An alternative to Google Analytics, for UK businesses.
Benmetrics tells you how many people visit your website, where they come from and what they read. It sets no cookies, keeps what it counts in London, and is made in Scotland.
The two, side by side.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool, and for many websites it is more than the job needs. This is where the two differ. What we say about Google Analytics comes from Google’s own help pages, as they stood on 12 October 2026.
Cookies
Google Analytics Two, which tell one visitor from another for up to two years.
Benmetrics None. Nothing is stored on your visitors’ phones or computers.
Asking permission
Google Analytics Needed in many set-ups, with a consent banner. The law is set out below.
Benmetrics No consent banner, because there is nothing to ask permission for.
Who it follows
Google Analytics Each visitor, from one visit to the next, by their cookie.
Benmetrics No one. A visitor today can’t be connected to a visitor tomorrow.
Where it is kept
Google Analytics In Google’s data centres, which are in more than one part of the world.
Benmetrics On servers in London.
Who else can use it
Google Analytics Google, to understand how people behave online and to improve its own products, if that setting is switched on.
Benmetrics Nobody. We use it to show you your reports and for nothing else.
What it costs
Google Analytics Nothing.
Benmetrics From £8 a month, after a 7-day free trial.
The code each one asks a visitor’s browser to download, compressed as it travels. Google’s measured on 12 October 2026.
What the law asks of a UK website.
The rule is about your visitors’ own phones and computers. Storing something on one, or reading it back, needs the visitor’s permission first. That is what cookie banners are for.
What changed in February 2026
Since 5 February 2026 there is an exception for counting. If all you do is gather statistics to improve your own website, you no longer have to ask first. You do still have to tell visitors you are doing it, and give them a simple way to say no.
Where Google Analytics stands
The exception covers nothing to do with advertising, and it doesn’t apply if the company doing the counting uses what it collects for purposes of its own. Google Analytics is often connected to Google Ads, and it has a setting that shares what it collects with Google’s other products. Set up like that, it still needs a consent banner, and visitors who say no are left out of your numbers or estimated.
Where Benmetrics stands
Benmetrics stores nothing on a visitor’s device, so there is nothing to ask permission for and no banner to show. It does nothing with what it counts except show it to you. You should still say in your privacy policy that you use it, and we give you the words.
This is our reading of the rules and not legal advice. The regulator is the Information Commissioner’s Office, and its guidance on the exceptions is the place to check.
What Google Analytics does that Benmetrics doesn’t.
Some businesses need these. If you are one of them, keep Google Analytics.
- It works with Google Ads. If you pay for adverts and need to know which ones lead to sales, Google Analytics is built for it.
- It describes your visitors as people. It can report their age group and interests, and what one visitor did across several visits.
- It reports an online shop’s sales in detail. Revenue, products and baskets. Benmetrics counts visits and clicks, not money.
- It is free. Benmetrics costs from £8 a month.
What you get from Benmetrics.
The numbers most websites are actually run on, in plain English.
- How many people visited, and how many pages they opened, day by day.
- Where they found you, with AI assistants such as ChatGPT shown separately.
- Which pages they read, and how long they stayed.
- Their country and region, and the type of device they used.
- Clicks on the buttons and links you choose to count.
- How many visitors get from one step to the next, such as from your homepage to your booking page.
- A link to a report that you can send to a client, who needs no account to open it.
You can run both, then choose.
- Create an account and add your website.
- Paste one line of code into your website. Leave Google Analytics where it is.
- Compare the two for a few weeks. They won’t match exactly. Benmetrics counts the visitors who would have said no to cookies, and leaves out visits from bots and data centres.
- When you’re happy, take Google’s code out. Its cookies can come off your cookie banner too. What Google Analytics has already collected stays with Google: we can’t bring it across.
<script defer crossorigin data-domain="yourwebsite.co.uk"
src="https://cdn.benmetrics.com/js/script.js"></script>It works on any website you can paste a line of code into, which includes WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix and Webflow. Some of those only allow it on their paid plans.
Questions people ask.
- Is Google Analytics against the law in the UK?
- No. Many UK websites use it lawfully. What the law controls is how it is set up, and what your visitors are told and asked.
- If I switch, can I take my cookie banner down?
- If Google Analytics was the only thing on your website that set cookies, yes. Embedded videos, adverts and chat boxes often set their own, and those may still need one.
- Where is Benmetrics based?
- In Scotland, where it is independently built and owned. What it counts for you is stored in London.
- What does Benmetrics know about my visitors?
- That someone came, what they read and roughly where they were. Never who they were. The privacy page lists everything it records and everything it doesn’t.
Count your visitors. Don’t track them.
Create your accountWhat this page says about Google Analytics is taken from Google’s help pages on its cookies, its data sharing settings and how it looks after data, as they stood on 12 October 2026. Google Analytics is a trademark of Google LLC, which has no connection with Benmetrics.