Fathom Analytics
CE 91Site owners who want clean, cookie-free traffic counts and nothing heavier.
Up to 100K PV/mo, flat account fee$15 / mo
6 seats, no per-seat charge+ $0
Against your $294 ceiling−$279
Team cost$15 / mo
Verified
Reviewed by
Oleh Kem
Oleh KemPlans checked35 / 7 vendors
“Contact sales”8/35
Median entry$49/mo
Entry range$9-250
Free tier5/7
Leader91 Fathom Analytics
Analytics tools compared: pricing, session replay and self-hosting
Every figure here is pulled straight from the vendor's live pricing page, re-checked July 29, 2026, across 7 analytics tools. Weigh each price beside the unit it counts, because a pageview, a tracked event and a monthly user are three different meters wearing one category name.
How much do analytics tools cost, and what is the price counting?
Analytics tools bill by the unit they count, so the $9 entry price matters less than its unit: a pageview on a traffic counter, a tracked event on a product suite, a monthly user on Amplitude. 5 of the 7 open with a free tier, and the median paid entry is $49, verified July 29, 2026. That free ceiling is where billing really starts.
- 5 of the 7 include a free tier, but the ceiling is a volume cap, not a countdown. Cross it and the meter, not a bigger plan, sets the bill.
- The unit under the price shifts by tool. Traffic counters charge per pageview, the product suites per tracked event, and Metabase per seat, so two plans at the same number land at very different invoices.
- Seven of the seven plot a price on the axis, but the product-analytics incumbents keep their real number on a usage meter or a sales call.
- On the event tools, identity is a price lever: PostHog counts an identified event at roughly five times an anonymous one, so choosing to know who your users are multiplies the bill.
- Custom events are not free on the privacy tools. Plausible and Fathom both count each one against the same pageview quota, so event tracking quietly eats the allowance you bought for traffic.
Ranked by a transparency score: pricing transparency 60%, user satisfaction 40%. Capability is not scored. It is the condition grid below. Prices are read from vendor pricing pages and re-checked per product on the dates shown. ComparEdge sells no analytics tools and takes no payment for placement. How the score is built.
01 / 07
Analytics tools ranked: pricing transparency, session replay and SQL
Every row shares one price axis, so moving rightward on it costs genuinely more, even if the unit under it swaps between a site, a seat and a tracked event. Treat the entry as a floor: the free tier caps volume, and the paid meter picks up above it.
Sorted by transparency scorePriced tiers 27 / 35Full disclosure 2 / 7
How to read this table
Reading the console
A blank cell means we did not see that feature when we captured the page, not that the tool can't do it. The score reflects two inputs and no more: the price a vendor prints, and the rating its users leave. Depth is not in it. A privacy-first pageview counter that publishes every band can therefore rank over a heavier product suite that would rather quote you privately, which is a verdict on disclosure and nothing more. The harder caveat is that these tools barely overlap. A pageview counter and an event platform mapping a signup funnel are not substitutes, whatever the word at the top of the column says.
- Price axis
- One shared logarithmic axis, $9 to $2k. A tick further right is genuinely dearer. The tall tick is the cheapest paid tier.
- Diamond
- A flat platform fee, billed per month, not per seat.
- Granted
- Listed on the vendor’s own pages on the verify date.
- Conditional
- Present, but some tiers carry no published price.
- Not on the record
- Absent from the recorded feature set. It means unlisted, not incapable.
01Fathom AnalyticsNo free tier1 of 11 tiers unpricedSession replay not on the recordFunnels not on the recordCohort analysis not on the recordA/B testing not on the recordSQL access not on the recordSelf-host not on the record$15flat91Alternatives to Fathom Analytics
02PostHogFree tierAll tiers pricedSession replay listedFunnels listedCohort analysis listedA/B testing listedSQL access listedSelf-host listed$250flat90Alternatives to PostHog
03MetabaseFree tierAll tiers pricedSession replay not on the recordFunnels not on the recordCohort analysis not on the recordA/B testing not on the recordSQL access listedSelf-host listed$100/u90Alternatives to Metabase
04Plausible AnalyticsNo free tier1 of 4 tiers unpricedSession replay not on the recordFunnels listedCohort analysis not on the recordA/B testing not on the recordSQL access not on the recordSelf-host listed$9/site80Alternatives to Plausible Analytics
05MixpanelFree to start, paid tier on requestFree tier1 of 3 tiers unpricedSession replay not on the recordFunnels listedCohort analysis listedA/B testing listedSQL access not on the recordSelf-host not on the recordFree71Alternatives to Mixpanel
06AmplitudeFree tier2 of 4 tiers unpricedSession replay listedFunnels listedCohort analysis listedA/B testing listedSQL access not on the recordSelf-host not on the record$49/u61Alternatives to Amplitude
07HeapFree to start, paid tier on requestFree tier3 of 4 tiers unpricedSession replay listedFunnels listedCohort analysis listedA/B testing listedSQL access not on the recordSelf-host not on the recordFree44Alternatives to Heap
GrantedSome tiers sealedNot on the recordCheapest paid seatFlat account fee, not per seatScore ranks pricing transparency and user ratings, not capability. Capability is the grid.
