Visitant vs Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is the free default for almost every site and the deepest tool on this list. Visitant is a cookie-free analytics tool for shop and blog owners that also shows what AI crawlers and AI assistants do with your site. In our view: keep GA4 if you live in Google Ads; pick Visitant if you want a banner-free report you can read in 5 minutes and the AI side of your traffic.
- GA4 costs $0 at any volume; Visitant costs $0 up to 5,000 events a month and $12 at 100,000.
- GA4 sets the
_gacookie for 2 years and Google's EU User Consent Policy requires consent from EEA visitors; Visitant sets no cookies and stores no IP address. - GA4 keeps event data for 2 months by default and 14 months at most on a standard property; Visitant keeps 13 months on Free and 5 years on Pro.
- GA4 has an AI Assistant channel since 13 May 2026 (5 named assistants); Visitant groups 21 assistants and also logs 44 AI crawlers on the server, which GA4 cannot see.
- The GA4 tag weighs 151 KB gzipped (our measurement of
gtag.json 2026-09-25); Visitant's script weighs 1.9 KB gzipped.
Prices and features checked 2026-09-25 at marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/. If something changed, tell us: promptowy@gmail.com
Features
| Visitant | Google Analytics 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie-free | yesno cookies, no local storage | no_ga and _ga_*, 2 years |
| Works without a consent banner in the EU | yes | noGoogle's EU User Consent Policy |
| Country without storing the IP | yescountry from the browser time zone | nolocation derived from the IP |
| EU hosting | yesPoland | noGoogle servers, no EU-only option in the standard product |
| Script size | yes1.9 KB gzipped | no151 KB gzipped, measured 2026-09-25 |
| AI crawler log (server-side) | yes44 crawlers: training / AI search / user fetch, checked against IP ranges | no |
| AI assistants as a channel | yes21 assistants, each listed separately | yesAI Assistant channel since 13 May 2026: ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot, Grok |
| "Likely AI" estimate from text-fragment landings | yes | no |
| AI agents kept out of human counts | yesSignature-Agent, webdriver | no |
| Goals and custom events | yesno-code data-v-event | yes |
| Funnels | yesPro and up | yesFunnel exploration |
| Revenue per source and per assistant | yesPro and up | partialrevenue per source yes; per assistant only for the 5 named ones |
| Data retention | yes13 months Free, 5 years Pro and up | partial2 months default, 14 months max; 26-50 months only in 360 |
| Session replay, heatmaps | no | no |
| Stats API | yesPro and up | yesData API |
| Public share link | yesevery plan | noneeds Looker Studio |
| Team seats | yes1 / 3 / 15 / 100 | yes |
| Import from Google Analytics | nonot yet | n/a |
| Self-hosting, open source | no | no |
| Price at 100,000 events a month | yes$12 | yes$0 |
Pricing
| Free | $0/mo | 5,000 events |
| Pro | $12/mo | 100,000 events |
| Business | $39/mo | 1,000,000 events |
| Scale | $149/mo | 10,000,000 events |
AI crawler hits never count toward the limit. Going over the limit never locks the dashboard.
| Google Analytics 4 | $0 | standard property, no plan limit |
| Analytics 360 | price on request | enterprise; 26-50 months retention, SLAs |
Google says Analytics is offered "free of charge" (read 2026-09-25 at marketingplatform.google.com). Analytics 360 has no public price: the vendor page says "Talk to Sales". Third-party estimates published in 2026 start near $50,000 a year; we could not confirm that number at the source.
The AI loop
Visitant closes the loop in four steps. 1) A one-line server snippet records every fetch by 44 recognised AI crawlers and sorts them into training, AI search and live user fetches; a crawler that claims to be GPTBot is checked against the IP ranges OpenAI publishes and flagged as spoofed if it fails. 2) Visits referred by 21 AI assistants are grouped as one channel, each assistant listed separately. 3) Landings that carry a text fragment in the URL become a separate "likely AI" estimate and are never mixed with confirmed numbers. 4) Goals, funnels and revenue can be read per assistant, so you learn that Perplexity sent 40 visits and 2 orders. AI agents are kept out of human counts. GA4 covers step 2 only: an AI Assistant channel with 5 named assistants, filled from 13 May 2026 forward, with no reclassification of older sessions. Steps 1, 3 and 4 need server logs and manual work in GA4.
- You spend on Google Ads or rely on Search Console linking: GA4 shares audiences and conversions with both at $0.
- You need explorations, attribution models and a raw BigQuery export; Visitant has none of these.
- Your traffic is far above 10,000,000 events a month: GA4 has no plan limit, Visitant's largest plan stops at 10,000,000.
- Your agency or team already knows GA4; the learning cost is zero.
- You want to drop the cookie banner: Visitant uses no cookies, stores no IP and is hosted in Poland.
- You want to see which of 44 AI crawlers read your pages and which of 21 assistants send buyers.
- You want a report a shop or blog owner reads in 5 minutes: one dashboard, filters on every row, an "Ask" box in plain English or Polish (in our view GA4 needs days of setup for the same answer).
- You want a 1.9 KB script instead of 151 KB on every page load.
Questions
Can I run Visitant next to GA4?
Yes. Many sites keep GA4 for ads and add Visitant for the banner-free report and the AI data. The two scripts do not interfere; Visitant adds 1.9 KB.
Can I import my GA4 history into Visitant?
Not yet. Visitant starts counting from the day you add the script. Your GA4 property keeps its own data for its retention period (14 months at most on a standard property).
What does Visitant cost at 100,000 events a month?
$12 a month on Pro (100,000 events, 20 sites, 3 seats, 5 years of data). GA4 costs $0 at the same volume. The difference buys you no cookies, no banner and the AI crawler log.
Does GA4 show AI crawlers such as GPTBot?
No. Crawlers do not run JavaScript, so a browser tag never sees them. Visitant records them with a server snippet and checks claimed crawlers against published IP ranges.
Does GA4 group AI assistant traffic?
Yes, since 13 May 2026: sessions whose referrer matches Google's list get the medium ai-assistant. Google names ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot and Grok. Older sessions stay in Referral.