Fathom Analytics vs Wicked Reports in 2026: cookieless website traffic vs first-party ad attribution for ecommerce
Fathom tells you who visited your site without touching a single cookie. Wicked Reports tells you which ad actually earned a new customer. Neither one replaces the other.
Fathom Analytics
Wicked Reports- Fathom is website traffic analytics starting at $15/month. Wicked Reports is ad attribution for ecommerce starting at $499/month, a fundamentally different price tier and buyer.
- Wicked Reports separates new-customer conversions from repeat-buyer conversions at the attribution level, something Fathom does not attempt since it has no concept of ad spend or customer lifecycle.
- Fathom retains all data forever on every plan. Wicked Reports ties its Attribution Time Machine to lifetime lookback windows for matching sales to the original ad click, a different kind of "forever" aimed at long sales cycles rather than page-view history.
- Wicked Reports runs a weekly 5 Forces AI analysis that classifies every ad campaign as Scale, Chill, or Kill. Fathom has no campaign-level or ad-spend reporting of any kind.
- Fathom requires no consent banner because it is cookieless and collects no personal data. Wicked Reports relies on first-party click tracking and Meta CAPI server-side signals to survive iOS 14+ restrictions, a different privacy mechanism aimed at surviving ad-platform tracking loss rather than avoiding cookies outright.
- Fathom includes API access and 50+ sites on every plan starting at $15/month. Wicked Reports gates API access above the entry Measure tier and jumps to $4,999/month for Enterprise.
Fathom Analytics and Wicked Reports sit in the same category page but solve almost unrelated problems. Fathom is a lightweight, privacy-first web analytics tool: install one script, get traffic, referrers, and conversion events without cookies or a consent banner, starting at $15 a month. Wicked Reports is a first-party ad attribution platform built for ecommerce brands spending real money on Meta and Google, priced from $499 to $999 a month, with a weekly AI budget allocator that tells media buyers which campaigns to scale, watch, or kill based on true new-customer ROI. Fathom answers "who is on my site." Wicked Reports answers "which ad dollar actually earned a first-time buyer." A DTC brand plausibly runs both at once rather than choosing between them.
The tools at a glance
Fathom Analytics
Simple, GDPR-compliant web analytics with cookieless tracking, forever data retention, and no consent banners.
Fathom is a single-purpose web analytics tool. Install one script and get real-time and historical visitor counts, referrers, countries, device types, and conversion events, with no cookies and no consent banner required under GDPR, CCPA, or PECR.
Every plan retains data forever and includes API access plus at least 50 sites, which makes Fathom a practical choice for agencies managing multiple client properties on one account. It is bootstrapped and independently owned, with a stated focus on staying simple rather than expanding into product analytics or attribution.
Fathom has no concept of ad spend, campaigns, or customer acquisition cost. It tells you traffic and on-site conversion events, not which marketing channel is actually driving new revenue.
| Feature | All plans From $15/mo |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | Based on monthly page views |
| Sites included | 50+ |
| Data retention | Forever |
| Ad/campaign attribution | No |
| API access | Yes, all plans |
Wicked Reports
First-party attribution that shows which ads bring new customers, not just clicks.
Wicked Reports exists to answer one question honestly: which ad campaigns are bringing in new customers, as opposed to claiming credit for repeat purchases that would have happened anyway. It has analyzed data from over 2,000 brands and separates first-time buyer conversions from retargeting-inflated ROAS at the attribution layer.
The Attribution Time Machine matches a sale back to the original ad click even if the purchase happens weeks or months later, and the weekly 5 Forces AI analysis classifies every campaign as Scale, Chill, or Kill based on verified new-customer ROI, removing manual dashboard digging from the weekly budget review.
