Comparisons
Six comparisons, each with real prices, a full feature table and a section saying plainly when the other tool is the better choice. Most of these products are good. They mostly answer a different question to the one Ripples answers, which is whether the money you spend on acquisition comes back, and how long it takes.
The short version
| Tool | From | Free tier | Payback per channel | Billing connection | Google Ads spend | Retention by channel | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ripples | $0, then $9/mo | Yes, until $1K MRR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Google Analytics | Free | Yes, to 10M events | No | Manual, via Measurement Protocol | Yes, native Google Ads link | Possible in Explorations, with setup | No |
| Plausible | $9/mo | No, 30-day trial | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Fathom Analytics | $15/mo | No, 7-day trial | No | No | No | No | No |
| DataFast | $9/mo | No, 14-day trial | LTV and ROAS, not payback | Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Shopify | No | No | No |
| PostHog | Free, then usage | Yes, 1M events a month | No | Revenue analytics, Stripe | Marketing analytics, in beta | Yes, if you define the cohort | Yes |
| Umami | Free, or $20/mo | Yes, 100k events a month | No | No | No | No | Yes |
List prices as of August 2026, taken from each vendor's own pricing page. Every comparison links its sources. We take no affiliate commission from any tool listed here, which is worth saying out loud in a category where a competitor pays 50% for a review.
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