Fathom Analytics
Cookie-free, privacy-first website analytics with a single dashboard, pricing that scales by pageviews rather than by site, and no self-hosted option.
Who it's for
Solo builders and small teams who want a cookie-free Google Analytics replacement on one clean dashboard, and who are running a handful of sites rather than one at scale.
Standout details
- Every tier, including the $15/mo Starter plan, covers up to 50 sites under one price, so someone running several small projects is not paying per site the way many analytics tools charge
- No cookies or persistent visitor identifiers, so no consent banner is required under GDPR, CCPA or PECR; all plans include unlimited historical data retention and unlimited CSV exports
- The February 2026 V4 release added entry and exit page tracking plus a Google Search Console integration, pulling keyword rankings, clicks and impressions into the same dashboard as pageview data
- Sole-owner bootstrapped since December 2024, when co-founder and CTO Jack Ellis bought out co-founder Paul Jarvis's stake after Jarvis chose to retire; the company has turned down outside investment and private equity offers for years
- Goal and event tracking records signups, form submissions and purchases with a revenue value attached, but there is no way to chain those events into a multi-step conversion funnel with drop-off rates
What it is
Fathom Analytics is a hosted alternative to Google Analytics built around privacy: pageviews, visitors, referral sources and goal completions on one page, with no cookies and no per-visitor tracking. It has been bootstrapped since 2018, and as of December 2024 it is run solely by CTO Jack Ellis, who bought out co-founder Paul Jarvis’s stake when Jarvis decided to retire. Jarvis still does freelance design work for the company part time. There is no self-hosted release, only the hosted product.
Who should use it
Solo builders, content sites and small SaaS teams who want traffic numbers and referral sources without becoming an analyst, and who would rather manage several small properties under one plan than pay per site. The 50-site allowance on every tier, Starter included, makes it a reasonable fit for someone running a main product site, a blog and a couple of landing pages at once. Anyone who needs to trace a multi-step signup or checkout flow with drop-off numbers at each step should look elsewhere, since Fathom has no funnel feature to do that.
What stands out
Pricing here scales with pageviews, not with sites or seats. Starter’s $15/mo buys 100,000 monthly pageviews, ten times what Plausible’s $9/mo Starter plan allows for less than double the price, and both climb from there as usage grows, all the way to a $470/mo tier at 25 million pageviews before custom pricing takes over. Every tier keeps the same 50-site ceiling, so the price difference between plans is purely about how much traffic one account can absorb, not how many properties it can track.
The February 2026 V4 release added entry and exit page tracking, a Google Search Console integration that surfaces search rankings and click-through data inside the same dashboard, and downloadable CSV exports of the full dashboard. Ellis has said publicly that the buyout was about keeping the company running under one owner, not a step toward selling to outside money.
The verdict
Fathom does one thing well: a fast, cookie-free view of traffic and referrals, with pricing that rewards running multiple small sites instead of charging per site. It leaves funnels, cohort analysis and session replay out of the product entirely, so it is not trying to compete with a full product-analytics tool. Choose it for the simplicity, the multi-site pricing and the privacy story. Look at Plausible if self-hosting matters, or at Matomo or PostHog if a real conversion funnel with drop-off rates is the actual requirement.
Honest verdict
Fathom is the pick when a fast, cookie-free Google Analytics replacement on one dashboard matters more than deep funnel or cohort analysis, and when running several small sites under a single plan beats paying per site. The Starter tier's $15/mo floor is $6 above Plausible's comparable plan, and there is no self-hosted option if SaaS-only is a dealbreaker. Skip it if a project needs to string goal events into an actual conversion funnel with drop-off rates, since that gap is a common reason teams move on to Matomo or PostHog once onboarding analysis gets serious.
Published 10 Sept 2026