6 Best Cookieless Tracking Marketing Software for 2026

How we chose

Six tools made this list because each one tracks visits without cookies and publishes its price. Plausible, Fathom, Matomo, Simple Analytics, Umami and Cloudflare Web Analytics were checked against their own pricing pages and documentation in October and November 2026. Prices are in US dollars unless stated otherwise. No hands-on testing was done; this list is based on published pricing and documentation, checked on 13 November 2026.

Ranking is by fit for the job in the title: measuring marketing traffic without cookie consent. A tool that counts cleanly at your traffic level beats a wide suite that charges for features you never open.

Cookieless tracking is a way of counting visits without storing anything on a visitor's device. Some tools aggregate counts with no identifier at all, some use a server-side hash that resets daily, and some count on the server. The practical result is the same for most sites: no cookie banner is needed for the tracking itself, and visitors who reject cookies are still counted.

1. Plausible Analytics: best for small sites that want a simple dashboard

Plausible Analytics is a lightweight, privacy-focused analytics tool that tracks pageviews, referrers, UTM campaigns, goals and custom events without collecting personal data or using cookies. It shows a real-time dashboard and does not need a consent banner for its own tracking.

Cloud pricing starts at $9 a month, billed annually, for up to 10,000 monthly pageviews. The 100,000-pageview tier costs $19 a month, 200,000 costs $29, 1,000,000 costs $69 and 10,000,000 costs $149 a month. All plans include unlimited websites, and a 30-day free trial is offered with no card required. There is no permanent free cloud plan. The software itself is open source and free to self-host, with hosting costs of your own.

Plausible suits a small site or a portfolio of small sites that wants a clean traffic dashboard. Its weak point is depth: there is no session replay, no heatmap and no individual-user behaviour, so it cannot answer why one visitor converted and another did not.

Skip Plausible if you need funnels, user journeys or revenue attribution at a detailed level. Those jobs need a product analytics tool, not a traffic counter.

2. Fathom Analytics: best for many sites on one subscription

Fathom Analytics is a privacy-first analytics tool that bills by monthly pageviews and includes the same features on every plan. Every plan includes at least 50 sites, with extra packs of 50 sites for $10 a month, and custom events count toward the pageview allowance.

Pricing starts at $15 a month for up to 100,000 pageviews. The tiers then run $25 for 200,000, $45 for 500,000, $60 for 1,000,000, $100 for 2,000,000, $140 for 5,000,000 and $200 for 10,000,000 pageviews a month. Annual billing gives two months free. There is no free plan; a 7-day trial is offered and a card is required.

Fathom suits an agency or a site owner with many small sites, because 50 sites are included from the first tier and no feature is held back for a higher plan. Its weak point is the same as Plausible's: it is a polished pageview counter, not a behaviour tool, with no Core Web Vitals or session replay.

Skip Fathom if you run one small site under 10,000 pageviews a month, because Plausible is cheaper at that volume. Skip it too if you need a free tier, because Fathom has none.

3. Matomo: best for full data ownership and control

Matomo is an open-source analytics platform, formerly Piwik, sold as a hosted cloud service or as free software you run on your own server. It is the most complete tool in this list, with goals, funnels, heatmaps, session recording, A/B testing and a GDPR manager on higher tiers, and it keeps 100% data ownership in both hosting models.

Matomo Cloud starts at $29 a month for up to 50,000 hits, then $42 for 100,000, $85 for 300,000, $139 for 600,000, $204 for 1,000,000, $399 for 2,000,000 and $975 for 5,000,000 hits a month. A Cloud plan includes up to 30 websites, 30 team members and 24 months of raw data retention, with report data kept indefinitely. The On-Premise Community edition is free to self-host, with paid plugin bundles from €230 a month.

The word to watch is hits. A hit is any single interaction sent to Matomo, including pageviews, events, downloads, outlinks and site searches, so a site with 20,000 monthly pageviews can use several times that in hits. Budget on hits, not on pageviews, or the first bill will surprise you.

Skip Matomo Cloud if you only need pageviews on a couple of small sites, because Plausible at $9 a month is cheaper for that job. Choose Matomo when a client needs data ownership, on-premise deployment later, or heatmaps and session recording in the same tool.

4. Simple Analytics: best for EU-hosted tracking beside GA4

Simple Analytics is a cookieless, EU-hosted analytics product that uses no cookies, personal data or visitor IDs. Its main pitch is a specific measurement problem: run it beside Google Analytics 4 and see the traffic GA4 misses when visitors reject consent.