7 vendorsMedian entry $49Coverage span 6 → 0 of sixSealed tiers 8 / 35
Scroll the console sideways to reach the remaining conditions.
02 / 07
Shortlist an analytics tool by event volume and what it really costs
The shortlist ranks by what the plan actually costs your team, not by list price. Flat plans are folded into a per-team number so they compare like for like. Only vendors rated 85 and up are eligible.
Seats
6
Budget / seat
For 6 seats at $49 per seat, start with these
Ranked by monthly team cost, vendors rated 85 and up · Your ceiling for this team: $294 / mo
PostHog
CE 90 free tierEngineering-led product teams that want events, session replay, feature flags and SQL in one tool and will read a usage meter to get it.
Boost, flat account fee$250 / mo
6 seats, no per-seat charge+ $0
Against your $294 ceiling−$44
Team cost$250 / mo
Over your ceilingMetabase $100 / seat
Not sure what to weigh? Five questions narrow it faster than the grid.Answer 5 questions
03 / 07
Every tool's plans, verdicts and the date we checked each price
Each row opens onto every tier plus the day its price was read. Ranking puts the tools with a working, public price list at the top, so a bare traffic counter can rank over a suite doing far more, because the counter shows its bands while the suite waits to be asked.
Transparency scorePricing transparency 60%User satisfaction 40%
Site owners who want clean, cookie-free traffic counts and nothing heavier. Fathom counts pageviews and stops there, a plain traffic counter rather than the product suites that track events within an app. Its whole price list is pageview bands, published in the open bar the very top, so a tool that does the least tops a ranking built on disclosure. Cross a band two months running and it upgrades you automatically.
Critical gapThe platform prevents the migration of legacy historical data from Google Analytics environments.
Plan table and expert take
Fathom Analytics: expert take
One plan, priced only by pageview band, eleven steps from the entry tier up, no free tier. Custom events count as pageviews, and two months over a band auto-upgrades you to the next. Data retention is unlimited and there are no cookie banners to wire up.
Where Fathom Analytics holds up
- Bypasses ad-blockers for more accurate traffic data
- Single-page dashboard shows all key metrics at a glance
- GDPR, CCPA, ePrivacy, PECR compliant by default
- No cookie banner required, improving user experience
- Unlimited websites on all plans
4.9CE scoreG2 4.8 · 17 reviewsCapterra 4.8Founded 2018Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 100K PV/mo | $15 | $12.50 |
| Up to 200K PV/mo | $25 | Not published |
| Up to 500K PV/mo | $45 | Not published |
| Up to 1M PV/mo | $60 | Not published |
| Up to 2M PV/mo | $100 | Not published |
| Up to 5M PV/mo | $140 | Not published |
| Up to 10M PV/mo | $200 | Not published |
| Up to 15M PV/mo | $290 | Not published |
| Up to 20M PV/mo | $380 | Not published |
| Up to 25M PV/mo | $470 | Not published |
| Over 25M PV/mo | Contact sales | |
Engineering-led product teams that want events, session replay, feature flags and SQL in one tool and will read a usage meter to get it. The free tier covers about a million events a month; the flat Boost, Scale and Enterprise packages plotted here buy support and higher limits, not entry, since the real cost tracks event volume. Deepest feature set in the table, and it prints a number on all of them.
Plan table and expert take
PostHog: expert take
Billing runs off a usage wallet, not a seat: a free million events, then each event, recording and flag meters on its own. The lever people miss is identity, an identified event costing about five times an anonymous one. Boost and Scale buy support, not entry.
