Jetpack Stats Moves to Paid Model: A Look at the Impact and Alternatives

Jetpack is a popular WordPress plugin by Automattic that brings a lot of freemium features to WordPress users with a few clicks. The Jetpack plugin has been a mainstay in the community since its initial release and the stats feature has been providing users with easy-to-understand traffic data for their sites. However, Jetpack stats are no longer free which has upset the WordPress community and forced many to not only consider if Jetpack stats are worth paying for, but also if Jetpack is needed at all.

I’ve been using WordPress for close to two decades, and while many developers, power users, and hobbyists of the platform throw shade at JetPack as a plug that tries to do too much, I’ve generally been a supporter of the add-on because it’s an easy way for a novice to get stats, leverage a content delivery network (CDN), setup backups, protect their login page from brute force attacks, and even set up a web-application firewall (WAF) with a single click. Certainly, for a start-up blogger or small business that’s using entry-level shared hosting, Jetpack has its place.

While a lot of the features Jetpack offers like brute force protection, site scans, CDN, and WAF are handled by a managed WordPress host or even the free version of Cloudflare, Jetpack’s stats were so accessible and so simple to understand that many of us justified keeping the plugin on our websites for this feature alone. But now, stats are no longer complementary, and Automattic wants us to pay for a feature we were getting for free, so let’s take a look and decide if Jetpack states are worth it.

So What do You Get With Your Paid Plan?

Automattic has hinted that they would begin charging for Jetpack stats for a while, and they gave us a sneak peek at their advanced stats before they made the switch to the paid model. To be honest, there wasn’t much under the hood to be desired. You get stats for visits, pageviews, likes, and comments by day, week, month, and year. Now, the free version just provides users with a 7-day highlight as shown below.

The sneak peek also included a list of referral sources, counties of origin, and most popular content – all from a convenient dashboard from within your WordPress admin. When you visited a page on your website you could also dive into stats about that specific page. None of this is groundbreaking and all of it is available for free within Google Analytics. Without rolling out a must-have API integration that could replace the need for pixels, tags, and other scripts I don’t see much worth paying for here except they offer convenience and GDPR compliance out of the box…Jetpack stats don’t even include simple heatmaps or recordings like we get for free with Microsoft Clarity.

So How Much Does it Cost for Convenience?

Pricing for Jetpack stats starts at $8.34 per month, billed yearly (that’s $100.08 per year), but it doubles as you need more pageviews.

For the pricing structure for Jetpack stats to go from free to $100 a year is a bit steep, but that’s just where it starts because if you have more than 10,000 views a month the cost doubles. Their pricing structure is comparable to Fathom Analytics, but Fathom is further along in its development, can be used on multiple domains, and is offering a more robust feature set for the price.

For those looking for simplicity similar to what Jetpack Stats offered, Fathom Analytics is not only a suitable choice, it’s much more cost effective for a multi-domain owner.

So What Can You Do To Replace Jetpack Stats for Free?

Cloudflare’s analytics is free and very comparable to Jetpack stats. Cloudflare Web Analytics provides privacy-first analytics for your website without changing your DNS or using Cloudflare’s proxy. Rather than relying on client-side scripts that track user behavior, it uses server-side data, ensuring user privacy. For WordPress users focused on speed and privacy, this free tool is an attractive alternative to Jetpack stats that’s easy to setup.

If you are already using Clouflare’s free CDN, you can turn on their Analytics software with just a couple of clicks. If you are not already using Clouflare to manage your domain’s DNS, you’ll have to add the domain to your Clouflare account and install the tracking code manually (it’s a JavaScript Snippet) just like you would have to do to run Google Analytics.

How Can You Place a Code Snippet on Your Website?

The easiest way to self-install the JavaScript Snippet on a WordPress website is with a plugin called WPCode. WpCode offers a free, lite version of their plugin that’s available in the WordPress repository.

Video Walkthrough

Some Bad News, Jetpack Kept Your Stats

Even though I disagree with the decision to charge for stats and believe that the WordPress ecosystem is better with free Jetpack stats, I am not upset that Automattic decided to charge users for them. However, I am frustrated with Automattic and the entire team who has been devoted to open-source software development and backward compatibility because somewhere along the line, someone decided that when they made the switch from free to paid, commercial users who decided to not pay into the plan would lose access to their historical data. There’s no way to export it to take it somewhere else – we never owned the data – which at it’s core is what WordPress used to be all about.

Wrapping it up

You may want to use Jetpack stats because it’s so easy to turn on, but It’s important to assess your analytics needs and balance them against the price of the service. While less convenient, Cloudflare’s Web Analytics provides a viable alternative that’s easy to setup. Google Analytics is more robust and still free, and Fathom Analytics offers multi-domain use and a more mature product for almost the same cost as a single site license for Jetpack stats.

Ultimately, you need to opt for the service that aligns with your business objectives, without overlooking the importance of understanding visitor behavior on your website. Your choice will inevitably come down to your preference and the specific requirements of your website.

For the WordPress community, it’s a moment of transition—and a reminder of the value of adaptability in an evolving digital landscape.

Related Articles from Around the Web:

1. Jetpack’s official release announcement: https://jetpack.com/blog/updates-to-jetpack-stats-for-commercial-sites/