Pricing scales with annual revenue, starting at $499 a month for Measure and jumping to $4,999 a month for Enterprise. Add-ons like Advanced Signal Meta CAPI and 5 Forces AI cost extra on the lower tiers, which means the full stack is really priced for brands with a real ad budget to protect.
| Feature | Measure $499/month | Scale $699/month | Maximize $999/month | Enterprise From $4,999/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New-customer attribution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Attribution Time Machine | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| API access | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 5 Forces AI (weekly budget AI) | Add-on +$199/mo | Add-on +$199/mo | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced Signal Meta CAPI | Add-on +$199/mo | Add-on +$199/mo | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Fathom Analytics | Wicked Reports |
|---|---|---|
| Primary use case | Cookieless website traffic analytics | First-party ad attribution for ecommerce |
| Starting price | $15/mo | $499/mo |
| Website traffic analytics | Yes | No |
| Ad/campaign attribution | No | Yes |
| New-customer vs repeat-buyer separation | No | Yes |
| AI-driven budget recommendations | No | Yes, weekly 5 Forces AI |
| Requires cookie consent banner | No | No (first-party click tracking) |
| API access on entry tier | Yes | No (Measure tier excludes API) |
| Data retention | Forever | Lifetime lookback on attribution data |
| Built for | Agencies, publishers, small SaaS | DTC and ecommerce brands with real ad spend |
Which should you choose?
Fathom AnalyticsWicked ReportsFathom AnalyticsWicked ReportsWicked ReportsFathom AnalyticsThis is not a real either/or decision for most buyers, because the two tools answer different questions at completely different price points. Fathom is the right tool if your problem is understanding who visits your site and how they behave once they arrive. Wicked Reports is the right tool if your problem is figuring out which ad campaigns are genuinely acquiring new customers versus recycling credit from people who would have bought anyway. A growing ecommerce brand could reasonably run both, using Fathom (or a similar lightweight analytics tool) for general site health and Wicked Reports specifically for ad spend accountability.
Bottom line
Choose Fathom if you need clean, cookieless traffic reporting and are not spending meaningful money on paid ads. Choose Wicked Reports if you are an ecommerce brand spending $30,000 or more a month on Meta and Google and need to know, campaign by campaign, whether that spend is earning new customers or just inflating a retargeting number. The two are not competitors so much as different tools for different line items in the same marketing budget.
Frequently asked questions
Can Fathom Analytics replace Wicked Reports for ad attribution?
No. Fathom has no concept of ad spend, campaigns, or customer acquisition cost; it only reports on-site traffic and conversion events. Wicked Reports is purpose-built to separate new-customer attribution from repeat-buyer credit across ad platforms, a job Fathom does not attempt.
Why is Wicked Reports so much more expensive than Fathom Analytics?
Wicked Reports starts at $499 a month because it is priced for ecommerce brands with real ad budgets that need first-party attribution, an Attribution Time Machine, and weekly AI-driven budget classification. Fathom starts at $15 a month because it is a simpler, single-purpose website analytics tool with none of that attribution machinery.
Does Wicked Reports need a cookie consent banner like standard web analytics tools?
No. Wicked Reports uses first-party click tracking and server-side Meta CAPI signals rather than third-party cookies, which is a different mechanism than Fathom's cookieless approach but serves a similar goal of tracking accurately without relying on browser-level identifiers that iOS 14+ and ad blockers can break.
Is Fathom Analytics useful for an ecommerce brand that already uses Wicked Reports?
Yes, the two are not mutually exclusive. Fathom can still handle general website traffic reporting, referrer analysis, and on-site conversion events, while Wicked Reports focuses specifically on separating true new-customer ad attribution from retargeting-inflated numbers. Many ecommerce teams run a lightweight analytics tool alongside a dedicated attribution platform rather than picking one.
What is the 5 Forces AI in Wicked Reports and does Fathom have anything similar?
The 5 Forces AI is a weekly analysis that classifies every ad campaign as Scale, Chill, or Kill based on verified first-party new-customer ROI data. Fathom has no equivalent feature since it does not track ad spend or campaigns at all, only website visitor behavior.