Switch Guide: Moving from Google Analytics to Fathom Analytics
Google Analytics is free because you're the product — your visitors' data feeds Google's advertising machine. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has been called "a privacy nightmare" by European data protection authorities, and several EU countries have ruled it illegal. Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA and Quebec's Law 25) is heading in the same direction. Fathom Analytics is a Victoria, BC company that built a privacy-first analytics platform that requires no cookie consent banner, collects no personal data, and keeps analytics data on Canadian infrastructure. It costs $14/month. If you're still using free Google Analytics, you may be trading your visitors' privacy for $168/year in savings — and creating compliance risk in the process.
What You'll Gain
- No cookie banner required: Fathom doesn't use cookies that require consent under GDPR/PIPEDA. Remove your cookie consent popup.
- Canadian data hosting: Analytics data stored in Canada, not on Google's US servers.
- Privacy-first by design: No personal data collected. Visitor data is anonymized by default.
- Simple, usable dashboard: Fathom's dashboard is clean and fast. No learning curve, no segmentation rabbit holes.
- Ad-blocker resilient: Fathom runs on a custom domain, bypassing most ad blockers. Your traffic numbers are more accurate than GA4.
- No sampling: Unlike GA4's data sampling on free accounts, Fathom shows 100% of your actual traffic.
- Canadian company: Victoria-founded, small team, profitable, independent.
What You Might Miss
- Audience segmentation: GA4's audience builder and advanced segmentation are significantly more powerful than Fathom's.
- Historical data: Your GA4 historical data doesn't import into Fathom — you start fresh with new data.
- Google Ads integration: If you run Google Ads, GA4's native integration for conversion tracking is replaced with Fathom's goal tracking (which works, but is less seamless).
- Free: Fathom starts at $14/month. Google Analytics is free. That said, for most businesses $14/month is trivial compared to the privacy risk of GA4.
- Ecommerce analytics depth: GA4's ecommerce funnel analysis is more detailed than Fathom's for complex online stores.
Migration Checklist
- Export your GA4 historical data — Use GA4's Data Export to BigQuery (free) or download key reports as CSV before your historical data matters less.
- Sign up for Fathom — Create your account at usefathom.com and add your website.
- Get your Fathom tracking code — Fathom provides a small JavaScript snippet to add to your site.
- Add Fathom to your site — Add the Fathom script to your website's
<head>section. For WordPress, use the Fathom Analytics plugin. For most CMSs and site builders, paste into your analytics/header code settings. - Set up custom domain (optional but recommended) — Configure a custom domain for Fathom (e.g., stats.yourdomain.com) to bypass ad blockers completely.
- Configure goals/events — Set up conversion tracking for your key actions (form submissions, purchases, sign-ups) in Fathom's Events dashboard.
- Run both for 2 weeks — Keep GA4 running alongside Fathom for 2 weeks to compare traffic numbers and validate Fathom is tracking correctly.
- Remove GA4 script — Once validated, remove the Google Analytics script from your site. Remove your cookie consent popup if it was only there for GA.
Data Export Tips from Google Analytics
In GA4, use Explore → Free Form to build and export custom reports as CSV or Google Sheets. For bulk data export, the GA4 Data API or BigQuery integration allows full data extraction. Key reports to export: top pages by traffic, traffic sources, goal completions, and device breakdown. Note that GA4 data ages off after 14 months by default (configurable to 26 months) — export what you want to keep long-term before leaving.
Timeline Estimate
Most websites complete this switch in less than 1 day. Adding the Fathom script takes minutes. The "migration" is really just installation. The only complexity is configuring event/goal tracking to replace your GA4 conversions — that might take a few hours for sites with multiple conversion points. Removing the cookie banner (the most satisfying part) happens immediately.