Where PostHog holds up
- Open source with self-hosting option
- Generous free tier (1M events)
- All-in-one analytics suite
- Strong developer experience
4.6CE scoreG2 4.5 · 1,048 reviewsCapterra 4.5Founded 2020Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Pay-as-you-go | Free | Free |
| Boost | $250 | Not published |
| Scale | $750 | Not published |
| Enterprise | $2,000 | Not published |
Teams that already keep their data in a warehouse and want dashboards and SQL over it, self-hosted or run for them. Metabase queries data you collect elsewhere; it captures no events and replays no sessions, which sits it beside BI tools rather than the trackers here. The open-source edition is free with no user cap, and even the enterprise tier names a floor, which is rare in this field.
Critical gapPublic dashboard access requires expensive licensing.
Plan table and expert take
Metabase: expert take
A BI layer, not a tracker: it queries data you already store and prices by seat, five users on Starter, ten on Pro, extra seats per head. Self-hosted open source is free with no user cap. The enterprise tier is the one wall, quoted against a yearly floor.
Where Metabase holds up
- Intuitive 'Question Builder' for non-SQL users to explore data
- Generous free, self-hosted open-source plan for core BI features
- Semantic layer ('Models') simplifies complex data for business users
- Powerful embedding options for sharing analytics in other apps
- X-rays feature automatically generates insights from your data
4.5CE scoreG2 4.4 · 145 reviewsCapterra 4.6Founded 2014Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Open Source | Free | Free |
| Starter | $100 | $90 |
| Pro | $575 | $517.50 |
| Enterprise | Not published | $20,000 / yr |
Privacy-first site owners who want funnels and goals on top of a pageview count, priced by the site, not by pageview band. There is no free plan, just a paid trial, so the Starter tier is the floor. Like Fathom it is a traffic tool and stops where the suites' event tracking starts, and custom events count against the pageview quota.
Critical gapThe platform lacks a free tier for non-commercial projects.
Plan table and expert take
Plausible Analytics: expert take
Pricing is flat per site and stepped by pageview band, with no free tier, only a trial. The catch that bites: custom events count against the same pageview quota, and two straight months over the band forces an upgrade. Nonprofits get a discount on Business, annual only.
Where Plausible Analytics holds up
- No cookie banner needed for GDPR/CCPA/PECR compliance
- Extremely lightweight script (<1KB) won't slow down your site
- Open-source with a self-hosting option for full data control
- All key metrics visible on a single, clean dashboard
- Shareable public dashboards without requiring a login
4.8CE scoreG2 4.7 · 11 reviewsCapterra 4.8Founded 2019Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $9 | $7.50 |
| Growth | $14 | $11.67 |
| Business | $19 | $15.83 |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
Everything above this line publishes a usable price list. Below it sit the product-analytics incumbents: a free plan to start, then most paid pricing moved onto a meter or a quote.
Product teams that live in funnels and cohort reports and have the engineering time to keep an event schema clean. Its Growth plan is usage-priced above a free million events, so the axis shows no fixed figure and the bill tracks event volume, with the top tier held for a quote. Strong on analysis, no session replay, and accuracy depends on how much of your client-side tracking ad blockers swallow.
Critical gapCosts scale steeply with event volume as your tracking logs expand.
Plan table and expert take
Mixpanel: expert take
Under a million events a month it is effectively free; past that Growth meters at a published per-thousand rate and the top tier goes to a quote. Session replay is included to a point, then an add-on. Startups under five years can claim a free first year.
Where Mixpanel holds up
- Deep, flexible event-based data model
- Powerful cohort analysis and retention reports
- Interactive, real-time dashboards and funnels
- Generous free tier with 1 million monthly events
- Strong A/B testing and experimentation integrations
4.7CE scoreG2 4.6 · 1,331 reviewsCapterra 4.5Founded 2009Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Growth | $0 | Not published |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
Product and growth teams doing deep behavioural work, with the staff to keep data governance tight enough to stay accurate. Amplitude bills by monthly tracked users, not events, so comparing it to the event tools takes a conversion first. Its free Starter and paid Plus tier are published, but the Growth and Enterprise plans most companies land on are a sales call, and Plus only shows its rate on annual billing.
Critical gapInconsistent event naming causes data integrity failures.
Plan table and expert take
Amplitude: expert take
It counts monthly tracked users, not events, so any comparison with the event tools needs a conversion first. Two catches: the Plus rate only holds on annual billing, and the Growth and Enterprise plans most teams need are quoted. A one-year Growth scholarship exists for small startups.
