# A Google Analytics 4 alternative for indie hackers and small SaaS

> Statsy vs Google Analytics 4, as of September 2026: GA4 is free, so here is the honest case for a simpler, cookieless, revenue-first alternative.

Canonical page: https://statsy.co/google-analytics-alternative  
Last updated: 15 September 2026

Google Analytics 4 is free and very capable, so an alternative has to earn its price. Statsy’s case is narrow and specific: one screen you can read in ten seconds, cookieless counting that needs no banner, session replays, and revenue taken from signed Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Polar and Razorpay webhooks instead of purchase events your site has to send.

## Statsy at a glance

- **What it is:** Web analytics with revenue attribution, session replays, heatmaps, funnels and a live visitor globe
- **Price:** From $9 a month, priced by monthly events, after a 14-day free trial. GA4 is free.
- **Setup:** One script tag, about 3 KB gzipped, plus a webhook URL and signing secret for your payment provider
- **Cookie banner:** Not needed in cookieless mode. Auto mode applies it to EU, EEA, UK and Swiss visitors automatically.
- **Attribution:** Five rule-based models with a lookback from 1 to 365 days, 90 by default
- **Not included:** Google Ads bidding and audiences, ad spend or ROAS reporting, app analytics, BigQuery export

## Why would you leave a free tool like GA4?

Because free is not the only cost. GA4 asks for event schemas, a consent banner in Europe, a data retention setting and a week of learning before it answers a simple question. For a one-person product, the time spent is usually worth more than the subscription it replaces.

Three things push small teams off GA4, and none of them is price:

1. **Cookies and consent.** Google documents that GA4 tags set first-party cookies, `_ga` and `_ga_<container-id>`, with a default two-year expiry. That normally means a consent banner in the EU and UK, and a banner costs you data.
2. **Short retention.** GA4 offers 2 or 14 months of user-level data, with longer event retention only on Analytics 360.
3. **Revenue is your job.** GA4 measures revenue from purchase and ecommerce events your site sends. If the event never fires, or the value is wrong, or the refund never gets reported, the report is wrong and nothing tells you.

None of that makes GA4 a bad tool. It makes it a tool built for a marketing team with a tag manager, not for a founder shipping on a Sunday.

## How is revenue different in Statsy?

Statsy never trusts the browser for money. Payments arrive as signed webhooks from your provider, after the charge succeeded, and each one is matched to the visitor who made it. Renewals, refunds and cancellations all arrive the same way and are stored once per payment id.

The matching runs in three steps: the visitor identifier carried through checkout, then an email address the site linked earlier with `statsy.identify()`, then a known customer record. A payment that matches none of them still counts toward total revenue, but it is not credited to a channel.

Credit is then split by the model you choose. GA4 offers data-driven, paid and organic last click, and Google paid channels last click; first click, linear, time decay and position-based models have not been available there since November 2023. Statsy offers all five rule-based models on the same data, so you can see how much of your answer depends on the rule. More detail: [marketing attribution software](https://statsy.co/marketing-attribution-software) and [Stripe revenue attribution](https://statsy.co/stripe-revenue-attribution).

## Can you drop the cookie banner by leaving GA4?

Often, yes. Statsy’s cookieless mode stores nothing in the visitor’s browser and never stores IP addresses, which in many cases removes the need for an analytics consent banner. Rules differ by country and by how your site is configured, so check what applies to you.

In cookieless mode a visitor is counted with a daily rotating key derived server-side from the request, and the secret behind that key is deleted after two days. Nothing is written to the browser, so there is no identifier to consent to. The trade-off is honest: a cookieless visitor cannot be linked across days, so multi-day journeys and visitor-level attribution are only available for visitors tracked in Full mode.

Auto mode, the default, applies cookieless counting to visitors from the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland and to any browser sending Global Privacy Control, and Full mode everywhere else. Our [cookie policy](https://statsy.co/cookies) lists exactly what each mode stores.

