Traceten vs Plausible
Plausible is simple, cookieless web analytics hosted in the EU, and it groups AI assistants into their own channel automatically. Traceten adds what a lightweight tool leaves out on purpose: a confidence and a method on every AI visit, native payment integrations, AI crawler logs and AI visibility.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Traceten if
- You want every AI visit named, with a confidence score and a detection method.
- You want revenue from Stripe, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Polar or Paddle without sending custom events.
- You want AI crawler visits recorded and verified, where Plausible filters them out.
- You want to see which AI answers mention your brand, and which of your pages they cite (Beta).
Every plan also includes
- AI traffic by assistant
- Revenue attribution
- Verified AI crawler logs
- AI visibility and citationsBeta
- Goals and funnels
- Real-time and visitor journeys
- API, MCP, CLI and webhooks
Choose Plausible if
- You want a tiny script: Plausible puts its tracker at 2.5KB.
- You want cookieless analytics with visitor data kept in the EU.
- You want open source you can self-host under the AGPL.
Side by side
Traceten and Plausible, row by row. Every Plausible fact links to its source.
AI traffic
Which AI assistant sent each visit, and how sure the classification is.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| AI referral channel out of the boxVisits from AI assistants are grouped as their own source with no setup. | Yes | YesThe "AI Assistants" channelSource |
| Named assistant on each visitWhich assistant sent the visit, not only that it came from AI. | 25+ assistantsChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and more | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, CopilotAnd other known assistantsSource |
| Confidence and detection method on every visitA confidence score and the method behind it (referrer, UTM tag or user agent) on each AI visit. | YesReturned with every session in the API | Not published |
| AI traffic in real timeCurrent visitors, with the AI source that sent each one. | YesThe live view shows each current visitor's AI source | Not published |
Revenue
Which AI assistant sent the buyers, from your payment provider's own records.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| Native payment integrationsPayment providers that connect directly, with no events for you to send. | Stripe, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Polar and PaddlePlus a payment API for any other provider | NoRevenue comes from custom events you sendSource |
| Revenue per AI sourceAttributed revenue broken out by the assistant that sent the buyer. | Yes | YesSource |
| Refunds netted outRefunds come off revenue on the day they happen. | Yes | Not published |
| Multi-currencyRevenue in other currencies, converted at the rate for the day of the order. | 30 currenciesConverted at the order date's rate | PartialConverted to the goal's currencySource |
AI crawlers
Which AI bots read your pages, and whether they are who they claim to be.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| AI crawler visit loggingCrawlers never run JavaScript, so they have to be seen on the server. | Server or edge middlewareNext.js, Express, Hono and Cloudflare | NoAI crawlers are filtered outSource |
| Crawler verificationChecks that a crawler comes from the network its vendor says it uses. | IP ranges and reverse DNSWhere the crawler's vendor supports them | NoBots are filtered, not verifiedSource |
| Crawls includedAI crawler requests included before any limit applies. | 100,000 to 1,500,000 a monthStarter 100,000, Growth 650,000, Pro 1,500,000. Separate from your events. | NoNo crawler loggingSource |
| Past the crawl allowanceWhat happens when AI crawlers use up the 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. | NoNo crawler loggingSource |
AI visibilityBeta
Whether AI answers mention your brand, on prompts you choose.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| Brand presence in AI answersRuns your prompts on answer engines and records whether your brand appears. | Yes | NoMeasures referral visits onlySource |
| Answer enginesWhich engines your prompts run on. | Perplexity, Google AI OverviewsClaude and ChatGPT through each vendor's API, as an add-on | NoSource |
| Prompts includedPrompts tracked for you, shared across every site on the account. | 1, 5 or 20 by planStarter, Growth and Pro | NoSource |
Product analytics
Where the product suites go deeper than Traceten does.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| FunnelsSee where visitors drop off between steps. | Up to 8 steps | YesOn the Business planSource |
| GoalsCustom events and page matches you want to count. | 200 per site | YesSource |
| Retention cohortsHow often users come back after a first action. | No | NoSource |
| Session replayRecordings of what individual visitors did on the page. | No | NoSource |
| Feature flagsTurn features on for some users and not others. | No | NoSource |
| ExperimentsTest a change against a control and measure the result. | No | NoSource |
| HeatmapsWhere visitors click and scroll on a page. | No | NoSource |
Privacy
Cookies, IP addresses and where the data lives.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| CookiesWhat the tracking script stores in the visitor's browser. | First-party only | CookielessSource |
| IP addressesWhat happens to a visitor's IP address when it arrives. | Hashed on arrivalHMAC-SHA-256 under a per-site derived key | Hashed with a daily rotating saltSource |
| EU data hostingWhether your analytics data can be stored in the EU. | NoEU data residency is not available yet | YesEU onlySource |
| Open source or self-hostedWhether you can read the code or run it yourself. | NoA hosted service | YesAGPL Community Edition, self-hostableSource |
Developer
Build on your data, or hand it to an agent.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| REST APIRead your data over HTTP. | YesDocumented with OpenAPI | YesStats APISource |
| MCP serverAsk an AI agent about your data through the Model Context Protocol. | Yes | PartialCommunity-builtSource |
| CLIUse your data from a terminal or a coding agent. | Yes | Not published |
| Server SDKsSend events and payments from your backend. | Node, Python, Go | Not published |
| Outbound webhooksSend events to your own endpoint as they happen. | YesSigned with HMAC-SHA-256 | Not published |
| API rate limitsWe link each vendor's own rate-limit docs and print no figures, ours included. | Scales with plan | PublishedSource |
Pricing
What it costs to start, and what you pay for.
| Feature | Traceten | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| Free planA plan you can stay on without paying. | Starter, $060,000 events and 100,000 AI crawl hits a month | NoA 30-day trial; the Community Edition is free to self-hostSource |
| Entry paid planThe cheapest paid plan. | Growth, $49 a month | $9 a monthStarter, up to 10k monthly pageviewsSource |
| What you pay forThe unit a plan is measured in. | Events, plus AI crawl hitsPageviews, custom events and goals on one meter; crawls on their own | Monthly pageviewsSource |
| Data retentionHow long visit data is kept. | 2 yearsOn every plan | 3 to 5 years by planSource |
Checked 24 September 2026. Product names and logos belong to their owners; used here only to identify them.
Running both
Plausible can stay your simple traffic dashboard. Traceten runs beside it for the AI questions: which assistant sent a visit, how confident the classification is, what those visits earned and which crawlers read your pages.
Questions
01Plausible already has an AI Assistants channel. What does Traceten add?
Plausible groups visits from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and other assistants into one channel. Traceten adds a confidence score and a detection method on every visit, revenue from five payment providers and AI crawler logs.
02Does Traceten use cookies?
Yes. Traceten sets first-party cookies on your own domain and has no cookieless mode. Plausible is cookieless, so if avoiding cookies is a hard requirement, Plausible fits better.
03Where is the data hosted?
Plausible keeps visitor data in the EU. Traceten does not offer EU data residency yet.
04Is Traceten open source?
No. Traceten is a hosted service. Plausible's Community Edition is open source under the AGPL and can be self-hosted.
AI is already sending you buyers. See the receipts.
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