Where Amplitude holds up
- Deep behavioral analysis with event segmentation and user cohorts
- Integrated A/B testing and experimentation platform
- Generous free tier with core analytics features
- Real-time user journey visualization with Pathfinder charts
- Predictive analytics for user conversion and churn (paid tiers)
4.6CE scoreG2 4.5 · 2,881 reviewsCapterra 4.6Founded 2012Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Free | Free |
| Plus | $49 | $582 / yr |
| Growth | Contact sales | |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
Teams that want autocapture, every click and pageview logged without tagging events up front, and the patience to clean the noise it makes. Only the free tier shows a number; Growth, Pro and Premier each price by session volume after you install the snippet, which is why it lands last on a disclosure ranking. Autocapture is the draw and the liability at once: less setup now, dirtier data later.
Plan table and expert take
Heap: expert take
Only the smallest teams see a number: the free tier caps at ten thousand sessions, and every paid step is quoted per session volume after you install the snippet. Autocapture is the whole pitch, and session replay stays an add-on on the paid tiers.
Where Heap holds up
- Automatic event capture without code
- Retroactive analysis capability
- Comprehensive product analytics
- Strong heatmaps and session replay
4.5CE scoreG2 4.4 · 1,098 reviewsCapterra 4.5Founded 2013Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Growth | Contact sales | |
| Pro | Contact sales | |
| Premier | Contact sales | |
04 / 07
Compare any two analytics tools: plans, limits and our score
vs
What the records say
Fathom Analytics starts cheaper: $15 / mo flat against $250 from PostHog, 17× apart at the door.
Headcount does not move these bills: Fathom Analytics is $15 / mo and PostHog is $250 / mo, $235 / mo apart.
PostHog carries 6 of the 6 capability columns on the record; Fathom Analytics shows 0.
Users side with Fathom Analytics: 4.8 on G2 against 4.5 for PostHog.
PostHog runs a free tier to start on; Fathom Analytics does not.
PostHog prices everything it sells; Fathom Analytics leaves part of its lineup unpriced.
Pick Fathom Analytics for: Site owners who want clean, cookie-free traffic counts and nothing heavier.
Pick PostHog for: Engineering-led product teams that want events, session replay, feature flags and SQL in one tool and will read a usage meter to get it.
Fathom Analytics
CE 91 · G2 4.8Published plans, US$/mo
Up to 100K PV/mo$15
Up to 5M PV/mo$140
Over 25M PV/moContact sales
Team of 6$15 / mo
Verified July 16, 2026
PostHog
CE 90 · G2 4.5Published plans, US$/mo
FreeFree
Boost$250
Enterprise$2,000
Team of 6$250 / mo
Verified July 8, 2026
Both price lists on the category axis
Fathom Analytics
PostHog
Where they differ
Only Fathom Analytics has on the record
—
Only PostHog has on the record
- $0 tier
- Every tier priced
- Session replay
- Funnels
- Cohort analysis
- A/B testing
- SQL access
- Self-host
05 / 07
Analytics questions: monthly cost, usage pricing, PostHog free tier
How much do analytics tools cost per month?
It depends on what the tool counts. Privacy-first traffic tools start around $9 a month for a small site and rise by pageview band. Product suites like Mixpanel and Amplitude run a free allowance, then bill by event or user volume, so the real figure tracks usage. Across the 7 the median lands near $49, checked July 29, 2026.
What do product teams actually pay for on a usage-priced analytics plan?
Volume, almost always. On a usage plan the monthly fee buys a block of events or tracked users, and everything past it meters. PostHog even charges more for an identified event than an anonymous one, roughly five to one, so the choice to name your users is itself a line on the bill. Estimate volume before the plan price means much.
Is PostHog free, and where does its free plan run out?
PostHog has a real free tier: about a million analytics events a month, with a year of data retention. Past that it moves to pay-as-you-go and the meter takes over, priced per event with the rate dropping as volume grows. The flat Boost, Scale and Enterprise packages are support and higher limits on top, not the way in.
Does analytics pricing hide fees below the headline plan?
Below the headline number, yes. Session replay is an add-on on several of them, including Heap's paid tiers and beyond Mixpanel's included allowance. Custom events count against the pageview quota on Plausible and Fathom. And on PostHog an identified event costs several times an anonymous one. None of these show in the plan price.
Is it cheaper to count pageviews or to track events?
For the same site, counting pageviews is cheaper and more predictable: a flat band on Plausible or Fathom, with the price stepping up only as traffic grows. Tracking events costs more and scales faster, because a single visit can fire dozens of events. Pageviews answer how many came; events answer what they did, and you pay for the difference.
