: Fathom Analytics and Google Analytics. How we grade
Where they differ
- Google Analytics has a free plan. Fathom Analytics does not, though it has a free trial.
- Only Google Analytics lists iOS and Android apps.
At a glance
| Fathom Analytics | Google Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free plan |
| Starts at | $12.50 per month for up to 100k pageviews, billed yearly ($15 billed monthly) | Not published |
| Free plan | None | The standard Google Analytics is free for sites and apps of any size, with reports, explorations, attribution and BigQuery export. User- and event-level data is kept for at most 14 months. |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial, card required; Fathom emails you before billing starts | None listed |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Fathom Analytics | |
| Price read from | usefathom.com | marketingplatform.google.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Fathom Analytics
- Site owners who want traffic stats without a cookie banner
- Agencies reporting on many client sites
- Bloggers and small businesses leaving Google Analytics
Google Analytics
- Small businesses and site owners who want free traffic reports
- Advertisers running Google Ads campaigns
- Teams that want raw event data in BigQuery
Worth knowing
Fathom Analytics
- There is no free plan: the 7-day trial needs a card, then the plan renews automatically.
- Custom events count against the monthly pageview allowance, shared across all your sites.
- Fathom is hosted only and cannot be self-hosted.
- Extra sites beyond those included cost $10 a month or $100 a year per pack of 50.
Google Analytics
- Analytics 360 has no published price; it is quoted through Google's sales team.
- In the free version, user- and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months; 26, 38 and 50 months are 360 only.
- Intraday data freshness, sub-properties, roll-up reporting and higher limits on custom dimensions and audiences are 360 only.
- Google Ads data in reports is limited to a rolling 36 months, and Google signals data is kept no more than 26 months.
Key features
Fathom Analytics
- No cookies or consent banner
- Counts visits without cookies and anonymizes data with hashes and salts, so the vendor says no analytics consent banner is needed. EU visitor data stays in the EU.
- Single-page dashboard
- Pages, referrers, countries, devices and UTM campaigns on one page, in real time, with saved filtered views and milestones marked on the chart.
- Events and revenue
- Tracks sign-ups, form submissions and purchases as events, with a value and currency so sales totals show beside counts.
- Client reports and sharing
- Weekly or monthly email reports covering one or several sites, and dashboards shared publicly or behind a password.
- Google Analytics and Search Console
- Imports historical GA4 data and shows Search Console terms, clicks, impressions and positions beside your traffic.
Google Analytics
- Traffic and acquisition reports
- Shows how people reach a site or app across paid and organic channels, which pages and screens they use, and what happens in real time.
- Explorations
- Free-form analysis, open or closed funnels, path analysis, segment overlap, cohorts and user lifetime value, built by dragging fields onto a canvas.
- Attribution
- Data-driven attribution, conversion path reports and model comparisons show how each marketing channel contributes to conversions.
- Predictions and insights
- Machine learning predicts actions such as purchase or churn to build audiences, flags notable changes automatically, and answers typed questions.
- Google Ads and BigQuery links
- Imports Google Ads, Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360 data, sends audiences and conversions back, and exports raw events to BigQuery.
Plans
Fathom Analytics
Fathom Analytics$12.50
per month for up to 100k pageviews, billed yearly ($15 billed monthly)
Every feature, 50 sites, events and revenue, email reports, API. Rises with pageviews: $60 a month at 1M and $200 at 10M, billed monthly.
High trafficCustom
High-traffic plans above 25M monthly pageviews, quoted on request. The 25M tier itself is $470 a month, billed monthly.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics$0
Free: reports, explorations, attribution, predictive audiences, Google Ads and Search Console links, and BigQuery export.
Analytics 360Custom
Sold through sales: intraday data within an hour, sub-properties, roll-up reporting, higher limits, up to 50 months of data and SLAs.
Ways to pay less
Fathom Analytics
- Annual discount
2 months free with yearly billing
Yearly billing costs 10 times the monthly rate: $150 a year instead of $15 a month at 100,000 pageviews, and $600 instead of $60 a month at 1M.
Google Analytics
No public discounts listed.
