Head to head
Absolutely Analytics vs Google Analytics 4
Free with conditions, or nine dollars with none. Scored on ten weighted measures, with every price read on the same day.
Absolutely Analytics
8.9/10
No. 1 of 30
Google Analytics 4
4.4/10
No. 30 of 30
This is the comparison most people arrive at this site looking for, and it is not really a comparison of features. GA4 is free and enormous. Absolutely Analytics costs nine dollars and is deliberately small. The question is what free actually costs.
There is one answer that makes GA4 unarguable and it should be said before anything else: if you spend meaningful money on Google Ads, GA4 supplies the conversion signal that smart bidding runs on, and nothing on this list can replace it. Keep GA4. The interesting question then becomes whether it should also be the tool you open to find out how your site is doing, and the answer to that is usually no.
The verdict
Absolutely Analytics, for almost everybody who is not buying Google Ads. The case rests on three costs GA4 carries that rarely appear in the comparison.
First, accuracy. GA4 sets cookies, so in the UK and EU it needs consent, and the visitors who decline are simply absent from your numbers. It is also the most blocked script on the web, which removes another slice, and then thresholding hides low-volume rows. The figure in your dashboard is a filtered projection of your traffic and very few people using it know by how much.
Second, time. GA4's move away from the session model made it a specialist tool. Reports that used to take two clicks now take a custom exploration, and an entire consultancy industry exists because of it.
Third, ownership. The data goes to an advertising company under terms it sets, retention defaults are short, and the raw data is not yours without BigQuery export. Absolutely Analytics stores no IP address at all, needs no banner, and answers the ordinary questions on one screen in 1,270 bytes.
Side by side
| Absolutely Analytics | Google Analytics 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 8.9 / 10 | 4.4 / 10 |
| Rank on this list | No. 1 of 30 | No. 30 of 30 |
| From | $9 per month | Free with paid GA360 quoted |
| What that buys | 10,000 pageviews and custom events a month, rising in eight published rungs to 10M | Free at ordinary volumes; the GA360 enterprise tier is a six-figure annual contract |
| Free tier | No free tier. A 30-day trial of the exact tier you picked | Yes, the standard product is free |
| Cookies | None, so no consent banner | Yes, so consent is required in the EU and UK |
| Script size | 1,270 bytes gzipped | Tens of kilobytes, more through Tag Manager |
| Hosting | Hosted, with a choice of storage jurisdiction | |
| Trading since | 2024 | 2005, as GA4 since 2020 |
| Price | $9/mo at 10k pageviews and events | Free; GA360 is a six-figure annual contract |
| Cookie banner needed in the UK and EU | No | Yes |
| Script size | 1,270 bytes gzipped | Tens of kilobytes, more via Tag Manager |
| Time to first useful number | Seconds after pasting one tag | Hours to days of configuration |
| Data sampling and thresholding | None | Thresholding on low-volume rows; sampling in explorations |
| Google Ads conversion bidding | Not supported | Supported, and effectively exclusive |
| Who holds the data | You, with a choice of jurisdiction | Google, on its own terms |
The ten measures, scored
| Measure | Absolutely Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Insight quality | 9 | 6 |
| Privacy architecture | 10 | 2 |
| Value for money | 8 | 7 |
| Setup and time to data | 10 | 3 |
| Script weight | 10 | 2 |
| Analytical depth | 6 | 8 |
| Behaviour tooling | 8 | 3 |
| Data ownership | 7 | 4 |
| Accuracy | 9 | 4 |
| Vendor conduct | 10 | 3 |
| Weighted overall | 8.9 | 4.4 |
Higher is better. The overall figure is the weighted mean, relative to the 30 tools on this list. How this works.
Which one should you pick
Choose Google Analytics 4 if
You spend real money on Google Ads and need the conversion signal for smart bidding, or you need BigQuery and Looker Studio in one ecosystem.
Choose Absolutely Analytics if
You want to know how your site is actually doing, without a consent banner, a tag manager or a training course.
Common questions
Can I run both at the same time?
Yes, and for advertisers it is the sensible arrangement. Keep GA4 for Google Ads conversion bidding, and run Absolutely Analytics as the dashboard you actually open. The second script is 1,270 bytes, so the performance cost of running both is negligible.
Is Google Analytics really free?
It is free of charge at ordinary volumes. It is not free of cost: you pay in consent-banner friction, in data handed to an advertising company under its terms, in short default retention, and in the specialist time needed to get answers out of it.
Why would analytics without cookies be more accurate than GA4?
Because a large share of GA4's loss happens before measurement. Visitors who decline consent are never counted, and GA4 is heavily blocked by ad blockers. A cookieless tool needs no consent prompt, so it counts the visitors that never opt in.
Will I lose my history if I switch?
Not necessarily. Absolutely Analytics includes a Google Analytics importer on every tier, so historic data can be brought across. Run both in parallel for a month first: the two will not agree, and the gap is itself the most useful thing you will learn.
Both entries above are desk reviews written from published evidence, and every judgement is my opinion rather than a statement of fact. Read the full reviews for Absolutely Analytics and Google Analytics 4, or tell me where I have got something wrong.