Compare
Traceten vs the analytics you already use.
Most analytics tools now show an AI channel. Traceten adds the depth behind it: which assistant, how sure, and what it earned.
DataFastFeature by feature
Every competitor fact comes from that vendor's own pages.
Checked 24 September 2026.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog | Mixpanel | Amplitude | Profound | Plausible | Google Analytics 4 | DataFast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AI trafficWhich AI assistant sent each visit, and how sure the classification is. | ||||||||
| AI referral channel out of the box | Yes | YesThe "AI" channel type | NoChannels are properties you define from UTM and referrer | Yes"LLM Search" and "Paid LLM Search" | PartialReferrals reportIn Agent Analytics | YesThe "AI Assistants" channel | YesThe "AI Assistant" channel, since May 2026 | YesThe "AI" channel filter |
| Named assistant on each visit | 25+ assistantsChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and more | PartialFrom the referring domainThe channel groups them; the domain or utm_source names one | Not published | PartialFrom the referrer or utm_source | Not published | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, CopilotAnd other known assistants | PartialFrom the source and referrerNames ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot and Grok | PartialFrom the referrerNames ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Copilot |
| Confidence and detection method on every visit | YesReturned with every session in the API | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| AI traffic in real time | YesThe live view shows each current visitor's AI source | PartialLive tab, in alphaShows each visit's referrer and UTM | Not published | Not published | PartialCrawler activity only | Not published | PartialBy first user sourceThe last 30 minutes | Not published |
RevenueWhich AI assistant sent the buyers, from your payment provider's own records. | ||||||||
| Native payment integrations | Stripe, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Polar and PaddlePlus a payment API for any other provider | StripeMore platforms are planned | PartialStripe, through a function you deploy | Stripe, Shopify plugin | PartialConversion Pixel, in beta | NoRevenue comes from custom events you send | NoRevenue comes from purchase events you send | Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, ShopifyPlus a payment API |
| Revenue per AI source | Yes | PartialBuilt from person propertiesThe revenue dashboard was removed | PartialThrough attribution on a channel you define | YesGroup revenue by channel | PartialPixel conversions, in beta | Yes | YesBy default channel group | YesFilter revenue by the AI channel |
| Refunds netted out | Yes | YesRefunds count as negative charges | PartialWith Warehouse Connectors | PartialRefund events importedNetting them out is not described | Not published | Not published | YesFrom the refund events you send | PartialRefunds recordedNetting them out is not described |
| Multi-currency | 30 currenciesConverted at the order date's rate | YesConverted to your reporting currency | Not published | Yes | Not published | PartialConverted to the goal's currency | YesAt the prior day's rate | PartialChoose the website currencyConversion is not described |
AI crawlersWhich AI bots read your pages, and whether they are who they claim to be. | ||||||||
| AI crawler visit logging | Server or edge middlewareNext.js, Express, Hono and Cloudflare | PartialFrom server logs you forwardThe JavaScript SDK blocks known bots | NoBot events are dropped at ingestion | NoBots are blocked at ingestion | From CDN and server logs | NoAI crawlers are filtered out | NoKnown bots are excluded, and that cannot be turned off | Server-side package or HTTP call |
| Crawler verification | IP ranges and reverse DNSWhere the crawler's vendor supports them | PartialPublished IP rangesGoogle, OpenAI, Microsoft, Apple, Perplexity and Ahrefs | NoBots are dropped, not verified | NoBots are blocked by user agent | Reverse DNS, IP ranges, ASNAnthropic is listed as partially verified | NoBots are filtered, not verified | NoBots are excluded, not verified | Published IP rangesWith a verification confidence |
| Crawls included | 100,000 to 1,500,000 a monthStarter 100,000, Growth 650,000, Pro 1,500,000. Separate from your events. | Not published | NoNo crawler logging | NoNo crawler logging | Not published | NoNo crawler logging | NoNo crawler logging | 100,000 requests per accountResets with each billing cycle |
| Past the crawl allowance | Opt-in overage at $0.00004 / crawl hitOn Growth and Pro. Without it, totals stay exact with less detail. Starter pauses at the limit. | Not published | NoNo crawler logging | NoNo crawler logging | Not published | NoNo crawler logging | NoNo crawler logging | Crawl logging pausesExtra capacity is optional, at $9 a month for each additional 1M requests |
AI visibilityBetaWhether AI answers mention your brand, on prompts you choose. | ||||||||