The self-serve plan costs $20 a month for 100,000 pageviews and one user, with each extra user costing $20 a month. Annual billing gives two months free. A free hobby plan covers 5 websites and one user, with one month of history and a badge required on your site. Enterprise is priced on request, with raw export, SSO and a data proxy.

Simple Analytics suits a European site that wants a second, uncookied measurement layer beside GA4. Its weak point is price at low traffic: $20 a month buys 100,000 pageviews, while Plausible buys 10,000 for $9, so a tiny site pays more for allowance it never uses.

Skip Simple Analytics if you need a team plan at a low price, because every extra user is another $20 a month. A three-person team pays $60 a month before traffic grows.

5. Umami: best for a free hosted start with an open-source option

Umami is an open-source analytics tool, free to self-host under the MIT licence, with a hosted Cloud service beside it. It tracks pageviews, referrers, UTM campaigns, custom events, funnels, retention and revenue with no cookies, and it includes data export on every plan.

Cloud Hobby costs $0 for up to 100,000 events a month on 1 website, with 6 months of data retention and community support. Pro costs $20 a month for 1,000,000 events included, up to 20 websites, up to 10 team members, 2 years of retention and API access, with extra events at $0.00003 each. Business costs $200 a month for 10,000,000 events, unlimited sites, 5 years of retention, session replays and heatmaps.

Umami suits a hobby site or a small team that wants a genuine free hosted tier and the option to self-host later. Its weak point is the jump from Pro to Business: $180 a month more, with no tier in between, so a growing site should check what Pro leaves out before it needs the next step.

Skip Umami Hobby if you need more than 6 months of history or more than one site, because both limits push you to Pro at $20 a month.

6. Cloudflare Web Analytics: best for free traffic counts on Cloudflare sites

Cloudflare Web Analytics is a free analytics service on all Cloudflare plans, including the free plan. It measures pageviews, visits, page load time and Core Web Vitals without cookies, localStorage or fingerprinting, and it does not track users over time by IP address or user agent.

It costs $0, with no event or pageview limit stated. Proxied sites have no site limit; non-proxied sites are capped at 10 tracked sites. Data covers the past six months, queries are sampled, and UTM parameters and custom events are not supported.

Cloudflare Web Analytics suits a site already on Cloudflare that wants a free, defensible traffic count. Its weak point is scope: it is a counter, not an analytics platform, with no funnels, no goals and no segmentation worth the name.

Skip it if you need to tie traffic to revenue or follow a visitor through a funnel, because that job needs a tool that stores events, not one that deliberately stores nothing.

What each tool costs at three traffic levels

The table shows why the billing unit matters more than the headline price. Matomo at 1,000,000 hits costs $204, while Fathom at 1,000,000 pageviews costs $60, because a hit and a pageview are not the same unit. Umami Pro at $20 covers 1,000,000 events, which is the cheapest paid tier at that volume in this list, if events are the unit you count.

Work out your own monthly pageviews, events and hits before you compare prices. A tool that looks cheap on pageviews can be expensive on hits, and the reverse is also true.

How to choose

If you run Google Analytics 4 today, do not replace it in one move. Run a cookieless tool beside it for a month and compare the totals. The gap between the two numbers is the traffic consent banners were hiding, and that gap is the real case for switching.

For related reading, see Google Search Console vs Google Analytics for how the two Google tools differ, Google Analytics Audit for checking a GA4 setup before you add a second tool, and How to Monitor Website Traffic for a weekly routine. Adziq's analytics service covers measurement setup for client sites.

Common mistakes with cookieless tracking

• Comparing pageviews, hits and events as if they were the same. They are three different units. Convert your own traffic into each tool's unit before you compare prices.
• Expecting funnel analysis from a traffic counter. Cookieless tools count visits well and follow individuals badly. If you need funnels, say so before you buy.
• Forgetting the rest of the page. A cookieless analytics script does not remove the need for a banner if your ads, chat widget or embedded video still sets cookies.
• Paying for allowance you never use. A $20 plan for 100,000 pageviews is wasted on a site with 2,000 visits a month. Start at the lowest tier and upgrade when the meter says so.
• Losing history on the free tier. Umami Hobby keeps 6 months and Simple Analytics hobby keeps 1 month. Export your data before the window closes if you need it later.

Common questions

Sources

• Plausible pricing
• Fathom pricing
• Matomo pricing
• Simple Analytics pricing
• Umami pricing
• Cloudflare Web Analytics

Adziq sells marketing services and does not accept payment for placement in its articles. See our editorial policy.