How Analytics Tools Price Pageviews and Events

Analytics pricing splits on one question: does the vendor count pageviews or events. The two words look interchangeable on a plan card and are not. A site doing a million pageviews a month can cost sixty dollars or several hundred, depending on the noun.

Both kinds of vendor publish a full ladder, which makes this one of the easier categories to model in advance. The ladders just do not line up with each other.

This guide reads the published tiers for Fathom, Plausible, Mixpanel and Simple Analytics, from their own pages on October 31, 2026.

The pageview ladder, printed in full

Fathom publishes every step. Its tiers are listed at $15 a month for up to 100,000 monthly pageviews, $25 for 200,000, $45 for 500,000, $60 for 1,000,000 and $100 for 2,000,000.

The ladder keeps going: $140 for 5,000,000, $200 for 10,000,000, $290 for 15,000,000, $380 for 20,000,000 and $470 for 25,000,000. Above that the page says it will help you choose a custom plan.

Plausible publishes three ladders instead of one, because its plans are feature tiers as well as volume tiers. At 10,000 pageviews its Starter, Growth and Business plans are listed at $9, $14 and $19 a month.

At 100,000 pageviews those become $19, $29 and $39. At 500,000 they are $49, $74 and $99, and at 1,000,000 they are $69, $104 and $139. The top published step is 10,000,000, at $169, $254 and $339.

Simple Analytics prints a single figure at the default slider position: $20 a month at 100,000 monthly pageviews, with the slider running up to 2,500,000. Extra seats are listed separately at plus $20 a month per extra user.

At a million pageviews the gap is real but narrow

Set the three side by side at 1,000,000 monthly pageviews. Fathom is $60 a month. Plausible Starter is $69, Plausible Growth is $104 and Plausible Business is $139.

So the cheapest and most expensive published options for the same traffic differ by $79 a month, or $948 a year by editorial calculation. The difference buys team seats, funnels and API access rather than more traffic.

That is the useful shape of a volume meter: the ladder is predictable and the feature tier is the real decision. Response-based meters behave the same way in how form builders price responses and submissions.

Custom events eat the pageview allowance

Fathom's FAQ answers this directly. Asked whether custom events count towards the pageview limit, the page says yes, and that each one counts whether it fires on the website or arrives through the API.

The same page states that pageviews and custom events share your allowance across all sites. So an aggressive event-tracking plan does not just add detail, it consumes the number you sized the plan on.

Plausible's cheapest tier has its own version of this constraint: the Starter plan is listed as covering one site. Multi-site allowances are the thing to check, as they are in how knowledge base tools price editors and sites.

Fathom is unusually generous there. Its page states that every plan includes at least 50 sites, and that you can add extra sites in packs of 50 for $10 a month.

Its own tier data goes further, listing 50 sites up to the 500,000 step, then 75 sites at 1,000,000, 100 at 2,000,000, 150 at 5,000,000 and 350 at the 25,000,000 step. The site allowance grows with the traffic allowance.

The event ladder starts free and then jumps

Mixpanel counts events, not pageviews, and the first step is free. Its page lists 1,000,000 events a month at $0, which is a genuinely large free tier for a product analytics tool.

The step above it is not small. At 1,500,000 events a month the page lists $100 a month on annual billing, or $1,200 a year, described on the same row as 18,000,000 events a year.

Crossing the free line therefore costs $1,200 a year, not a few dollars. The behaviour at the line is the question to ask early, as set out in what happens when a SaaS usage limit runs out.

The ladder continues at $185 a month for 2,000,000 events, $270 for 3,000,000, $438 for 5,000,000 and $840 for 10,000,000, all on annual billing. Above 20,000,000 events a month the page sends you to sales.

Mixpanel publishes both billing modes, which is rare

The same page lists the monthly-billing column in full. At 1,500,000 events it is $140 a month, or $1,680 a year, against $1,200 on annual billing, a difference the page itself puts at $480 a year.

