While Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking virtually everything when it comes to your website. This “free” power comes at a cost.

Free ultimately means giving up your data and soul to Google.

We can do better.

I’ve been testing plausible.io for more than a month. Plausible is a start-up based in Europe that has been a breeze to work with! Their minimal, to-the-point analytics, is a welcomed alternative to Google’s overwhelming dashboard.

With easy-to-set-up automated weekly analytics email reports and a privacy-first mantra, your web clients will love Plausible.

Can Plausible do everything that Google Analytics does? No. Plausible is much more focused on the data that you need, not dozens of datasets that you really don’t.

Verdict: As someone who builds subscription paywall sites for local news publishers, I’m in favor of a paid model when it comes to data. Your data is your data. Let’s keep it that way.