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It sounds like a nice product, but sadly it's not exactly why GA is so popular (being a 'nice' product, that is). It is popular, because it's free, relatively e

It sounds like a nice product, but sadly it's not exactly why GA is so popular (being a 'nice' product, that is). It is popular, because it's free, relatively easy to implement on any website, requires no self-hosting and powerful, once running. I've checked your website for pricing, but not only there's no word about free tiers, but there isn't even anything on the pricing at all. So, when it comes to majority of GA users, it's not a competitive solution.

burkaman 7y ago
Pricing is close to the bottom of the home page.
- tachion 7y ago
  Indeed it is, I stand corrected :) However, when I was looking at it, I've skimmed through the top menu (nothing), scrolled down to the footer (noting) and finally clicked the Documentation link (nothing). Apparently the pricing info isn't exposed well enough.
- mikeg8 7y ago
  Thanks. I didn't check the homepage and looked for pricing info in the navigation links, felt it was needlessly difficult. Pricing should be easy to locate from every page for a product like this.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Discovering that users are having difficulty finding pricing information... might be one useful piece of data you could garner with a good analytics tool. Also I just checked out the pricing's placement and that is utterly terrible UI - the site uses light greyshade striping in the background for difference sections and then has the pricing block proceeded by a very dark background block with no information immediately visible - this is a clear visual flag for the rest of a page being irrelevant and a footer. And, just to clarify, the site's actual footer uses the exact same coloring for the footer along with a similar amount of excessive top-padding.
    - shortstuffsushi 7y ago
      Genuine question, how would you find that users are struggling to find pricing using an analytics tool? How would you set that up / what would you look for to identify that? Something like scrolling around / back and forth implying they're struggling to find data or something?
      - munk-a 7y ago
        A good signal would probably be dithering as you mentioned above - either scrolling back and forth through sections or navigating through different components if you website has a paged layout. Additionally, as a business, you want to make sure users are following a pretty predictable flow through some limited entry points (like homepage, FAQ, information bulletins) - then either to pricing and then additional information or additional information then pricing (then, ideally, a sale). If a user is returning to the entry point (i.e. a flow like information bulletins > home page > FAQ > information bulletins) and that happens enough then you can assume that some information users want after the FAQ (maybe, ideally, you think the pricing) isn't being delivered to them and so they're returning to their entry point to see if they browsed the information incorrectly. If you've got good stats on how far down on a page people are scrolling that could also be something helpful to detect the specific UI issue I mentioned in the post above. Edit: I might suggest Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug[1] as a resource if you'd like to learn a bit more about user flow analysis. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
        shortstuffsushi 7y ago
        Hmm, fair enough. This is ~what I was thinking, making inference from their flow through the site. I have seen that book on the desk of design folks I've worked with, but I've not looked through it... not a bad idea though. Thanks.
y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
There's a big blue button at the top of the page that says "Start Free Trial". Click it and you get this: - Quick and easy to set up - No credit card required - Unlimited use during the trial - From just $6/mo after the trial Looks like a flat fee? Hard to tell from that wording. They should make this more visible on the front-page and elaborate on the "from just $6/mo".
- FalconSensei 7y ago
  Usually I look for a 'pricing' tab. Clicking on 'start free trial' tell me they are going to ask me for my email, instead of telling me how pricing works
- dkersten 7y ago
  “From X” doesn’t sound like a flat fee, but either tiered or usage based, where the $6/m is the lowest possible you can pay.
  - thoraway1010 7y ago
    I think if they can just be clear that they will do 10 million impressions per property per month for free forever that would clarify the free tier (and match google I think).
    - Richs99 7y ago
      We do over 25m impressions a month and it's still get GA for free
      - malodyets 7y ago
        I don't see why the price of GA is relevant to plausible's pricing. With Google analytics, you are the product, not the customer. Free ad-supported SaaS is really a different value proposition from non-ad-supported paid services.
- throwaway894345 7y ago
lucideer 7y ago
> It is popular, because it's free, relatively easy to implement on any website, requires no self-hosting and powerful, once running Tbh, I disagree. While a lot of the above is true, it's largely popular because it's a recognisable brand, and because the majority of frontend devs are already familiar with it and haven't felt the need to explore an alternative (network effect). While an alternative does really need to be free and easy to implement, it also needs to address the above two hurdles, which is a tough ask.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Photoshop is the defacto-standard in image editing, yet clones which are free and copy the photoshop UI are rapidly catching up for a segment of the userbase, eg. photopea.com If someone set up a Scroogle Analoytics which had a simple code snippet, was free, and had near-identical looking dashboard, I'd use it.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Many people are quite surprised to know that Photoshop has actual competition, even when they don’t really want to pay for the actual thing. It’s often easier to just pay for it than try an alternative which may or many not be right for their needs.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    While GA is free Photoshop has one of the most insanely bloated pricing approaches for casual usage - the fact it's handed out like candy to students (and various institutions allow this instead of familiarizing students with alternatives) is the only reason its kept such a dominant market position. If your boss asks you for some analytics about site usage the first thing searching the web will turn up is GA and you can have it set up on a test env in less than half an hour including acquiring an API key and reading enough docs to configure it.
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      I use Photoshop alternatives because they're cheaper than maintaining a perpetual license/subscription, but Photoshop is the big gorilla because it is the best photo editing app in the industry today. Bar none. And that's what lets them get away with their pricing structure. Nobody would pay for Photoshop if it didn't provide value.
DevKoala 7y ago
Nothing is “free”. You are selling Google your visitor’s data so that they can let you take a peek at a subset of what they collect.
- hk__2 7y ago
  > Nothing is “free” Can we stop with this nitpicking? You’re not paying any money, so it’s “free”. That Google analyses your data is another story: it could do it whether you’re paying or not.
  - DevKoala 7y ago
    Google cannot analyze your user traffic if they don't have a pixel on your site. What are they going to do? Look at your traffic logs? Designing a website that has traffic insights while respecting your visitor's privacy requires effort. If you want to delegate the insights, you can pay for it or let Google look at your data. The data goes straight into their ad exchange analysis. In fact, you cannot publish Google ads on your site unless you have had google analytics running on your site for a while.
nsgi 7y ago
Also, unlike many smaller analytics providers, Google Analytics doesn't have glaring CSRF vulnerabilities and doesn't have creepy features that let you spy on individual users (no idea if this applies to Plausible or not).
- clairity 7y ago
  > "[GA]...doesn't have creepy features that let you spy on individual users" google reserves that for itself so as not to lose it's dominance of online advertising and targeting. why would they share their bread and butter with the little guys?
  - nsgi 7y ago
    No idea if that's true or not regarding Google Analytics, but you can opt out of all data sharing and I imagine Google would be in a lot of trouble if they didn't honour that.
    - hedora 7y ago
      There is no comprehensive opt out to Google tracking. If you disagree, show me the button that opts out of doubleclick (and all Google subsidiaries and data sharing partners) targeting ads at my home IP address, cell phone, car, etc.
      - aiiane 7y ago
        https://adssettings.google.com/ https://adssettings.google.com/
        ses1984 7y ago
        Opting out of targeted ads is NOT the same as opting out of tracking.
        joshuamorton 7y ago
markosaric 7y ago
thanks for your feedback! We had pricing on the home page but have now added a pricing link in the top menu too :)
adelHBN 7y ago
I had the free version of Google Analytics, but ended up buying MonsterInsights on sale today so that I can see deeper - demographics, etc.

