Paid analytics vs free analytics
Free tools rarely come without a catch. PureMetrix is funded by subscriptions (try Starter for 14 days, then pick a paid plan): you pay for the service, and your visitor data is not the product.
What “free” usually costs
- Your data as the product: large free platforms earn money from advertising and the user data around it
- Complexity: you spend hours on tags, Consent Mode and complex reports
- Lock-in: historical data and exports that only make sense inside that provider’s tool
- Maintenance: “free” self-hosted tools still cost servers, backups and weekends
What you pay for with PureMetrix
- Data collection and storage in the EU (Hetzner)
- Cookieless measurement with a documented data policy
- Plans for teams, goals and integrations (WordPress, npm, Next.js, Shopify, GTM)
- Billing via Stripe — no credit card for the 14-day Starter trial
When free is fine
A personal blog, or a quick look at Cloudflare’s free statistics, may not need a paid analytics plan. When legal, marketing and tech share one dashboard—and you want a data processor that is not an advertising company—focused paid analytics usually costs less than the staff time spent wrestling with GA4.
See pricing, how to choose, and fit check.
Last updated: September 2026