Google Analytics
Google Analytics is Google's free web and app analytics: you add the Google tag to a site, or Google's SDK to an app, and it reports visitors, traffic sources, conversions and funnels, linked to Google Ads and Search Console.
It suits founders who want traffic and acquisition numbers for a site or app at no cost, especially those who advertise on Google.
Google Analytics 4 is free of charge, as checked on 30 October 2026; Analytics 360 is Google's separate enterprise edition.
Reviewed by the IndieHacked team
- What it does
- Google's free analytics for websites and apps: how many people visit, where they came from and which visits convert, linked to Google Ads and Search Console.
- Our take
- Founders who want traffic, acquisition and conversion numbers for a site or app at no cost. Paste one tag or a Measurement ID into Wix, Shopify, Squarespace or WordPress, and if you advertise on Google, the same property reports which ads and searches brought customers in.
- Pricing
- FreeFree of charge: Google's terms provide GA4 properties without charge, with no volume limit stated, as checked on 30 October 2026. A free property has limits: explorations and funnel reports keep user-level data for 2 or 14 months (2 months on large properties), an exploration samples above 10 million events per query, and the daily export to BigQuery stops at 1 million events. The export itself is free, but BigQuery charges once you pass its free sandbox, and streaming export costs $0.05 per gigabyte. Analytics 360, Google's enterprise edition with longer retention and higher limits, lists no price on Google's page and is left out here.
The IndieHacked breakdown
What it does
Google Analytics counts visits and actions on a website or app and reports them back: who came, from which channel or campaign, what they did and which visits ended in a conversion. You create a property, add a web stream with your site's address and paste the Google tag after the head tag, or type its Measurement ID into the built-in field that Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, WooCommerce and WordPress's Site Kit plugin provide. An app stream creates a Firebase project and uses the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK.
Beyond the standard reports, a funnel exploration follows up to 10 steps, open or closed, to show where people drop out. Google Ads, Search Console and Google Cloud connect to the same property, and a daily export sends raw events to BigQuery. Google's MCP server lets Claude Code, Claude Desktop or Cursor query your reports in plain language; it is read-only and needs Python 3.10 and a Google Cloud project with the Analytics Admin and Data APIs turned on.
Who it suits
Founders who want to know where a site's visitors come from and which channels convert, without paying for it. Google provides GA4 free of charge, and most site builders take a Measurement ID in a settings field, so a launch page can report traffic the day it goes live.
It fits best for a founder who buys Google Ads or depends on Google Search. Ads and Search Console report into the same property as the site, so spend, search queries and conversions sit side by side. A founder with a mobile app on Firebase, reviewed here, gets the app's analytics in the same Google project.
Not the right fit for
Founders who want to see how people use the product itself: one person's path through the app, the session that ended in a support email, who comes back in month six. On a free property, explorations and funnel reports keep user-level data for 2 or 14 months. Mixpanel and PostHog, both reviewed here, are built around product events and record sessions beside them.
Founders who want analytics that sets no cookies. Google's terms ask for a privacy policy that discloses Google Analytics and its cookies, and consent mode passes each visitor's choice to Google, but Google notes it "does not provide a consent banner or widget": you add one. PostHog, reviewed here, can run without cookies by keeping its state in memory.
Also on the shortlist
- PostHogAnalyticsAnalytics, session replay, flags, experiments and error tracking on one usage bill with no base fee, and open source.Free to 1 million events a month, then pay as you go, as checked on 30 October 2026
- MixpanelAnalyticsSelf-serve event analytics with no SQL, unlimited seats and 10,000 free session replays a month.Free to 1 million events a month, then priced by the event, as checked on 30 October 2026
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