What is the difference between web analytics and product analytics?
Web analytics counts traffic: visitors, sources, top pages. That is the job of Plausible and Fathom here. Product analytics follows individual users through funnels and cohorts over time, which is where Mixpanel, Amplitude and PostHog sit. One tells you who arrived; the other tells you what they did and whether they came back.
What counts as an event, and why does that decide the bill?
An event is any action the tool records: a pageview, a click, a signup, a purchase. The product suites bill by how many you send, so a chatty implementation that fires an event on every scroll can cost more than a busier site that tracks only what matters. On the traffic tools, even a custom event counts as one more pageview.
Which analytics tools still bill by monthly active users?
Amplitude does. It bills by monthly tracked users rather than by events, so a comparison with Mixpanel or PostHog needs a conversion from users to events first. Heap prices by session volume, another unit again. The headline price means little until you know which unit sits under it.
Can you run analytics without cookies?
Yes. Plausible and Fathom are built to run without cookies, which is most of why privacy-conscious teams in the EU choose them. There is a cost to the choice: neither offers a free plan, so the entry tier is the floor. Both count custom events against your pageview quota as well.
On an analytics tool the entry price reveals the least about the bill
Almost every tool here opens on a free plan or a cheap first tier, and neither is the price you keep. The bill is decided by volume: pageviews on the traffic tools, tracked events on the suites, seats on the warehouse layer. So estimate the volume you actually expect before any published figure means much, because the page quotes a floor and the invoice reflects your traffic.
That is why ranking the category on entry price alone misleads. A pageview counter and a product suite that fires an event on every click answer different questions, and the shared word at the top of the table hides it.
Two trackers pointed at the same traffic can report different numbers
A dashboard is only as good as the collection under it, and these tools collect differently. Browser-side trackers lose hits to ad blockers and privacy settings, and on a technical audience the loss runs high. Server-side collection recovers most of it and costs more engineering to wire up.
Autocapture takes the other bet: it records everything by default, so there is less tagging up front and a lot more noise to filter later. Decide what accuracy the decision actually needs before you trust the chart, because different tools pointed at the same traffic can each report a different figure and each be working as designed.
The verdict on analytics toolsSigned review · Updated
The unit decides the bill: a pageview counter, an event suite and a tracked-user platform can serve the same site at prices an order apart. Define what you will actually count, then compare tools inside that unit only.
The free tiers run large, and their edges are exact. Publishing the paid step after free is the test, and a good share of this market does not pass it.
MethodEvery price on this page is read from the vendor's own pricing page: 35 plans across seven vendors, last verified .
DisclosureCollection is tool-assisted; every verdict is written and signed by a human analyst.
06 / 07
Not sure which? Answer one, take a shortlist.Pick the line that sounds like your team. Each one opens the vendor built for it.
Site owners who want clean, cookie-free traffic counts and nothing heavierFathom AnalyticsEngineering-led product teams that want events, session replay, feature flags and SQL in one tool and will read a usage meter to get itPostHogTeams that already keep their data in a warehouse and want dashboards and SQL over it, self-hosted or run for themMetabasePrivacy-first site owners who want funnels and goals on top of a pageview count, priced by the site, not by pageview bandPlausible AnalyticsProduct teams that live in funnels and cohort reports and have the engineering time to keep an event schema cleanMixpanelProduct and growth teams doing deep behavioural work, with the staff to keep data governance tight enough to stay accurateAmplitudeStill weighing it? Answer 5 questions, take a shortlist.
07 / 07
Read next: cost guides for analytics tools, plus related categories
Related categoriesEmail MarketingCRMDatabasesCustomer SupportPayments & BillingProject ManagementCompare two vendorsFathom Analytics vs PostHogPostHog vs MetabaseMetabase vs Plausible AnalyticsPlausible Analytics vs MixpanelMixpanel vs AmplitudeAmplitude vs HeapStill unsureAnswer 5 questions → a shortlistAll categories
How this review is made. Prices are read from vendor pricing pages and re-checked on the dates shown against each product. Condition columns reflect the feature set recorded on the vendor’s own pages on that date. ComparEdge sells no analytics tools and takes no vendor payment for placement. Where a vendor publishes nothing, this page says so rather than estimating. Ranking is by transparency score: pricing transparency 60%, user satisfaction 40%. What a product can do is shown in the condition columns and carries no weight in the number.