starter.wiki

Web analytics platform

Google Analytics

Google's event-based website and application analytics product for acquisition, source, medium, campaign, channel, and conversion analysis.

Visit official site

Editorial verdict

Choose Google Analytics when mainstream acquisition reporting and Google media integration justify its implementation, consent, governance, and reporting complexity.23

Best for

  • Marketing teams measuring source, medium, campaign, and channels
  • Sites using Google advertising integrations
  • Organizations with existing GA4 analyst workflows
23

Not ideal for

  • Teams requiring a deliberately minimal data model
  • Self-hosted analytics requirements
  • Organizations unable to operate consent and deletion workflows
23
Main trade-off

Broad acquisition and advertising integration provides analytical reach, but adds consent-mode choices, reporting complexity, data governance, and ecosystem dependence.23

Product boundary

Whether Google Analytics is the right acquisition and campaign measurement route for the site's consent and advertising ecosystem.

This Tool covers Google Analytics 4 for web and app measurement. Google Ads, Tag Manager, Analytics 360 contracts, and product-behavior tooling remain separate decisions.23

For: Teams whose primary questions concern acquisition, campaigns, traffic sources, site conversion, and Google media integration

  • Advertising and Google media integration are not required
  • The site's consent model rejects the required collection behavior
  • A self-hosted or reduced-data route is mandatory

Why teams consider Google Analytics

  • Acquisition modelOfficial documentation defines source, medium, campaign, channels, UTM parameters, and auto-tagging.23
  • Event-based measurementWeb and app interactions use the GA4 event model.23
  • Consent controlsConsent Mode changes tag behavior according to communicated consent state.23

Pricing

Standard Google Analytics tools are offered without a software subscription fee; Analytics 360 is the quoted enterprise route. Implementation, consent, and surrounding Google products have separate costs.5

Standard measurement

Google Analytics Standard

Verified 2026-07-25: Google describes its standard analytics tools as free of charge.5

Enterprise measurement

Analytics 360

Enterprise Analytics 360 uses a sales-led contract; no public universal price is asserted.5

Software fee
Standard is offered free of charge5
Consent boundary
Basic and advanced Consent Mode transmit different pre-consent signals5
Pricing checked View official pricing

Google Analytics vs alternatives

Plausible

Choose when
Choose it when managed reduced-data site analytics is more important than advertising integration.
Avoid when
Avoid it when rich campaign and Google media workflows are required.
Compared with Google Analytics
A smaller data model with less acquisition ecosystem depth.68

Umami

Choose when
Choose it when open-source or self-hosted ownership is a deciding requirement.
Avoid when
Avoid it when the team cannot operate the deployment or needs mature ad integrations.
Compared with Google Analytics
Greater ownership with more infrastructure responsibility.912

Cloudflare Web Analytics

Choose when
Choose it for free lightweight traffic and performance visibility.
Avoid when
Avoid it when UTM campaigns or custom events are required.
Compared with Google Analytics
Minimal operation with a much narrower measurement surface.1316

Resources and sources

Official product, privacy, retention, and pricing sources

  • Introducing Google Analytics
    Open
  • Google Analytics traffic-source dimensions
    Open
  • Google consent mode overview
    Open
  • Google Analytics data-deletion requests
    Open
  • Google Analytics product plans
    Open
  • Plausible documentation
    Open
  • Plausible privacy-focused analytics model
    Open
  • Plausible pricing and plans
    Open
  • Umami documentation
    Open
  • Umami Cloud
    Open
  • Umami Cloud FAQ
    Open
  • Umami license
    Open
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics
    Open
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics data collection
    Open
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics limits
    Open
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics FAQ
    Open

Related tasks

  1. 1
    Introducing Google Analytics

    Google Analytics · Accessed Official

  2. 2
    Google Analytics traffic-source dimensions

    Google Analytics · Accessed Official

  3. 3
    Google consent mode overview

    Google · Accessed Official

  4. 4
    Google Analytics data-deletion requests

    Google Analytics · Accessed Official

  5. 5
    Google Analytics product plans

    Google · Accessed Official

  6. 6
    Plausible documentation

    Plausible · Accessed Official

  7. 7
    Plausible privacy-focused analytics model

    Plausible · Accessed Official

  8. 8
    Plausible pricing and plans

    Plausible · Accessed Official

  9. 9
    Umami documentation

    Umami · Accessed Official

  10. 10
    Umami Cloud

    Umami · Accessed Official

  11. 11
    Umami Cloud FAQ

    Umami · Accessed Official

  12. 12
    Umami license

    Umami · Accessed Official

  13. 13
    Cloudflare Web Analytics

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  14. 14
    Cloudflare Web Analytics data collection

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  15. 15
    Cloudflare Web Analytics limits

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  16. 16
    Cloudflare Web Analytics FAQ

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official