Plausible and PubPulse are both cookieless, EU-hosted and simple. The difference for publishers is in the plans: on Plausible, custom properties such as author and category, funnels and revenue need the Business plan (from $19 a month at 10k pageviews), while every PubPulse plan includes custom dimensions, the AI traffic report and Discover traffic, from €2.50 a month. Plausible is open source and can be self-hosted; PubPulse is hosted only.
In short
- Choose Plausible if you want open-source software you can run on your own server, or one very simple dashboard for a small site.
- Choose PubPulse if you run content sites and want author and category reports, AI-assistant traffic, Google Discover and live users on a low plan.
Side by side
Facts about Plausible are from plausible.io in November 2026. Check their pricing page for your exact volume.
| Plausible | PubPulse | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $9 / month (Starter, 10k pageviews, 1 site) | €2.50 / month (Lite, 10k pageviews, 5 sites) |
| Custom properties / dimensions | Business plan, from $19 / month | every plan (10 on Lite, 100 on Business) |
| Funnels, revenue | Business plan | events and custom metrics on Business |
| Free trial | 30 days | 30 days, no pageview limit |
| Cookieless | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hosted in the EU | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source, self-hosting | ✓ | – |
Built in on every PubPulse plan
- Custom dimensions such as author, category and publish date, with reports per dimension.
- An AI traffic report for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Copilot, plus clicks from Google AI Overviews.
- Google Discover and Google News as sources of their own, separate from search.
- Users and sessions per page in real time, refreshed every 10 seconds.
- Networks: several sites in one report (Business plan).
- A tracking script of about 1 KB compressed, with no cookies.
What publishers usually miss in a simple dashboard
- Author and category reports to see which writers and sections earn the traffic. See track authors and categories.
- AI answers as a channel: clicks from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews grow every month. See AI traffic analytics.
- Discover and Google News split from search, because they behave differently. See Google Discover traffic.
- A network view when you run several sites. See multi-site analytics.
Try it on real-looking data
Open the live demo: 90 days of a made-up food and travel site, no sign-up.
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