My Complete Plausible Analytics Review and Why I Let it Go

Plausible Analytics came into my life when Google Analytics (Universal) became Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and the day that happened, everything was changed for me.

I didn’t like whatever was happening in my GA4 dashboard. There was no easy way for me to know what’s happening with my website and the real-time insight was somewhere lost, at least for me.

A lot of people experienced the same and a few over Reddit wrote that GA4 is all about deep data analysis so it might work for data analyst but not for a blogger whose focus is on content, and not on technical aspects.

🎀 Ever since I got to know about Plausible, it has been a breeze for me. I’ll just head over to my Plausible dashboard and there it is, everything in a glance. I didn’t have to find anything on that page. From views to sources, location, custom events, everything was just right there. Whether I want to see cities or countries paired with this OS or that browser, I could do it in one click.

If everything was so good with Plausible Analytics, why did I cancel my subscription?

Pricing!! 🙃💲Pricing is the main factor that even after continuous renewals and relying on Plausible so badly, I had to cancel my subscription.

When I started with Plausible, I was into their under 10K visits starter plan which was about 9$+GST/month. But overtime, gradually, when my traffic reached 10K visits a month and ultimately crossed 10,000 visits, they moved me to their growth plan which is for 100K visits, for 19$+GST/month.

My traffic, no doubt crossed 10K visits a month, but it never reached to 11K. That means, I was paying 22.42$ for 10,180/month or 10,300/month.

And this was during the major drop that happened during Google HCU phase.

They don’t immediately push to the next plan and allow a period of 2 months to see if it was a one month fluctuation or a constant growth.

They even emailed me mentioning that I can still subscribe to starter plan of 10K visits seeing my page views but the growth plan would be still out of my budget even if, lets say, my site hits 20K or 25K visits a month.

It will be only economical if my site generates 50K to 70K visits a month.

I tried looking for alternatives but I couldn’t settle for any so I continued with my subscription. There was a moment when I had to cancel thinking I can do with it just like old times with Google Analytics but I was so wrong.

A month without Plausible felt I have no insights, no actual real data for my blog. What users are clicking on, what page they are checking out. All clueless. Which is why I subscribed again. But, I couldn’t keep that subscription for so long.

In about 6 months, I realized that this is now beyond my capability. $270/year made no sense for me especially when my blog revenue is low (or $190+GST when purchased an annual plan). Nope!

And its not like my blog is generating 100K visits a month. I saw no point in continuing the subscription for my 10K to 11K visits a month.

If in future, Plausible decides to launch new plan or increase traffic limits in their starter plan, I may think about it again but as of now, I can’t continue my journey with Plausible Analytics.

What is it that I like so much about Plausible Analytics?

For starters, Plausible Analytics is a privacy-friendly analytical tools that is lightweight and requires no cookie consent.

Then, it answered all of the questions for me on a single page in a glance. I love their dashboard, color theme, and clean and minimal look, easy to spot insights, easy to navigate system, basically, Plausible made it easy for me.

Unlike GA4, Plausible Analytics did not make me feel stupid for not understanding the insights of my own blog.

Their WordPress Plugin made it super easy for me to install the script and toggle ON/OFF the requirements. Be it outbound clicks, search queries, or any other custom event, their plugin managed it all. 🥹

Please note, Plausible has no free tier or one-time payment plan. They do offer 30-Day trial though.

Not to forget they are active on their support emails too. I mean what more I could ask? But at this very moment, I can not literally say this that I am with Plausible at any cost. 😹

I am going to miss my Plausible dashboard so much. 🥺

I am no data analyst and I don’t run a woo commerce store so I had no extremely heavy demands in terms of insights and whatever Plausible offered me, was enough to understand my audience.

Are there really no good alternatives?

I have strained my eyes over experimenting with different analytical tools and reading Reddit threads but truly, in my experience, there is no match for Plausible Analytics.

I checked out Umami, Matomo, Simple Analytics, Koko Analytics Plugin, Pirsch Analytics, Posthog, and every other analytics I could try and I end up liking none of them. Some even showed such incorrect data! 😑

Umami in their free plan offers 6 months of data retention with generous traffic limit of 100K visits and events but their plugin was a disappointment and I had to manually insert separate scripts for each of my requirement. I still couldn’t find my way to track 404s and user search queries.

Matomo on the other hand was way too complicated for me while PostHog made me feel like I am inside a computer. 🤓 No doubt, PostHog does offer some great insights but it’s just not the one.

And Simple Analytics offered only 1 month of data retention. 🙆🏻‍♀️ And again, the data I required wasn’t there. No city wise filter, no outbound links. It just wasn’t the one.

Someone over at Reddit mentioned to me about Independent Analytics. I checked it out and kind of liked it, especially the fact that they do have lifetime pricing and their pricing overall is a lot more cheaper than Plausible. Plus, they are kind and active on email support.

But! When I tried Independent Analytics via Free WP Plugin, it was again a NO for me. I couldn’t filter reports that easily. For reference, there was no option, or no easy way to filter which source sent the visitor to this abc page. I was planning to go with their lifetime plan during Black Friday since there were so many recommendations but I didn’t even like the plugin. 😭 I further contacted the IA team to clear a few doubts and realised the only way to view data is within WordPress dashboard. There is no separate dashboard to view insights. They had no trial either.

Next, Fathom Analytics. Initially, I wasn’t ready for it as there was no free tier (just like Plausible) but when I sat down and carefully went through all the details, it felt like something I can go for. I didn’t sign up for their free trial initially was because their trial required credit card and I sometimes I am just not in a mood to provide full details for a trial. 🙃

Fathom Analytics is still, a lot better than the other options I explored. It had most of the filters I needed such as external link clicks and custom events, and even 404s but the reporting wasn’t as fine in terms of custom events especially when there is only paid plan. I wasn’t ready to compromise. I would have if it was the free tier. 🙈

Some were even so bad I can’t even begin to explain. I feel like I wasted my time over some tools.

Not every tool was a complete package for me. Sometimes it was the UI, other times it was lack of features, and pricing. I need something that makes tracking pageviews, search queries, events, 404s, and outbound links easy. And just tracking, reporting too.

What about Plausible Community Edition (self-hosted)?

Honestly, I don’t understand this. I read their documentation on self-hosting Plausible but all those technical terms and requirements, its something only a developer can do I believe. I asked my hosting and they said this requires a lot more space which is why they don’t recommend from their end. I wasn’t interested in the whole setup either.

It feels like I have officially reached end of the road and there is no right alternative. 🥷🏻

Will I Subscribe to Plausible Again? 🥹

I may…Not! Because sometimes the pricing structure doesn’t really fit with your requirements. I still need to have GA4 for my Journey by Mediavine ads. I don’t have the option for a complete switch from GA4 to other privacy friendly analytics. So for me and for my use, 24$ a month doesn’t really align.

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Final Thoughts ✍🏻

After experimenting with multiple analytical tools, my respect for Plausible Analytics has reached to a new level. If you are an independent publisher or blogger and are looking for an easy yet best GA4 alternate, there is no better option than Plausible. Of course, it depends on your requirements of the data you need. If pricing ain’t an issue, go for this.