Simple Analytics

Does Simple Analytics have a moat?

Kinda.

30/100 · Shallow moat

“A cookieless analytics dashboard is a weekend build. Matching 8 years of SEO on a DR 81 domain is the hard part, and Plausible already has.”

Code to copy

2 weeks

Moat to cross

a year

Market

Crowded market

Share on X

Moat depth

MoatlessShallowReal

Verified revenueMRR $38,058Last 30 days $42,201All time $1.9MCustomers 3,794Founded 2018TrustMRR

01/The verdict

Cookieless, privacy-first website analytics from an Amsterdam company. Small businesses, agencies and EU-conscious teams pay from about €9 a month, and it can run alongside GA4.

Simple Analytics makes about $38k MRR from roughly 3,800 customers, and nearly all of it is organic. The source is a DR 81 domain, a long-running comparison blog and the 'Google Analytics alternative' search traffic it has ranked for since 2018. Beyond that the walls are thin. The script swaps out in minutes, SOC 2 is still in progress, the founder's audience is modest (about 7.7k followers on X), and the category is packed with open-source rivals that have bigger followings.

02/3 moats

Distribution

Real

~18 mo to cross

Domain rating is 81. Co-owner Iron Brands says growth to about $500k a year came almost entirely from word of mouth, SEO and a free plan, with no paid ads. Early Hacker News launches alone sent 30k+ visitors.

To cross it: Spend 12 to 24 months on comparison pages and 'GA alternative' content, or win a different channel such as a viral open-source repo.

Brand & trust

Shallow

~12 mo to cross

It is EU-owned, EU-hosted and Dutch-registered, has run since 2018 and holds a 4.8 rating from about 46 reviews on Capterra. That matters to European buyers who avoid US vendors after Schrems II.

To cross it: Incorporate and host in the EU, publish a clear privacy stance and collect a few dozen reviews and case studies.

Switching costs

Shallow

~3 mo to cross

Leaving means losing years of dashboard history unless you export it, and agencies would have to set up client sites and shared dashboards again. The tracking script itself is a one-line swap.

To cross it: Offer a one-click importer for Simple Analytics and GA history, plus a free month of overlap.

03/The gap

Easy to copy

The cookieless tracking script and the simple pageviews and referrers dashboard
The 'no consent banner needed' GDPR positioning, which Plausible, Fathom, Pirsch and Umami all claim too
Plain pricing tiers and a free plan
AI summaries and a GA4 side-by-side view

How you'd go after it

Launch as open source with a self-host option and win developers the way Plausible and Rybbit (13k+ GitHub stars) did
Undercut with flat unlimited-sites pricing aimed at agencies, the persona Simple Analytics now targets
Sell to EU public sector and enterprise with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 finished before Simple Analytics completes its own
Bundle revenue attribution or funnels, the area where reviewers say Simple Analytics is too limited, for indie SaaS founders

04/Build against it?

Only with an edge

The product is easy to clone, but the market already has Plausible (about $3M ARR and open source), Fathom, Umami and Rybbit. Only go in with a real distribution edge, like a viral open-source launch or an existing audience, or with a sharp niche such as EU enterprise compliance or agency white-label.

Already selling this:Plausible AnalyticsFathom AnalyticsUmamiPirschRybbitMatomo

05/Receipts

Checked 1h ago by Claude Opus 5.5 on high effort, with web search. Confidence: medium.