Hitsteps vs Plausible (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Hitsteps grades higher than Plausible: 2.8 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Hitsteps grades higher on value for money and features. Plausible grades higher on ease of use. They get the same grade on the free plan and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Hitsteps
Real-time web analytics with heatmaps, replay and live chat
Plausible
Cookie-free, privacy-first website analytics made and hosted in the EU
Which one is for you
Pick Hitsteps if
- Fits if you run a small site and want heatmaps without a large bill
- Works for stores on WordPress or Shopify
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free, as it stops at 2,000 pageviews a month and 1 site
- Watch out: heatmaps and AI start on Growth; recording, funnels and uptime need Pro at $21.99
- Watch out: prices shown are monthly; the 12-month total only appears after signing in
- Pricey if you grow, as Business is $49.99 for 1 million pageviews
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
| 2.8GPAHitstepsGood | 2.4GPAPlausibleFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AStarter is $4.99 a month, under 60% of the $13 where the cheaper quarter of analytics tools starts. | 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 | CA free plan for 1 site, but only 2,000 pageviews a month and 14 days of history, plus a 7-day trial with no card. | 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 | BLive visitors, heatmaps, recording, funnels, campaigns, AI and uptime monitoring cover the whole job, although these sit on higher tiers. | 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 | CA tracking script and goals to set up, and no store rating on record. | 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 | BWeb dashboard with an MCP plugin, and links to WordPress, Shopify, Google Tag Manager, Wix and Grafana. | 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 | cheap live analytics with heatmaps and replay | 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: Hitsteps and Plausible. How we grade
Price against what you get
Hitsteps starts at $4.99 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Plausible starts at $7.50 a month and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and Hitsteps starts $2.51 a month lower. Of the other website and product analytics tools on the chart, none scores higher than Hitsteps 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 open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Hitsteps also covers reports, live chat, dashboards and session replay.
At a glance
| Hitsteps | Plausible | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $4.99 per month for up to 10,000 pageviews, billed monthly | $7.50 per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($9 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | 1 website, up to 2,000 pageviews a month and 14 days of detailed data history. | 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 | 7-day Pro trial with a free account, no credit card needed | 30-day free trial of the cloud plans, no credit card required |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Hitsteps | Plausible Analytics |
| Price read from | hitsteps.com | plausible.io |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Hitsteps
- Plans are capped by monthly pageviews, from 2,000 on Free up to 1 million on Business.
- Heatmaps and Hitsteps AI start at Growth; session recording, funnels and uptime monitoring need Pro.
- Prices shown are for monthly billing; 12-month billing saves about 10% but its exact total is shown only after signing in.
- After the trial you choose the Free plan or a paid plan; the site says nothing is charged automatically.
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
Hitsteps
- Live visitor feed
- Follows each visit from the first referrer to later pages and return visits, with a live dashboard and visitors on a globe.
- Session recording and heatmaps
- Replays a daily sample of visits and shows where people click and scroll. Recording is off until turned on and is listed for Pro and above.
- Hitsteps AI and MCP plugin
- Ask questions about your traffic in the dashboard or from your own AI assistant, and see visits that arrive from AI referrals.
- Live chat
- Chat with visitors while they browse, with their journey shown beside the conversation. Available on paid plans.
- Funnels, campaigns and goals
- Campaign and goal tracking starts at 3 on Starter; funnels (20 on Pro, 50 on Business) need Pro.
- Uptime monitoring
- Sends alerts when the site goes down and shows when traffic is affected. Available on Pro and above.
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
Hitsteps
Free$0
1 website, 2,000 pageviews a month and 14 days of detailed history.
Starter$4.99
per month for up to 10,000 pageviews, billed monthly
2 sites, 30 days of history, live visitor tracking, traffic sources and campaign reports.
Growth$9.99
per month for up to 50,000 pageviews, billed monthly
5 sites, 60 days of history, Hitsteps AI (25 questions a day) and heatmaps.
Pro$21.99
per month for up to 500,000 pageviews, billed monthly
30 sites, 180 days of history, commerce analytics, funnels and uptime monitoring.
Business$49.99
per month for up to 1,000,000 pageviews, billed monthly
100 sites, 360 days of history, Grafana integration and 100 AI questions a day.
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
Hitsteps
- Annual discount
About 10% off with 12-month billing
Standard direct annual billing is paid upfront and the pricing page says it saves about 10% over twelve monthly payments; the exact total appears after sign-in.
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, Hitsteps or Plausible?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Hitsteps is cheaper to start with: $4.99 a month, against $7.50 a month for Plausible. Hitsteps starts at $4.99 per month for up to 10,000 pageviews, billed monthly, and Plausible starts at $7.50 per month for up to 10k pageviews, billed yearly ($9 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Hitsteps or Plausible?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Hitsteps 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.