At 10,000,000 events the monthly rate is $1,176 a month, or $14,112 a year, against $840 a month and $10,080 a year. The page states the saving as $4,032, which matches the subtraction exactly.

That is a 28.6 percent discount for committing to a year, by editorial calculation. It is well above the two-months-free convention, and worth knowing before you choose monthly for flexibility.

Fathom and Plausible both sit on that convention. Fathom lists $150 a year against $15 a month, and Plausible lists $90 a year against $9 a month, which is twelve months for the price of ten in both cases.

Different categories land on different multiples, which is the whole reason to do the sum rather than trust the badge. The method is in what annual billing discounts actually save.

Retention and seats are priced quietly

Simple Analytics puts three limits on its free plan: one user, five websites and one month of history, with a badge required. A single month of history makes year-on-year comparison impossible by design.

Its paid plan charges plus $20 a month per extra user, which doubles the $20 entry price the moment a second person needs a login. Plausible lists up to 3 team members on its Growth tier instead.

Plausible's Starter tier advertises no retention limit, and its Business tier lists a Stats API capped at 600 requests per hour. Those two rows decide whether the data stays yours and whether you can get it out.

History and export terms are the part worth reading twice, for the reasons in what happens to your data after you cancel and how client reporting tools price dashboards and sources.

Five rows to fill before you install a script

• The meter: pageviews, events, or both sharing one allowance.
• Your real monthly volume, measured rather than estimated, plus the step above it.
• Whether custom events count against the same number as pageviews.
• Seats and sites: how many are included, and what each extra one costs.
• History retention and API access, which are usually tier features rather than add-ons.

Measure first, then price. Running a second tool alongside your existing one during a trial is the only reliable way to learn your real figure, and the trade-offs are set out in free trial or free plan.

Free tiers in this category are unusually usable, which makes them a measuring instrument rather than a product decision. The same logic applies in how to compare CRM free plans.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a pageview and an event for billing?

A pageview is one page load; an event is any tracked action. Fathom's FAQ states that custom events count towards the monthly pageview allowance, so on that tool the two share one number. Mixpanel counts events only, with 1,000,000 a month on its free plan. Checked October 31, 2026.

How much does privacy-friendly analytics cost at 100,000 pageviews?

Published monthly rates on October 31, 2026 were Fathom $15, Plausible Starter $19 and Simple Analytics $20 at its default slider position. Plausible Growth and Business at the same volume were listed at $29 and $39.

Is annual billing always two months free?

No. Fathom lists $150 a year against $15 a month and Plausible lists $90 against $9, which is ten months for twelve. Mixpanel at 10,000,000 events lists $840 a month annually against $1,176 monthly, a 28.6 percent reduction by editorial calculation.

How many websites does one analytics plan cover?

It varies widely. Fathom states every plan includes at least 50 sites, with extra packs of 50 at $10 a month. Plausible's Starter tier is listed as one site. Simple Analytics lists five websites on its free plan.

What happens when I cross an event limit?

On Mixpanel the next published step is the answer: 1,000,000 events a month is $0 and 1,500,000 is $100 a month on annual billing, or $1,200 a year. The jump is a tier change rather than a per-event overage.

Do extra users cost money on analytics tools?

On some. Simple Analytics lists plus $20 a month per extra user, which matches its $20 entry price. Plausible puts seats in its tiers instead, listing up to three team members on Growth. Checked October 31, 2026.

Bottom line

Pick the meter before the vendor. If you want to know how many people read a page, buy a pageview tool and size it on measured traffic. If you want to know what they clicked, expect an event meter and a steeper ladder.

Then check whether your events are quietly spending your pageviews. That one line in Fathom's FAQ changes the right tier for anyone tracking downloads, form submissions and outbound clicks.

Per-unit meters of every kind reward the same preparation, whether the unit is a pageview, an automation run as in how automation tools price runs and operations, or a credit as in per seat, per contact or per credit.