11 Best Marketing Analytics Tools (2026)

The analytics market went through a structural shift in the past year. Contentsquare completed its merger with Hotjar and now owns Heap too -- creating one platform that spans experience analytics, product analytics, and voice of customer. Amplitude acquired two companies. GA4 added conversational AI. And privacy-focused alternatives keep growing at 18% annually.

The old question was "which analytics tool should I use?" The new question is "how many analytics tools can I consolidate into one?"

Quick comparison

1. Google Analytics 4

GA4 is still the default. It's free, it's on every marketer's resume, and it has the deepest Google Ads integration available. The free tier handles 10 million events per property per month before sampling kicks in.

The big 2025-2026 addition is Analytics Advisor -- a conversational AI that answers plain-language questions about your data and generates charts. GA4 also added predictive metrics (churn probability, purchase likelihood, revenue forecasting) and cross-channel budgeting that optimizes spend across Google Ads, DV360, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, and Reddit.

Free tier limits: 10M events/property/month, 500 custom events, 14-month data retention. GA4 360 starts at $50,000/year for enterprise needs.

Honest take: GA4's learning curve is real. The migration from Universal Analytics broke workflows for millions of marketers. The interface is powerful but not intuitive. If you're already invested in the Google ecosystem, stay. If you're starting fresh and don't need Google Ads integration, simpler alternatives exist.

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2. HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot bundles analytics into a full marketing automation platform with CRM, email, landing pages, and workflows. You don't buy HubSpot for analytics alone -- you buy it because everything connects.

Pricing: Free (limited tools, 2 users), Starter ($9/seat/month annual), Professional ($800/month annual with 3 seats), Enterprise ($3,600/month with 5 seats). Professional requires a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee.

The jump from Starter to Professional is steep ($9/seat to $800/month), but Professional includes multi-touch attribution, A/B testing, adaptive testing, smart content personalization, and customer journey analytics.

Best for: Marketing teams that want CRM + automation + analytics in one platform and can justify the Professional tier price. The Starter plan analytics are basic.

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3. Semrush

Semrush is primarily an SEO tool, but its analytics capabilities -- competitive intelligence, keyword tracking, backlink analysis, content performance -- make it essential for content-driven marketing teams.

The big 2025 launch was Semrush One, combining classic SEO tools with the new AI Visibility Toolkit. This tracks brand mentions across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Gemini -- a category that didn't exist two years ago.

Pricing: Pro ($139.95/month, 5 projects, 500 keywords), Guru ($249.95/month, 15 projects), Business ($499.95/month, 40 projects). Semrush One bundles start at $199/month. 14-day free trial available.

Best for: SEO and content marketing teams. If you need to track organic rankings, analyze competitors, and now monitor AI search visibility, Semrush covers all three.

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4. Mixpanel

Mixpanel excels at event-based product analytics -- funnels, retention curves, cohort analysis, and user flows. The free tier gives you 1 million events per month, which is generous enough for most startups.

New in 2025-2026: session replay expanded to React Native (joining web, iOS, Android), heatmaps launched as a built-in feature, and AI summaries for session replays help you spot patterns faster.

Pricing: Free (1M events/month), Growth (usage-based, roughly $0.00028/event after 1M, so ~$1,120/month at 5M events). Annual billing saves 30%. A startup program offers 1 year free with up to 1 billion events.

Best for: Product teams at B2C and B2B companies who need deep funnel and retention analysis. Less suited for traditional web analytics or content marketing metrics.

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5. Amplitude

Amplitude competes directly with Mixpanel but differentiates with built-in experimentation (feature flags and A/B testing) and causal insights. The free Starter plan includes 10,000 monthly tracked users, 10 million events, 1,000 session replays, and unlimited feature flags.

Two acquisitions shaped 2025-2026: Kraftful (AI voice of customer, July 2025) and InfiniGrow (AI revenue attribution, January 2026). The InfiniGrow deal pushes Amplitude into marketing analytics territory beyond pure product analytics.

Pricing: Starter (free), Plus (from $49/month), Growth and Enterprise (custom). A startup program gives qualifying companies 1 year free on the Growth plan.

Best for: Product teams that want analytics + experimentation in one platform. The Plus plan at $49/month is a strong mid-market entry point.

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6. Contentsquare (formerly Hotjar + Heap)

This is now three products under one roof. Contentsquare absorbed Hotjar (heatmaps, session replay, surveys) and Heap (autocapture product analytics) into a unified platform with shared AI called Sense.

The Experience Analytics (DXA) free tier gives you 200,000 sessions per month, 10,000 session replays, unlimited heatmaps, and funnels. That's 5x more than the old Hotjar Basic plan.

Pricing: DXA Free ($0), Growth (from $40-49/month), Pro and Enterprise (custom). Product Analytics (formerly Heap) starts free at 10,000 sessions, with Growth from $300/month. Voice of Customer starts free at 100 responses.

Honest take: The merger created a comprehensive platform, but the pricing and packaging are confusing. You effectively choose between three modules (DXA, Product Analytics, VoC), each with its own tier structure. Expect some growing pains as the integration matures.