| Brand presence in AI answers | Yes | Not published | Not published | YesAI Visibility, included on every plan | YesMentions, citations and sentiment | NoMeasures referral visits only | Not published | Not published |
| Answer engines | Perplexity, Google AI OverviewsClaude and ChatGPT through each vendor's API, as an add-on | Not published | Not published | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews | Up to 9 on EnterpriseIncluding ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and AI Overviews | No | Not published | Not published |
| Prompts included | 1, 5 or 20 by planStarter, Growth and Pro | Not published | Not published | 500 to 5,000 by plan | Custom on EnterpriseThe trial runs 50 prompts daily for 7 days | No | Not published | Not published |
Product analyticsWhere the product suites go deeper than Traceten does. | ||||||||
| Funnels | Up to 8 steps | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | YesOn the Business plan | YesFunnel exploration | Yes |
| Goals | 200 per site | YesConversion goals and actions | Not published | Not published | PartialPixel conversion events, in beta | Yes | YesKey events | Yes |
| Retention cohorts | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | No | YesCohort exploration | Not published |
| Session replay | No | Yes | Yes10K replays a month on the free plan | Yes | Not published | No | Not published | Not published |
| Feature flags | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | No | Not published | Not published |
| Experiments | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | No | Not published | Not published |
| Heatmaps | No | Yes | Yes | YesOn Plus and up | Not published | No | Not published | Not published |
PrivacyCookies, IP addresses and where the data lives. | ||||||||
| Cookies | First-party only | Cookieless mode available | First-party cookieOr localStorage | First-party cookie | None for log analyticsThe beta Pixel sets first-party cookies after consent | Cookieless | First-party cookiesConsent mode stops them when consent is denied | Cookies, or a cookieless script |
| IP addresses | Hashed on arrivalHMAC-SHA-256 under a per-site derived key | Captured, or discarded per projectEU organizations discard by default | Used for location, then discarded | PartialUsed for location; dropped on request | PartialPixel drops it for EU, UK and Swiss visitors | Hashed with a daily rotating salt | Not logged or stored | CollectedHashed into the visitor ID in cookieless mode |
| EU data hosting | NoEU data residency is not available yet | YesEU Cloud in Frankfurt | Yes | YesAWS Frankfurt | NoPixel data is processed in the United States | YesEU only | PartialEU collection serversWhere the data is stored is not stated | NoMost infrastructure is outside the EU |
| Open source or self-hosted | NoA hosted service | YesMIT, self-hosted with Docker Compose | PartialOpen-source SDKs | PartialOpen-source SDKs | Not published | YesAGPL Community Edition, self-hostable | Not published | Not published |
DeveloperBuild on your data, or hand it to an agent. | ||||||||
| REST API | YesDocumented with OpenAPI | Yes | Yes | Yes | PartialOn request | YesStats API | YesData API | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | YesHosted | YesHosted | YesOn every plan | YesHosted | PartialCommunity-built | PartialOfficial, run locally | YesHosted |
| CLI | Yes | Yes | Not published | Yes | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Server SDKs | Node, Python, Go | Node, Python, Go and more | Node, Python, Go and more | Node, Python, Go, JVM | Python, JavaScript | Not published | PartialMeasurement Protocol over HTTP | JavaScript and TypeScript |
| Outbound webhooks | YesSigned with HMAC-SHA-256 | YesThrough data pipeline destinations | PartialCohort sync only | YesOn Plus and up | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| API rate limits | Scales with plan | Published | Published | Published | Published | Published | Published | Published |
PricingWhat it costs to start, and what you pay for. | ||||||||
| Free plan | Starter, $060,000 events and 100,000 AI crawl hits a month | 1M events a monthPlus a free allowance on each product | 1M events a month | 2M events a month | Partial7-day trial | NoA 30-day trial; the Community Edition is free to self-host | Yes | NoA 14-day trial |
| Entry paid plan | Growth, $49 a month | Pay as you go from $0Past each free allowance | Growth from $0The first 1M events are free | Plus from $0The first 2M events are free | Custom, on Enterprise | $9 a monthStarter, up to 10k monthly pageviews | 360 through sales | $9 a monthStarter, 10k monthly events |
| What you pay for | Events, plus AI crawl hitsPageviews, custom events and goals on one meter; crawls on their own | Usage on each productEvents, recordings, flag requests and more | Events | Events | Custom package, plus agent credits | Monthly pageviews | Not published | Monthly events |
| Data retention | 2 yearsOn every plan | 1 year free, 7 years paid | 2 years | 1 year free, 2 years on PlusUnlimited on Growth and Enterprise | All time on Enterprise | 3 to 5 years by plan | 2 or 14 monthsFor explorations; standard reports are not affected | 3 to 5+ years by plan |
Which one fits?
