# PostHog vs Plausible for Indie Makers (2026)

> PostHog vs Plausible in 2026: PostHog free tier has 1M events/mo; Plausible starts at $9/mo. Product vs web analytics, privacy, and when to run both.

- Canonical: https://zeroraised.com/blog/posthog-vs-plausible-for-indie-makers
- Published: 2026-11-07T07:29:28Z
- Author: ZeroRaised Team (https://zeroraised.com/blog/authors/zeroraised)
- Publisher: ZeroRaised (https://zeroraised.com/)
- Section: Growth
- Tags: analytics, comparison, developer-tools, saas

**Verdict:** Pick Plausible if you need simple, cookie-free traffic analytics for a marketing site, blog or landing page and are happy to pay from $9/mo. Pick PostHog if you need to see what users do inside your product, because its free tier includes 1M analytics events, session replay and feature flags every month. If you run a SaaS with a public site, use both: Plausible outside the login, PostHog inside it.

Every price and limit below comes from PostHog's and Plausible's own pages, checked on 7 Nov 2026. The advice in between is ours and is marked as such.

## TL;DR

- **PostHog is free for most indie makers.** Its pricing page says "97% of companies use PostHog for free", and the free allowance renews every month: 1M analytics events, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests, 100K exceptions and 1,500 survey responses ([PostHog pricing](https://posthog.com/pricing)).
- **Plausible is paid after a trial.** You get 30 days free with no card, then Starter at $9/mo, Growth at $14/mo or Business at $19/mo for the 10k monthly pageview tier ([Plausible plans](https://plausible.io/docs/subscription-plans)).
- **Different jobs.** PostHog is product analytics plus replay, flags, experiments and surveys. Plausible is lightweight web analytics.
- **Privacy.** Plausible says "No cookies, no persistent identifiers", is EU-hosted and open source ([Plausible](https://plausible.io/)).
- **No surprise bills on either.** PostHog's free plan stops at the limits. Plausible does not charge you for one spike month; it asks you to upgrade after two consecutive months over.

**Disclosure:** ZeroRaised publishes this comparison and is a launch site for bootstrapped products. ZeroRaised has no commercial relationship with PostHog or Plausible and earns nothing if you sign up for either. Facts come from the linked sources as checked on 7 Nov 2026.

## How this differs from our free analytics roundup

Our [free website analytics guide](https://zeroraised.com/blog/free-website-analytics) lines up the free plans and trials of 10 vendors, from Umami to Google Analytics, in each vendor's own units. It is the right page if you want the widest view of what costs nothing.

This post is narrower. PostHog and Plausible are the two names indie makers most often shortlist, and they are not really competitors. One answers "where did my visitors come from?" and the other answers "what did my users do after they signed up?" Choosing between them is less about price and more about which question you need answered this month.

## PostHog vs Plausible at a glance

| | PostHog | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Product analytics platform | Web analytics |
| Free option | Free plan, renews monthly, not a trial | 30-day free trial, no card; no free cloud plan after |
| Entry paid price | Pay-as-you-go, same free tier, pay only for usage above it | Starter $9/mo (10k monthly pageviews) |
| Analytics allowance | 1M events/month free | Priced by monthly pageviews, from 10k |
| Session replay | 5K recordings/month free | Not part of its plans |
| Feature flags | 1M requests/month free | Not part of its plans |
| Error tracking | 100K exceptions/month free | Not part of its plans |
| Surveys | 1,500 responses/month free | Not part of its plans |
| Funnels and journeys | Part of product analytics | Business plan ($19/mo entry) |
| Projects or sites | Free: 1 project. Pay-as-you-go: 6 projects | Starter: 1 site. Growth: up to 3 sites |
| Team members | Unlimited on free | Starter: solo. Growth: up to 3 |
| Data retention | Free: 1 year. Pay-as-you-go: 2 years | Not covered in this post |
| Cookies | Depends on configuration; see our roundup | "No cookies, no persistent identifiers" |
| Hosting | Cloud (self-host details not covered here) | EU-hosted cloud, or self-host the open source version |
| Overage | Free plan stops at the limit, no bill | One spike month is not charged; two consecutive months over and you are asked to upgrade |

Sources: [PostHog pricing](https://posthog.com/pricing), [PostHog vs Plausible](https://posthog.com/compare/posthog-vs-plausible), [Plausible](https://plausible.io/), [Plausible subscription plans](https://plausible.io/docs/subscription-plans).

## Product analytics vs web analytics

This is the distinction that decides most cases, so it is worth being precise.

**Web analytics** counts visits to pages. It tells you how many people landed on your site, which pages they read, where they came from (search, a launch site, a newsletter, a tweet) and whether they reached a goal such as a signup page. Plausible is built for this. It gives you one dashboard, a small script and no consent banner gymnastics.