Best for: UX teams that need heatmaps, session replay, and qualitative feedback in one place. The free DXA tier is one of the most generous in the category.

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7. PostHog

PostHog is the Swiss Army knife for developers: product analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, a data warehouse, web analytics, error tracking, and a CDP -- all in one open-source platform.

Everything is usage-based with generous free tiers: 1 million events, 5,000 session replays, 1 million feature flag requests, and 250 survey responses per month. No per-seat pricing. Most teams pay $150-$900/month.

PostHog self-hosted is MIT-licensed. The data warehouse now has 60+ source connectors. An AI product assistant helps with debugging.

Best for: Developer-focused teams that want to consolidate multiple analytics tools into one platform. The breadth is impressive, but each individual module isn't as deep as dedicated alternatives (Mixpanel for product analytics, LaunchDarkly for feature flags).

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8. Plausible Analytics

A lightweight, privacy-first alternative to GA4. No cookies, no consent banners needed, GDPR/CCPA compliant by default. The script is about 1 KB -- compared to GA4's 45+ KB.

Plausible is open-source (AGPL) and EU-hosted. It now offers tiered plans: Starter ($9/month for 10K pageviews, 1 site), Growth ($14/month, 3 sites), and Business ($19/month, 10 sites with funnels, ecommerce revenue, and Looker Studio integration).

No free tier. 30-day free trial available.

Best for: Privacy-conscious businesses that need simple, clear web analytics without the complexity of GA4. If you need event tracking, funnels, and basic conversion metrics, the Business plan covers it. If you need behavioral analytics or product analytics, look elsewhere.

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9. Matomo

Matomo gives you 100% data ownership, either self-hosted (free) or cloud-hosted. The self-hosted version is genuinely unlimited -- no event caps, no sampling, no data retention limits. You pay only for your server.

Cloud pricing scales with monthly hits: $26/month for 50,000 hits up to $17,900/month for 100 million hits. Premium plugins for funnels, A/B testing, heatmaps, and session recording cost $22-$549/year each on self-hosted.

Best for: Organizations that require full data ownership for compliance reasons (healthcare, government, finance). The self-hosted option is the most privacy-respecting analytics solution available.

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10. Supermetrics

Supermetrics isn't an analytics tool -- it's the plumbing that connects your marketing data sources to your reporting tools. Pull data from 100+ sources (Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Shopify) into Google Sheets, Looker Studio, BigQuery, or Snowflake.

Pricing: Starter (EUR 29/month annual, 3 sources, 1 user, weekly refresh), Growth (EUR 159/month, 7 sources, daily refresh), Pro (EUR 399/month, hourly refresh).

The 2025 acquisition of Relay42 (a real-time CDP) moves Supermetrics from pure data extraction into data activation. Supermetrics AI agents can now query live marketing metrics automatically.

Best for: Marketing teams and agencies that need to centralize reporting from dozens of ad platforms. Not a replacement for GA4 or Mixpanel -- it complements them.

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11. Fathom Analytics

The premium privacy-first alternative. Every plan includes the same features; pricing is purely based on pageviews. Starting at $15/month for up to 100,000 pageviews, scaling to $470/month for 25 million.

All plans include up to 50 sites, API access, unlimited email reports, forever data retention, and 100% data ownership. EU data isolation is available. The dashboard is a single page -- deliberately simple.

Best for: Businesses that want Plausible's privacy approach but prefer a more polished product with forever data retention and a simpler pricing model (same features on every tier).

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How to choose

You need free web analytics with Google Ads integration: GA4. Nothing else matches the depth of Google ecosystem integration at zero cost.

You want marketing automation + analytics together: HubSpot if budget allows, or combine GA4 + Semrush for analytics + SEO.

You're a product team tracking user behavior: Mixpanel or Amplitude for dedicated product analytics. PostHog if you also need feature flags and session replay.

Privacy is your priority: Plausible or Fathom for web analytics. Matomo self-hosted for maximum control.

You need to consolidate data from many sources: Supermetrics connects your ad platforms to your reporting stack.

FAQ

Is GA4 really free?
Yes, with meaningful limits. The standard tier handles 10 million events per property per month and retains data for 14 months. For most businesses, that's enough. GA4 360 starts at $50,000/year for enterprise needs.

What happened to Hotjar?
Hotjar legally merged into Contentsquare in July 2025. The product is now part of Contentsquare's Experience Analytics suite. Existing Hotjar customers are being migrated to the new platform.

Do I need a consent banner with privacy analytics tools?
Plausible, Fathom, and Matomo (in cookieless mode) don't use cookies and are designed to operate without consent banners under GDPR. But consult your legal team -- regulations vary by jurisdiction.

Can PostHog replace multiple analytics tools?
In theory, yes. PostHog covers analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, and more. In practice, each module is less specialized than dedicated tools. It's ideal for developer teams that value consolidation and open source.

Need help finding the right analytics tool? Browse all analytics tools on Toolradar.