Honest picks. Many teams run one of these beside Traceten.
PostHog
Product analytics suite
Pick PostHog if you want product analytics, session replay, feature flags and experiments in one platform.
Traceten vs PostHogMixpanel
Product analytics
Pick Mixpanel if you need mature funnels, retention and cohort analysis across your product.
Traceten vs MixpanelAmplitude
Digital analytics platform
Pick Amplitude if you need enterprise product analytics, experiments and governance, with AI visibility included.
Traceten vs AmplitudeProfound
AI visibility platform
Pick Profound if AI visibility is the main job and you want the most answer engines, prompt volume data and enterprise support.
Traceten vs ProfoundPlausible
Privacy-first web analytics
Pick Plausible if you want simple, cookieless, EU-hosted web analytics with an open-source core.
Traceten vs PlausibleGoogle Analytics 4
Web analytics
Pick Google Analytics 4 if you want free, familiar web analytics that links directly to Google Ads.
Traceten vs GA4DataFast
Revenue-first web analytics
Pick DataFast if you want simple, revenue-first analytics with X post attribution and social mentions.
Traceten vs DataFastRunning something else?
Tell us what you use today and we'll show you where Traceten fits beside it.
Questions
01Is Traceten a replacement for GA4 or PostHog?
No. Traceten is built for one job: AI traffic, the revenue it drives, the AI crawlers reading your pages and AI visibility. It has goals and funnels, but no session replay, feature flags, experiments or heatmaps. Most teams run it beside the analytics they already use.
02Don't most analytics tools track AI traffic now?
Many do. PostHog, Google Analytics 4, Amplitude, Plausible and DataFast each group AI referrals into a channel of their own. The differences are depth and what sits around it: Traceten records a confidence score and a detection method on every visit, reports revenue per AI source from five payment providers, verifies AI crawlers and tracks AI visibility.
03How did you check competitor facts?
Every competitor cell links to that vendor's own public page, read on 24 September 2026. Where a vendor does not publish something, the table says so instead of guessing. Every Traceten cell is checked against our own code by an automated test.
04Why don't you list rate-limit numbers?
A published limit becomes a target, so we do not publish ours and we do not print anyone else's. The table says whether each vendor publishes its limits and links to them. Traceten's headroom scales with your plan.
05Which tool is best for AI visibility?
For enterprise depth, Profound: it tracks up to nine answer engines on Enterprise and adds prompt volume data. Amplitude includes AI visibility with its analytics plans. Traceten's AI visibility is in beta, with Perplexity and Google AI Overviews on every plan and Claude and ChatGPT through each vendor's API as an add-on.
06Do I need to remove my current analytics?
No. Traceten runs its own script and leaves other analytics scripts alone, so you can keep GA4, PostHog or anything else in place while you evaluate it.
07Which of these tools has a free plan?
Traceten Starter is $0, with 60,000 events and 100,000 AI crawl hits a month. PostHog, Mixpanel, Amplitude and GA4 also have free plans. Plausible and DataFast offer free trials, and Profound offers a trial before Enterprise pricing.
AI is already sending you buyers. See the receipts.
No calls, no credit card.