Clicktag guide: is Google Analytics free? GA4 and GA4 360 costs explained

Yes, standard Google Analytics 4 is free. You do not pay Google to install the tracking code or view standard reports. The free version works for most websites, though it enforces caps on custom dimensions, limits raw event data retention in explorations to a maximum of 14 months, and samples queries over 10 million events. Large enterprises that hit those ceilings have to sign a contract for Google Analytics 360.

What you get in the free version of GA4

Google's standard tier costs $0 and covers core traffic and acquisition reporting, realtime active users over the last 30 minutes (and last 5 minutes), and conversion tracking via key events. It also includes an AI Assistant channel in the Default Channel Group (added May 13, 2026) for visitors from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot, or Grok (medium ai-assistant), which excludes Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Where the free tier draws the line is on property limits, query quotas, and how long your raw event data stays around for custom explorations:

• Data retention for user-level and event-level data is capped at 2 or 14 months. Age, gender, and interest data always expire after 2 months, and Google-signals data maxes out at 26 months.
• Exploration sampling kicks in when an event-level query exceeds 10 million events. Standard properties do not get unsampled explorations.
• Custom definitions are capped at 50 event-scoped custom dimensions, 50 event-scoped custom metrics, and 10 item-scoped custom dimensions per property.
• Each event can carry up to 25 event parameters, and each property can have up to 25 user properties.
• You can set up to 30 key events, 100 audiences, and 50 saved comparisons per property.
• The Data API quota stops at 200,000 tokens per day.

Google Analytics 360 pricing

Google Analytics 360 is the paid enterprise tier for organizations that outgrow standard property caps. Google does not publish a list price on its official 360 comparison page, and upgrading from a standard property requires a signed 360 contract.

Paying for 360 raises almost every cap in the platform. Event-level exploration queries go up to 1 billion events before sampling, and unsampled explorations are available. You can extend other event data retention to 26, 38, or 50 months. Property limits jump to 100 parameters per event, 100 user properties, 125 event-scoped custom dimensions, 125 event-scoped custom metrics, 50 key events, 400 audiences, and 2 million API tokens per day.

What standard GA4 costs you besides money

Even when the invoice is $0, running GA4 carries operational overhead.

First, standard GA4 relies on first-party cookies. It sets a _ga cookie that lasts 2 years to distinguish users, plus a _ga_<container-id> cookie that also lasts 2 years to persist session state.

Second, your reports are not instant. According to Google's data freshness documentation, standard data processing can take 24 to 48 hours. Standard daily freshness takes 12 hours, standard intraday takes 2 to 6 hours, and even the realtime report typically trails by a few minutes.

Third, you have to learn GA4's data model. Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing hits on July 1, 2023, and from the week of July 1, 2024, Google removed access to all Universal Analytics data. In GA4, metrics work differently: an engaged session lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event, or has 2 or more page or screen views, and bounce rate is simply the inverse of engagement rate.

If you only want to see where visitors come from, which pages they read, and which goals convert, a free website analytics tool without cookies gets you there faster.

Clicktag vs GA4 Standard vs GA4 360

Here is how Clicktag, free with every feature included, compares with the two Google Analytics tiers.

Prices and limits checked on October 29, 2026, on each vendor's official pricing or help pages.

Clicktag: a free alternative without cookies

If you are looking for a Google Analytics alternative that does not cost money or set cookies, Clicktag covers website and API analytics in one dashboard at clicktag.app. You sign in with a Google account, and you can add up to 50 websites per account. You can inspect a synthetic sample setup right now on the live demo dashboard.

Installation takes one async script tag (latest.js, about 4 KB compressed) that you copy from Site settings > Installation:

<script async src="https://clicktag.io/latest.js" data-hostname="example.com" data-verify="YOUR_SITE_VERIFY_TOKEN"></script>

Once you verify the site (via the server-rendered homepage HTML, a DNS TXT record, or a file under /.well-known/), hits show up in the Live view within about a second. Clicktag counts visitors using a daily salted SHA-256 hash and deletes the salt shortly after each UTC day ends, while storing no IP addresses.

Out of the box, you get visitor and pageview counts, entry pages, countries (from the browser's time zone), devices, browsers, operating systems, UTM breakdowns, and median time on page (for durations of 5 seconds or more). You also get features GA4 makes complicated:

1. Search Console analytics backfills up to 16 months of clicks, impressions, CTR, position, and queries, refreshes the trailing 10 days every 6 hours, and overlays clicks on your Google visits.
2. AI traffic analytics separates visits from ChatGPT (reading utm_source=chatgpt.com first), Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, while the Crawlers tab connects to Cloudflare with a read-only token to show verified bot hits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and Googlebot.
3. Retroactive goals and 2-to-6-step funnels calculate conversion rates from data you already collected, plus weekly retention cohorts for up to 12 follow-up weeks using the browser's HTTP cache.

Clicktag or GA4: which to pick

Pick Clicktag if you want free analytics without GA4's cookies or processing delay: live hits appear within about a second, up to 50 goals per site include funnels, and nothing sets _ga cookies.

GA4 fits the workloads Clicktag leaves out: ecommerce and revenue tracking, bounce rate (Clicktag shows median time on page and average scroll depth instead), your existing GA4 history, and user-level profiles and audiences (GA4 allows up to 100 audiences on standard properties).

FAQ

Is Google Analytics 4 completely free?

Yes, the standard version of Google Analytics 4 is free to use. It includes standard traffic reports, up to 30 key events, 50 event-scoped custom dimensions, and 100 audiences per property, with no monthly fee.

How much does Google Analytics 360 cost?

Google does not list a public price for Analytics 360 on its official help pages. Upgrading from standard GA4 to 360 requires a signed 360 contract.

How long does free Google Analytics keep my data?

For standard GA4 properties, user-level and key event data retention can be set to either 2 months or 14 months. Age, gender, and interest data are always deleted after 2 months, while Google-signals data is retained for a maximum of 26 months.

What are the limits of Clicktag's free plan?

Clicktag is free with no credit card required, supporting up to 50 websites per account, up to 50 goals per site (including funnels), up to 12 report filters at once, and scheduled email reports to up to 25 recipients per site. It does not offer revenue tracking, session recordings, heatmaps, bounce rate or white labeling, but you can share a site view-only with up to 25 people.

Can Clicktag import my Google Analytics history?

No, Clicktag does not support importing historical data from Google Analytics, and CSV uploads are not supported. Clicktag only supports historical imports from Simple Analytics, though connecting Google Search Console will backfill up to 16 months of search query data.