burkaman 7y ago

Pricing is close to the bottom of the home page.

tachion 7y ago
Indeed it is, I stand corrected :) However, when I was looking at it, I've skimmed through the top menu (nothing), scrolled down to the footer (noting) and finally clicked the Documentation link (nothing). Apparently the pricing info isn't exposed well enough.
mikeg8 7y ago
Thanks. I didn't check the homepage and looked for pricing info in the navigation links, felt it was needlessly difficult. Pricing should be easy to locate from every page for a product like this.
- munk-a 7y ago
  Discovering that users are having difficulty finding pricing information... might be one useful piece of data you could garner with a good analytics tool. Also I just checked out the pricing's placement and that is utterly terrible UI - the site uses light greyshade striping in the background for difference sections and then has the pricing block proceeded by a very dark background block with no information immediately visible - this is a clear visual flag for the rest of a page being irrelevant and a footer. And, just to clarify, the site's actual footer uses the exact same coloring for the footer along with a similar amount of excessive top-padding.
  - shortstuffsushi 7y ago
    Genuine question, how would you find that users are struggling to find pricing using an analytics tool? How would you set that up / what would you look for to identify that? Something like scrolling around / back and forth implying they're struggling to find data or something?
    - munk-a 7y ago
      A good signal would probably be dithering as you mentioned above - either scrolling back and forth through sections or navigating through different components if you website has a paged layout. Additionally, as a business, you want to make sure users are following a pretty predictable flow through some limited entry points (like homepage, FAQ, information bulletins) - then either to pricing and then additional information or additional information then pricing (then, ideally, a sale). If a user is returning to the entry point (i.e. a flow like information bulletins > home page > FAQ > information bulletins) and that happens enough then you can assume that some information users want after the FAQ (maybe, ideally, you think the pricing) isn't being delivered to them and so they're returning to their entry point to see if they browsed the information incorrectly. If you've got good stats on how far down on a page people are scrolling that could also be something helpful to detect the specific UI issue I mentioned in the post above. Edit: I might suggest Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug[1] as a resource if you'd like to learn a bit more about user flow analysis. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
      - shortstuffsushi 7y ago
        Hmm, fair enough. This is ~what I was thinking, making inference from their flow through the site. I have seen that book on the desk of design folks I've worked with, but I've not looked through it... not a bad idea though. Thanks.

y-c-o-m-b 7y ago

There's a big blue button at the top of the page that says "Start Free Trial". Click it and you get this: - Quick and easy to set up - No credit card required - Unlimited use during the trial - From just $6/mo after the trial Looks like a flat fee? Hard to tell from that wording. They should make this more visible on the front-page and elaborate on the "from just $6/mo".

