Web Analytics · Comparison
Fathom Analytics vs. Statcounter
Fathom Analytics and Statcounter compared across Company facts, Pricing, Analytics capabilities, Privacy & compliance, Data ownership & deployment and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.
Fathom Analytics
Privacy-first, cookieless web analytics with a simple dashboard and forever data retention.
Statcounter
Simple real-time web analytics tracking visitor behaviour, traffic sources, and page performance.
Company facts
Headquarters
Victoria, Canada Fully remote-first company; Victoria, BC is the legal incorporation location.
Dublin, Ireland Headquartered at Guinness Enterprise Centre, Taylor's Lane, Dublin 8, Ireland.
Employees
5 LinkedIn shows 2–10 employees; 3 listed profiles. Midpoint of visible data ~5.
8 Very small team; multiple sources indicate 7–10 employees as of 2024–2025.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$15 Entry plan: $15/month for up to 100k pageviews.
$9 Premium plan starts at $9/month for 20,000 sessions/month.
Offers Free Tier
7-day free trial available; no perpetual free plan.
Basic plan is free forever with 5,000 sessions/month and 14 days data retention.
Free Trial Length (Days)
7 days 7-day free trial on all paid plans.
30 days 30-day free trial on paid plans, no credit card required.
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
100k Entry plan ($15/mo) includes up to 100k pageviews/month.
20k Entry Premium plan includes 20,000 sessions/month. Statcounter uses 'sessions' not pageviews.
Entry Plan Website Limit
50 sites Up to 50 sites included on all plans; additional sites purchasable.
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Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Dashboard updates in real time; also provides a current-visitors API endpoint.
Live visitor feed and real-time visitor updates available on all plans including free Basic.
Custom Event Tracking
Custom events tracked via fathom.trackEvent() JS call or data attributes.
Statcounter does not support user-defined custom events. Goal tracking is URL/page-based only.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Goals are built on custom events with conversion-rate reporting.
Supports URL-based conversion goal tracking; shows conversion rate from landing page to goal URL.
Funnels
Multi-step funnel analysis is not a feature; no documentation or marketing page references it.
No multi-step funnel analysis feature found in Statcounter's product.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue values (in cents) can be attached to custom events; Shopify integration supported.
No ecommerce or revenue tracking feature found; no monetary value attribution in any report.
Heatmaps
Heatmaps are not part of the product.
Interactive click heatmaps available on Premium Plus plan ($19/mo and above).
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Zero cookies used by design; visitor identification via daily-salted SHA256 hashing.
Statcounter sets a persistent analytics cookie ('is_unique') by default. No cookieless tracking mode available.
Consent Banner Required
Vendor explicitly states no cookie consent banner is needed when using Fathom.
Statcounter sets persistent analytics cookies; a consent banner is required for EU/ePrivacy compliance.
GDPR Compliant
Vendor explicitly claims GDPR compliance; conducted formal GDPR review with EU consultants.
Statcounter claims GDPR compatibility, arguing it is anonymous tracking and IP addresses are not personal data under its use.
EU Data Residency
EU Isolation strips visitor IPs inside the EU, but the anonymized analytics data is stored on Fathom's main US servers.
No first-party EU data-storage guarantee; company is Dublin-based but visitor data location is undocumented and infrastructure signals point to US providers (Cloudflare/Rackspace).
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Fathom is a closed-source, proprietary cloud SaaS product.
Statcounter is a proprietary closed-source SaaS product.
License
proprietary Current flagship product is closed-source; an archived MIT-licensed v1 exists but is not the offered product.
proprietary Closed-source SaaS with a proprietary license.
Self-Hostable
Cloud-only SaaS; no self-hosting option documented or advertised.
Cloud-only SaaS; no self-hosting or on-premises option available.
Data Retention (Months)
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36 mo Entry Premium plan retains data for 3 years (36 months).
Unlimited Data Retention
Vendor advertises 'forever' data retention on all plans.
Entry Premium plan has a 3-year (36-month) data retention limit; Premium Plus is 5 years.
Google Analytics Import
GA4 data import supported; Universal Analytics not supported (Google deleted UA data July 2024).
No Google Analytics historical data import tool found.
Raw Data Export
Export is aggregated CSVs (dashboard reports); no raw visit/event-level data export available.
Only aggregated summary reports are exportable as CSV/Excel; raw visit-level data export is not available.
Platform & integrations
Has API
Public Stats API for aggregated reporting plus account/site/event management endpoints.
Statcounter API at api.statcounter.com allows programmatic access to analytics data; requires paid plan.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
17.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
Official WordPress Plugin
Official vendor-published WordPress plugin available at wordpress.org/plugins/fathom-analytics/.
Official Statcounter plugin published on wordpress.org under the vendor's name.
Email Reports
Weekly or monthly scheduled email reports available.
Scheduled email reports available daily, weekly, or monthly with customizable stat selection.
Public Dashboard Sharing
Dashboards can be shared publicly or via password-protected link.
Stats can be made publicly viewable via a 'Public Stats' option; no login required to view.
The verdict
Fathom Analytics Best for cookieless, consent-free privacy tracking
Fathom tracks cookielessly and states no consent banner is needed; Statcounter sets a persistent cookie and requires one. It also adds custom events, ecommerce revenue tracking, GA4 import, and forever retention (vs Statcounter's 36 months), on a 2 KB script versus 17.2 KB. The trade-off: no free tier, and entry pricing starts at $15.
Full profile Statcounter Best for free, low-cost stats with heatmaps
Statcounter has a forever-free plan and starts at $9 (vs Fathom's $15, no free tier), with a 30-day trial against Fathom's 7. It offers click heatmaps, which Fathom lacks. The trade-offs: it uses cookies and needs a consent banner, has no custom events, no ecommerce revenue tracking, no GA import, and caps retention at 36 months.
Full profileSources · 34 verified references
usefathom.com statcounter.com linkedin.com tracxn.com github.com api.statcounter.com + 2 more
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