Amplitude vs Simple Analytics in 2026: Deep product analytics vs cookieless traffic counting
One is a full product intelligence suite with experimentation and session replay. The other is a single-page dashboard built to recover the traffic Google Analytics loses to consent banners.
Amplitude
Simple Analytics- Simple Analytics is cookieless and requires no consent banner, capturing traffic that ad-blockers and GDPR consent rejections hide from tools like Google Analytics and even from Amplitude's default setup.
- Amplitude tracks behavioral events across a user's full lifetime in a product, supporting funnels, retention, and path analysis. Simple Analytics has none of this by design.
- Simple Analytics starts at €20/month for unlimited pageviews after a limited free tier. Amplitude's free Starter tier covers up to 50K monthly tracked users before the $49/month Plus plan.
- Simple Analytics offers white-label delivery for agencies on paid plans. Amplitude does not offer white-label reporting at any tier.
- Amplitude includes session replay, feature experimentation, and AI Agents. Simple Analytics has none of these; its entire interface is one page of aggregate metrics.
- Both are EU-friendly on compliance, but for different reasons: Simple Analytics is GDPR compliant by design since it sets no cookies, while Amplitude offers EU data residency and consent management integrations as configurable options.
Amplitude and Simple Analytics sit at opposite ends of the Analytics & Reporting category. Amplitude is built for product teams who need behavioral event data, feature experimentation, session replay, and AI-assisted analysis, with pricing that climbs to a sales conversation once you need the full feature set. Simple Analytics is deliberately narrow: cookieless tracking that recovers the 20 to 60 percent of visitors that ad-blockers and consent-banner rejections hide from tools like Google Analytics, presented on a single-page dashboard with no funnels, no cohorts, and no session-level data. Choosing between them is really a choice about how deep you need to go: Amplitude for understanding in-product behavior, Simple Analytics for a clean, accurate, low-friction traffic count.
The tools at a glance
Amplitude
AI-powered analytics platform combining behavioral data, product analytics, A/B experimentation, and session replay
Amplitude is a product intelligence platform built around behavioral events rather than sessions or page views. Its core value is answering questions about what drives conversion, retention, and engagement across a user's entire lifetime in a digital product, which is a fundamentally deeper question than aggregate traffic counting.
The platform bundles feature experimentation, session replay tied to the same event timeline, a data governance layer for schema enforcement, and AI Agents that automate recurring analysis tasks. This depth comes with real instrumentation overhead: getting trustworthy behavioral data requires developer time and a planned event taxonomy before you see reliable reports.
Pricing starts free on Starter (50K monthly tracked users) and moves to $49/month on Plus, with Growth and Enterprise requiring a sales conversation for experimentation, AI Agents, and SSO. Amplitude also added an early AI visibility feature tracking brand mentions in ChatGPT and Perplexity, described in its own materials as a newer, less mature addition.
| Feature | Starter Free | Plus $49/month | Growth Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly tracked users | 50K | 1K-100K | Custom | |
| Session replay | Yes | |||
| Feature experimentation | Growth plan and up | |||
| Data governance | Plus plan and up | |||
| API access | Yes, all tiers |
Simple Analytics
Privacy-first web analytics that captures 100% of visitors without cookies or consent banners
Simple Analytics solves a specific, narrow problem: consent banners and ad-blockers hide a meaningful share of real traffic from cookie-based analytics tools. By tracking without cookies or fingerprinting, it counts visitors who decline a GDPR popup or run an ad-blocker, recovering what the company estimates is 20 to 60 percent of the traffic that consent-dependent tools lose.
The entire dashboard fits on one page: pageviews, referrers, top pages, devices, and geography, with a traffic trend line. There is no funnel analysis, no user-level tracking, and no behavioral segmentation, by deliberate product design rather than a gap the team plans to close.
