Google Analytics vs Piano Analytics (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Google Analytics if

• Fits if you run Google Ads and want to see which campaigns bring in sales
• Works for small businesses that want free traffic reports with raw data in BigQuery

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want to watch recordings of visits, which it doesn't do
• Not for you if you need more than 14 months of user-level history without paying for 360
• Tight if you need data within the hour, as intraday freshness is a 360 feature
• Watch out: Analytics 360 has no published price, and sub-properties and roll-up reports are 360 only
• Watch out: Google Ads data in reports covers a rolling 36 months, and Google signals data is kept 26 at most

Pick Piano Analytics if

• Fits if you are a publisher or large brand that wants unsampled data
• Works for teams that want data from marketing, product and content in one model

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want a price before talking to sales, as none is published
• Not for you if you want to try it first, as there is no trial
• Watch out: the compliance and speed figures, such as 95% of queries under 2 seconds, are the vendor's own claims
• Watch out: it is sold alongside Piano's other products, so scope may be larger than you want

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.

Piano Analytics

• Pricing is not published; the site points to a demo request.
• It is sold alongside Piano's other products, and the pages read describe an enterprise buyer.
• No free plan or self-serve trial is mentioned on the pages read.
• Compliance and speed figures (such as 95% of queries under 2 seconds) are the vendor's own claims.

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.

Piano Analytics

Unsampled event collection

Captures customizable events with bot filtering and tag verification; Piano says it processes over four trillion events a year without sampling.

Data Query

A query builder for exploring the data, whose reports can be saved and reused.

Workspaces dashboards

Off-the-shelf or custom reports can be placed on drag-and-drop dashboards.

Unified data model

Combines data from marketing, product, content, point-of-sale and other functions, available inside or outside the platform in real time.

Privacy and compliance

Piano states that the product is GDPR- and HIPAA-compliant, as certified by third-party auditors.

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.

Piano Analytics

Pricing could not be confirmed. See piano.io.