Best web analytics tools for growing companies

Published 2026-04-11

Summary - Compare top web analytics platforms to find the right fit for your growing company. Our guide covers free and paid tools, key features, and how to build effective dashboards.

What is web analytics

Web analytics is a set of strategies and tactics for measuring how your target audience interacts with your website. It answers critical questions about your visitors and their behaviour, including:

How many visitors your website receives
Where traffic comes from (search results, social media, direct links)
What devices visitors use (mobile, tablet, desktop)

By understanding who uses your website and what they do, you can refine your strategy to reach them more effectively.

In this guide, we'll cover:

Top web analytics tools
Key features to evaluate
How to build effective web analytics dashboards

Best web analytics software solutions

Here are seven leading web analytics platforms:

Google Analytics
Hotjar
Adobe Analytics
Crazy Egg
Matomo
Amplitude
Pendo

What does web analytics software do

Web analytics software collects data from your website and organises it so you can monitor your key performance indicators, understand your audience, and improve your site's performance.

Web analytics software performs three core functions:

Collection: You can't manage what you don't measure. Web analytics software gathers visitor information by installing tracking code on your site. This code captures data about user behaviour, pages visited, browser type, and session duration.

Management: Raw data has no value sitting idle. Web analytics software stores your data in a centralised location where it can be accessed and sorted at any time, making it easy to retrieve insights when you need them.

Analysis: Static data is useless without the ability to slice and dice it. Web analytics software provides tools to extract the specific information you're looking for after it's been collected.

Consider Google Analytics as an example. It uses tracking code installed on your site to collect visitor data, then provides a platform where you can quickly pull and analyse that information. This combination of collection, storage, and analysis is what makes web analytics software powerful for your business.

How web analytics software helps

Web analytics software keeps you on top of your website—one of your most important assets. It gives you the tools to:

Measure performance against key goals
Unlock insights to improve marketing and user experience
Understand who engages with your content

Here's a practical example. You notice conversions dropped last month. A look at your web analytics data reveals that mobile traffic declined significantly. This insight prompts you to investigate: Did recent site changes break mobile navigation? Did your marketing team stop targeting mobile users? Did organic search traffic from mobile drop?

Without web analytics, you'd be guessing. With it, you have data-driven answers. The software collects comprehensive information that you can filter by device, traffic source, geography, and dozens of other factors—all tailored to your specific goals.

Best low-cost and free web analytics software

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is Google's free web analytics platform that tracks, analyses, and reports website traffic. It measures advertising ROI and tracks video, Flash, and social networking applications.

Pricing: Free up to 10 million hits per month per property. Request a quote for Analytics 360 (the premium version).

Hotjar

Hotjar is a behaviour analytics platform that helps you measure and observe user behaviour. It shows you what users do on your site and provides insights for improving user experience and conversion rates.

Pricing: 15-day free trial. Basic plan is free forever (up to 2,000 pageviews/day). Plus plan: £25/month (up to 10,000 pageviews/day).

Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics is an enterprise analytics solution that helps you understand customers as people and make decisions based on customer intelligence. It provides reporting, visualisations, and analysis of customer data to discover actionable insights.

Pricing: Customised pricing with three tiers—Select, Prime, and Ultimate.

Matomo

Matomo (formerly Piwik) is a free, open-source web analytics platform that gathers and analyses user behaviour through KPIs. Downloaded over 3.6 million times, it's trusted by companies like Forbes, Sharp, and Oxfam.

Pricing: Free open-source software with no data limits. Cloud-hosted version: Individual plan (£5.60/month for 5 websites and 5 team members), Startup plan (£18.70/month for 30 websites and 30 team members).

Amplitude

Amplitude is a product analytics platform that helps companies understand user behaviour, marketing effectiveness, and business performance. Over 12,000 companies including Square, Postmates, and Dropbox use Amplitude to drive user engagement and retention.

Pricing: Free plan with limited features. Request a quote for Growth and Enterprise plans.

Pendo

Pendo is a product engagement platform offering in-app analytics, surveys, feedback collection, and user guidance. It provides visibility into how features are used and by whom.