Simple Analytics is EU-hosted and GDPR/CCPA compliant by default since it collects no personal data requiring consent. Pricing is a limited free tier, then €20/month for unlimited pageviews, with an API and white-label option available on paid plans, which makes it a common choice for agencies delivering client traffic reports.
| Feature | Free Free | Self-Serve €20/mo | Enterprise Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pageviews included | Limited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Cookieless tracking | Yes | ||
| API access | Self-Serve plan and up | ||
| White-label | Enterprise plan only | ||
| EU hosting | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Amplitude | Simple Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Core focus | Product / behavioral analytics | Cookieless traffic analytics |
| Free tier | Yes (Starter) | Yes (limited pageviews) |
| Cookieless / no consent banner required | No | Yes |
| Funnel and retention analysis | Yes | No |
| Session replay | Yes | No |
| A/B testing / experimentation | Yes (Growth plan and up) | No |
| AI-assisted analysis | Yes (AI Agents, Growth plan and up) | No |
| API access | Yes | Yes (Self-Serve plan and up) |
| White-label delivery | No | Yes (Enterprise plan only) |
| GDPR compliant by default | No (configurable via consent integrations) | Yes |
| Starting paid price | $49/mo (Plus) | €20/mo |
Which should you choose?
AmplitudeSimple AnalyticsSimple AnalyticsAmplitudeSimple AnalyticsAmplitudeThese tools are not really competing for the same evaluation. Amplitude is a deep, instrumentation-heavy platform for teams who need to understand in-product behavior and are willing to invest developer time to get there. Simple Analytics is a lightweight, near-zero-setup tool for teams who just want an accurate, privacy-safe visitor count without touching funnels or cohorts. Many teams that adopt Simple Analytics for traffic reporting still run Amplitude, or a similar product analytics tool, alongside it for deeper behavioral questions.
Bottom line
Choose Simple Analytics if your question is "how many real visitors are we getting and where from," especially if consent-banner rejection or ad-blocker usage among your audience is high. Choose Amplitude if your question is "what are users doing once they arrive, and does that behavior predict retention or conversion." Running both is a reasonable setup: Simple Analytics for a trustworthy top-line traffic number, Amplitude for the behavioral depth underneath it.
Frequently asked questions
Can Simple Analytics replace Amplitude for product analytics?
No. Simple Analytics is intentionally scoped to aggregate traffic metrics: pageviews, referrers, devices, and geography, with no funnels, cohorts, or user-level tracking. Amplitude is built specifically for that behavioral depth. Teams that need both typically run Simple Analytics for traffic counting and Amplitude, or a similar product analytics tool, for in-product behavior.
Why would Amplitude undercount traffic compared to Simple Analytics?
Amplitude, like most cookie-based analytics tools, can miss visitors who decline a consent banner or run an ad-blocker. Simple Analytics avoids this by not using cookies at all, so no consent is legally required and no ad-blocker rule targets it the same way. This is why Simple Analytics is often described as recovering 20 to 60 percent of hidden traffic relative to consent-dependent tools.
Is Simple Analytics cheaper than Amplitude for a small site?
Simple Analytics starts free with limited pageviews and moves to €20/month for unlimited pageviews on the Self-Serve plan. Amplitude's free Starter tier covers up to 50K monthly tracked users, which is generous for a small site, but you would need to move to the $49/month Plus plan for data governance or warehouse connectors. For a small site that just needs accurate traffic counts, Simple Analytics is the lower-friction and often cheaper option.
Does Simple Analytics offer white-label reporting for agencies?
Yes, on the Enterprise plan. Agencies can present the Simple Analytics interface under their own branding, which is useful for delivering consistent client-facing traffic reports. Amplitude does not offer a white-label option at any tier.
Which tool is better for a privacy-conscious SaaS with a technical audience?
Simple Analytics is the more natural fit if your audience is likely to reject consent banners or run ad-blockers, since it captures that traffic without requiring consent in the first place. Amplitude is the better fit once you need to understand what those visitors do inside your product after they convert, not just how many of them showed up.