## How do Statsy and Google Analytics 4 compare?

GA4 wins on price, scale, ad platform integration and depth of reporting. Statsy wins on setup time, cookieless defaults, revenue straight from the payment provider and session replays in the same tool. The table cites Google’s own documentation, checked September 2026.

|  | Statsy | Google Analytics 4 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | From $9 a month after a 14-day free trial | Free; Analytics 360 is a paid contract |
| Attribution models | Last touch, first touch, linear, time decay, position based | Data-driven, paid and organic last click, Google paid channels last click |
| Lookback window | 1 to 365 days, 90 by default | 90 days by default for most key events (30 or 60 selectable); 30 days for acquisition events |
| Where revenue comes from | Signed webhooks from five payment providers, or the Payment API | Purchase and ecommerce events your site sends |
| Cookies | None in cookieless mode; one first-party cookie in Full mode | _ga and _ga_<container-id>, default expiry two years |
| Data retention | Raw events and sessions 90 days; aggregates kept longer | User data 2 or 14 months; longer event retention on 360 only |
| Session replays and heatmaps | Both included on every plan | Not part of GA4 |
| Ad platforms | None. No ad spend or ROAS reporting. | Google Ads bidding, audiences and conversion import |

GA4 sources, checked September 2026: [Google Analytics overview](https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/), [attribution models](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10596866), [lookback windows](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10597962), [ecommerce measurement](https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ga4/ecommerce), [cookie usage](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11397207) and [data retention](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/7667196).

## When should you keep Google Analytics 4?

Keep GA4 when you buy Google Ads, when you need audiences and conversion import for bidding, when you report on a mobile app as well as a website, or when someone downstream depends on BigQuery exports. Statsy has no ad platform integrations and does not report ad spend.

- You run paid campaigns and need conversions fed back to Google Ads for bidding.
- You need app and web reporting in one property.
- You need raw event export into a warehouse for your own modelling.
- Your budget genuinely will not stretch. GA4 is free; that is a fair reason and we will not argue with it.

## How do you move from GA4 to Statsy?

Leave GA4 running. Add the Statsy script to every page, connect your payment provider’s webhook, and recreate your handful of important goals. After a week the two dashboards will be close enough to compare, and you can decide whether to keep both or drop one.

1. Add the Statsy script, about 3 KB gzipped and loaded with defer, or ask your AI coding agent to do it.
2. Connect Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Polar or Razorpay with a webhook URL and signing secret.
3. Recreate the two or three goals you actually look at. Skip the rest; most GA4 events never get read.
4. Connect Google Search Console if you want search queries next to what they earn.
5. Compare for a week or two. Numbers will differ a little; bot filtering and session rules are not the same in any two tools.

## Google Analytics alternative FAQ

### Is Statsy free like Google Analytics 4?

No. GA4 is free. Statsy has a 14-day free trial with every feature on and a card required, then plans from $9 a month priced by monthly events. There is no free plan.

### Do I still need a cookie banner if I use Statsy?

For analytics, often not. Cookieless mode stores nothing in the browser and no IP address is ever kept. Other tools on your site may still need consent, and local rules differ, so check your own situation.

### Can I import my Google Analytics history?

No. Statsy starts counting from the day you install the script. Keep GA4 running alongside it for as long as you want the older numbers available for comparison and reporting.

### Will Statsy tell me which Google keywords make money?

Yes, through Google Search Console. Connect a property and search queries sync daily, appearing as a keyword dimension next to the visits, sign-ups and revenue each one produced.

### Does Statsy work with Google Tag Manager?

Yes. The script can be installed through Google Tag Manager, or pasted directly into your HTML, WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Framer or Next.js site. One tag is all it needs.

### Can I run Statsy and GA4 together?

Yes, and most people do at first. Statsy does not interfere with Google Analytics or any other analytics script, so you can compare both for as long as you like before removing either.

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Statsy (https://statsy.co) · Contact: support@statsy.co