The privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics: one dashboard, no cookies, no consent banner
Fathom Analytics is a privacy-first website analytics tool. It measures what matters for a freelancer's website (visitors, pageviews, traffic sources, campaigns, conversions) in a single dashboard, without cookies and without collecting personal data. The result: no consent banner to display for your analytics. The company is Canadian, and your European visitors' traffic is processed on European-owned infrastructure.
Freelancers and independents who want to know where their visitors come from without spending an hour a week on it. If you have a showcase site, a portfolio or a blog and Google Analytics 4 gives you a headache, Fathom gives you the essential numbers in ten seconds. It also suits freelancers who manage several client sites: every plan includes 50 of them. On the other hand, if you need detailed funnels, audience segments or custom reports, Google Analytics remains more complete, for free.
There is no free plan. Fathom offers a 7-day free trial (credit card required, no charge until the trial ends, with a warning email before the first invoice). After that, the price depends only on your monthly pageviews, added up across all your sites:
Every plan includes all features. Yearly billing gives you two months free, and you can add packs of 50 extra sites for $10 a month. Custom events count towards your pageview allowance. Prices are in US dollars. Prices checked on usefathom.com in November 2026.
At FreelanceKit, we picked Fathom because it solves two problems at once: compliance (no cookies, so no banner for your analytics) and readability. A freelancer does not need 40 reports, they need to know which pages attract prospects and where they come from. Unlimited history is a real plus for comparing your traffic year over year.
The weak point to know: $15 a month minimum, in dollars, is a real budget for a showcase site getting 2,000 visits a month. Plausible offers a cheaper entry level billed in euros, and Google Analytics remains free if you accept its complexity and its cookie banner. Fathom is mostly worth it if you manage several sites.
To compare Fathom with Plausible, Google Analytics or Google Search Console, see our page on alternatives to Fathom Analytics.
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Fathom Analytics is a website analytics tool built around privacy. It measures your site's traffic (visitors, pageviews, sources, campaigns, conversions) without cookies and without storing personal data, in a single dashboard. It is a Canadian company, and EU traffic is processed on European-owned infrastructure.
Plans start at $15 a month for 100,000 monthly pageviews and 50 sites, then move up in tiers ($25 for 200,000 pageviews, $45 for 500,000, $60 for one million). Every plan includes all features. Yearly billing gives you two months free. Prices checked on usefathom.com in November 2026.
No. Fathom offers a 7-day free trial (credit card required, no charge until the trial ends, with a warning email beforehand). The company explains this choice by its business model: it sells software, not your data.
No. Fathom does not use cookies and does not collect personal data, so no consent banner is needed for the analytics part. If you run other trackers on your site (ads, Google Analytics), they remain subject to their own rules.
Both tools make the same promise: cookie-free stats in a single dashboard. Plausible is open source, billed in euros and slightly cheaper at the entry level. Fathom stands out with unlimited history, 50 sites included in every plan and email reports. For a freelancer with one site, Plausible is often enough; to manage several client sites, Fathom is more comfortable.
Yes, and that is exactly what Fathom recommends during the trial: install its script next to Google Analytics to compare the numbers and estimate your real pageviews before choosing a plan.
What we would use instead, in the same category.
See our full comparison of the 3 alternatives to Fathom in 2026: prices, features and strengths, in detail.
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