FalconSensei 7y ago
Usually I look for a 'pricing' tab. Clicking on 'start free trial' tell me they are going to ask me for my email, instead of telling me how pricing works
dkersten 7y ago
“From X” doesn’t sound like a flat fee, but either tiered or usage based, where the $6/m is the lowest possible you can pay.
- thoraway1010 7y ago
  I think if they can just be clear that they will do 10 million impressions per property per month for free forever that would clarify the free tier (and match google I think).
  - Richs99 7y ago
    We do over 25m impressions a month and it's still get GA for free
    - malodyets 7y ago
      I don't see why the price of GA is relevant to plausible's pricing. With Google analytics, you are the product, not the customer. Free ad-supported SaaS is really a different value proposition from non-ad-supported paid services.
throwaway894345 7y ago

lucideer 7y ago

> It is popular, because it's free, relatively easy to implement on any website, requires no self-hosting and powerful, once running Tbh, I disagree. While a lot of the above is true, it's largely popular because it's a recognisable brand, and because the majority of frontend devs are already familiar with it and haven't felt the need to explore an alternative (network effect). While an alternative does really need to be free and easy to implement, it also needs to address the above two hurdles, which is a tough ask.

londons_explore 7y ago
Photoshop is the defacto-standard in image editing, yet clones which are free and copy the photoshop UI are rapidly catching up for a segment of the userbase, eg. photopea.com If someone set up a Scroogle Analoytics which had a simple code snippet, was free, and had near-identical looking dashboard, I'd use it.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Many people are quite surprised to know that Photoshop has actual competition, even when they don’t really want to pay for the actual thing. It’s often easier to just pay for it than try an alternative which may or many not be right for their needs.
- munk-a 7y ago
  While GA is free Photoshop has one of the most insanely bloated pricing approaches for casual usage - the fact it's handed out like candy to students (and various institutions allow this instead of familiarizing students with alternatives) is the only reason its kept such a dominant market position. If your boss asks you for some analytics about site usage the first thing searching the web will turn up is GA and you can have it set up on a test env in less than half an hour including acquiring an API key and reading enough docs to configure it.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    I use Photoshop alternatives because they're cheaper than maintaining a perpetual license/subscription, but Photoshop is the big gorilla because it is the best photo editing app in the industry today. Bar none. And that's what lets them get away with their pricing structure. Nobody would pay for Photoshop if it didn't provide value.

DevKoala 7y ago

Nothing is “free”. You are selling Google your visitor’s data so that they can let you take a peek at a subset of what they collect.

hk__2 7y ago
> Nothing is “free” Can we stop with this nitpicking? You’re not paying any money, so it’s “free”. That Google analyses your data is another story: it could do it whether you’re paying or not.
- DevKoala 7y ago
  Google cannot analyze your user traffic if they don't have a pixel on your site. What are they going to do? Look at your traffic logs? Designing a website that has traffic insights while respecting your visitor's privacy requires effort. If you want to delegate the insights, you can pay for it or let Google look at your data. The data goes straight into their ad exchange analysis. In fact, you cannot publish Google ads on your site unless you have had google analytics running on your site for a while.

nsgi 7y ago

Also, unlike many smaller analytics providers, Google Analytics doesn't have glaring CSRF vulnerabilities and doesn't have creepy features that let you spy on individual users (no idea if this applies to Plausible or not).

clairity 7y ago
> "[GA]...doesn't have creepy features that let you spy on individual users" google reserves that for itself so as not to lose it's dominance of online advertising and targeting. why would they share their bread and butter with the little guys?
- nsgi 7y ago
  No idea if that's true or not regarding Google Analytics, but you can opt out of all data sharing and I imagine Google would be in a lot of trouble if they didn't honour that.
  - hedora 7y ago
    There is no comprehensive opt out to Google tracking. If you disagree, show me the button that opts out of doubleclick (and all Google subsidiaries and data sharing partners) targeting ads at my home IP address, cell phone, car, etc.
    - aiiane 7y ago
      https://adssettings.google.com/ https://adssettings.google.com/
      - ses1984 7y ago
        Opting out of targeted ads is NOT the same as opting out of tracking.
        joshuamorton 7y ago

markosaric 7y ago

thanks for your feedback! We had pricing on the home page but have now added a pricing link in the top menu too :)

adelHBN 7y ago

I had the free version of Google Analytics, but ended up buying MonsterInsights on sale today so that I can see deeper - demographics, etc.