Pricing: Free plan for designing and deploying NPS surveys in-app or on websites. Request a quote for Pendo Product Cloud, which includes product analytics, surveys, personalised guides, and in-app announcements.

Key questions to ask when evaluating web analytics software

Choosing the right web analytics tool requires understanding your needs and priorities. Here are essential questions to guide your evaluation.

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What do I need my web analytics software to accomplish?

Start here. If you don't know what you're trying to achieve, you can't select the right tool. Define your goals—whether that's tracking conversions, understanding user behaviour, or monitoring campaign performance. This ensures your analytics tool extends your marketing strategy rather than complicating it.

Can I accomplish what I need with a free tool?

Free tools are the best starting point. Google Analytics, for example, is free and comprehensive enough for most growing companies. You can track site visits, conversion goals, and return on investment without paying a penny. For most organisations, that's sufficient.

If not, what do I need with a paid tool?

Free tools have limits. Paid tools offer advanced features. Crazy Egg, for instance, creates heatmaps showing exactly where users click and move their mouse, helping you optimise key pages. This feature isn't available in free tools like Google Analytics. Evaluate whether these premium features justify the cost for your specific needs.

How many resources do I have to devote to this?

Web analytics software pricing varies widely. Google Analytics is free, but Google Analytics 360 costs upwards of £110,000 per year. Beyond subscription fees, factor in setup costs, consultant fees (if needed), and internal staff time to configure and learn the tool. Build a complete budget before committing.

How technically proficient is my organisation?

Some analytics tools require significant technical expertise to install and use effectively. Google Analytics, while free, offers multi-part training courses. Assess whether your team has the skills to implement and use the tool fully, or whether you'll need external support.

Are we more interested in reporting or analysis?

Web analytics serves two purposes: reporting (tracking known metrics) and discovery (uncovering unexpected insights). Google Analytics excels at reporting against KPIs but is less ideal for revealing new insights. Decide which matters more to your team and choose accordingly.

How reliable is the tool?

Can you trust the data? Would you share these numbers with leadership? Can your organisation base important decisions on this tool's insights? Reliability matters. Some tools, including Google Analytics, have been known to report inaccurate data, so evaluate this carefully before purchasing.

How many users can have access?

Many analytics platforms price by user count. Ensure the pricing model fits your current team size while allowing room to grow. Some tools offer unlimited users; others charge per seat.

How frequently is the software updated?

Analytics platforms evolve constantly. Ask how often the tool updates and whether you'll always have access to the latest features. Regular updates mean you're not stuck with outdated functionality.

How to build world-class web analytics dashboards

Google Analytics is powerful, but its native reports aren't always formatted the way your team needs them. Custom dashboards solve this problem.

Build custom Google Analytics dashboards that present your data exactly how your team needs to see it. Use the Google Analytics Query Explorer to pull rich datasets. Combine Google Analytics with other sources—Facebook Ads, HubSpot, Shopify—to create unified dashboards in Klips, our dashboard software for growing firms. This approach gives you complete visibility across all your marketing and sales data in one place.

Most important Google Analytics metrics

Track these ten key metrics to understand your website performance:

Users: Total number of unique visitors
Bounce rate: Percentage of visitors who leave without taking action
Sessions: Number of user visits
Average session duration: How long visitors spend on your site
Percentage of new sessions: Ratio of new to returning visitors
Sessions by channel: Traffic breakdown by source (organic, paid, social, direct)
Pages per session: Average number of pages viewed per visit
Goal completions: Number of times visitors complete a desired action
Goal conversion rate: Percentage of visitors who complete a goal
Pageviews: Total number of pages viewed

How to build a Google Analytics dashboard

Follow these four steps to create a custom dashboard:

Choose your dashboard type: Build from scratch or use a pre-built Klips template.
Connect your data: Link your Google Analytics account to Klips with our built-in integration.
Select your metrics: Choose the KPIs that matter most to your team.
Design your dashboard: Customise visualisations, colours, and add indicators to match your brand.

Custom Google Analytics data sources

Connect your Google Analytics data using app connectors to build custom dashboards in Klips.