Head to head
Plausible Analytics vs Fathom Analytics
Depth on one site, or fifty sites on one bill. Scored on ten weighted measures, with every price read on the same day.
Plausible Analytics
8.0/10
No. 2 of 30
Fathom Analytics
7.4/10
No. 5 of 30
The two best-known names in cookieless analytics, both trading since before the category had a name, both delivering a single clean dashboard with no consent banner. People agonise over this choice and the deciding factor is usually simpler than they expect: how many websites do you have?
Fathom includes fifty sites on every plan from fifteen dollars. Plausible includes one on Starter, three on Growth, ten on Business.
The verdict
Plausible, for a single site or a small number, and it is not close on capability. At 100,000 pageviews Plausible's Starter is £9 against Fathom's $15, and Plausible's Business tier adds funnels, user journeys, custom properties, ecommerce revenue attribution and a Stats API, none of which exist in Fathom at any price. Its saved segments are deeper, its scroll-depth tracking is automatic, and it reports traffic from AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which is a question site owners have only recently started asking.
Fathom wins decisively on one axis and it is a structural one rather than a feature: fifty sites on every plan. For a freelancer with thirty client sites, or an agency portfolio, that single line makes every rival's per-site economics look silly, and no amount of funnels changes the arithmetic.
Also weigh the overage policies, because they differ more than the products do. Fathom emails at thirty per cent over and locks the account on day seven. Plausible locks dashboards after two consecutive months. Neither is as forgiving as the tool at the top of this list, but Plausible gives you eight times as long to notice.
Side by side
| Plausible Analytics | Fathom Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 8.0 / 10 | 7.4 / 10 |
| Rank on this list | No. 2 of 30 | No. 5 of 30 |
| From | £9 per month | $15 per month |
| What that buys | 10,000 monthly pageviews, on a Starter tier | 100,000 monthly pageviews; events count against the same allowance |
| Free tier | No, but the community edition is free to self-host | No. A 7-day trial |
| Cookies | None, so no consent banner | None, so no consent banner |
| Script size | About 1 KB | Under 2 KB |
| Hosting | EU, on European-owned infrastructure | Canada, with EU isolation available |
| Trading since | 2019 | 2018 |
| Sites included | 1 / 3 / 10 by tier | 50 on every plan |
| Price at 100k pageviews | £9 Starter | $15 |
| Funnels and user journeys | Business tier | Not offered |
| Stats API | Business tier, 600 req/hour | Not offered |
| Segments | Saved and shared segments | Shallow |
| AI traffic reporting | Yes, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude | Not offered |
| Over your allowance | Dashboards locked after 2 consecutive months | Locked on day 7 at 30% over |
| Self-hosting | Yes, community edition | No |
The ten measures, scored
| Measure | Plausible Analytics | Fathom Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Insight quality | 9 | 8 |
| Privacy architecture | 9 | 9 |
| Value for money | 8 | 8 |
| Setup and time to data | 9 | 9 |
| Script weight | 9 | 9 |
| Analytical depth | 7 | 5 |
| Behaviour tooling | 2 | 1 |
| Data ownership | 8 | 7 |
| Accuracy | 8 | 8 |
| Vendor conduct | 7 | 5 |
| Weighted overall | 8.0 | 7.4 |
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 Fathom Analytics if
You look after many websites. Fifty sites on a $15 plan is a structural advantage nothing else here matches.
Choose Plausible Analytics if
You have one site or a few, and want funnels, segments, an API and the option to self-host later.
Common questions
Which is cheaper?
Plausible for one site, at £9 against $15 for 100,000 pageviews. Fathom for many sites, since fifty domains are included on every plan and Plausible charges by tier.
Which has more features?
Plausible, clearly. Funnels, user journeys, custom properties, ecommerce revenue attribution, a Stats API and saved segments are all available, and none of them exist in Fathom.
Can I self-host either one?
Plausible only. Its community edition is free to self-host, though you carry the ClickHouse operations yourself. Fathom is hosted-only.
Do either offer heatmaps?
Neither. Both take the position that behaviour tooling belongs in a separate product, which means a second subscription to Hotjar, Clarity or similar. Tools that bundle heatmaps, such as Absolutely Analytics, avoid that second line item.
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 Plausible Analytics and Fathom Analytics, or tell me where I have got something wrong.