**Product analytics** follows what people do inside your product, usually after they sign in. Which features do new users try in week one? Where do they drop out of onboarding? Do people who use feature X stay longer? PostHog is built for this, and it bundles the tools you reach for next: session replay to watch where someone got stuck, feature flags to ship to a few users first, experiments, error tracking and in-app surveys ([PostHog vs Plausible](https://posthog.com/compare/posthog-vs-plausible)).

Our read: if your product is a website (a blog, a directory, a newsletter, a content site), web analytics is most of what you need. If your product is an app people log into, web analytics only covers the front door. Retention, the number that tells you whether a SaaS is working, lives inside the app.

## Pricing: PostHog's free tier vs Plausible from $9

### PostHog: free until you are big

PostHog's free plan is unusually generous and, importantly, it is a plan, not a trial. It needs no credit card, includes unlimited team members, one project and one year of data retention, and it stops at the free limits so you "cannot be surprised with a bill" ([PostHog pricing](https://posthog.com/pricing)).

The monthly free allowances checked on 7 Nov 2026:

| PostHog product | Free each month |
|---|---|
| Product analytics | 1M events |
| Session replay | 5K recordings |
| Feature flags | 1M requests |
| Error tracking | 100K exceptions |
| Surveys | 1,500 responses |

The pricing page lists further product allowances beyond these five.

When you need more, pay-as-you-go keeps the same free tier and charges only for usage above it. It also raises you to 6 projects and 2 years of retention and adds email support. We have not quoted per-unit overage prices here because they vary by product; check the pricing page calculator with your own volumes.

Our read: an indie SaaS in its first year will rarely get close to 1M events a month unless it tracks every click. The limit you are more likely to feel first on the free plan is one project, if you want separate projects for staging and production or for two products.

### Plausible: small, fixed, predictable

Plausible has no free cloud plan. You get a 30-day trial with no card, and the trial includes Business features so you can see the full product before choosing ([Plausible plans](https://plausible.io/docs/subscription-plans)). At the 10k monthly pageview entry tier, plans are:

| Plausible plan | Price (monthly, 10k pageviews) | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $9/mo | One site, solo use |
| Growth | $14/mo | Up to 3 sites, up to 3 team members, sharing |
| Business | $19/mo | Funnels, journeys, revenue tracking, Stats API and more |

Paying yearly saves two months, according to Plausible's docs. On Starter that works out to about $90 a year instead of $108, if you take the saving as exactly two monthly payments.

Overage is handled gently. Plausible says it will never surprise-charge you for a single spike month, which matters if your launch day lands on a big launch site. If you are over the limit for two consecutive months, you are asked to upgrade, and dashboards may be locked if you do not.

The free route is self-hosting. Plausible is open source, and its self-hosted version is community-supported, so you trade $9 a month for running and updating a server yourself.

Our read: for a bootstrapped maker, $9 a month is a real but small line item. The bigger question is whether you would otherwise pay with your time. If you already run servers, self-hosting is reasonable. If you do not, the $9 buys you not thinking about it.

## Privacy and consent

Privacy is Plausible's core pitch. Its homepage says "No cookies, no persistent identifiers", that it is hosted in the EU and that it is open source. It also says its script is about 54 times smaller than Google Analytics, roughly 135KB less JavaScript per visitor ([Plausible](https://plausible.io/)). Plausible describes itself as a self-funded team of 11.

PostHog is a different kind of tool. Product analytics is designed to understand how individual users move through your app, which usually means identifying them. That is not a flaw, it is the point, but it means privacy and consent depend on how you set it up. We did not verify PostHog's cookie and consent documentation for this post; our [free website analytics roundup](https://zeroraised.com/blog/free-website-analytics) quotes what PostHog's docs said about cookie banners when we checked them in October.

All of the above are vendor claims, not legal advice. If you sell to customers in regulated markets, read each vendor's privacy and data processing pages on the day you sign up.

Our read: if your only goal on the public site is counting visitors and signups without a consent banner, Plausible is the low-effort answer. Inside a logged-in app, where users already have an account with you, deeper product tracking is easier to justify, and that is where PostHog fits.

## When to use both

This is the setup we would pick for most bootstrapped SaaS products:

1. **Plausible on the public site.** Homepage, pricing page, blog and docs. Use it to see which channels bring visitors, which posts earn signups and how a launch day performs. If you are investing in [SEO as a bootstrapped startup](https://zeroraised.com/blog/seo-for-bootstrapped-startups), this is where you see which articles pull their weight.
2. **PostHog inside the app.** Track signup completion, activation steps, feature use and retention. Turn on session replay when users report something confusing, and use feature flags to roll out risky changes to a few accounts first.
3. **Connect them with one goal.** Make "signup completed" a goal in Plausible and the first event in PostHog, so you can follow a visitor from source to activated user without merging the two tools.

On published prices, that stack costs from $9/mo (Plausible Starter) plus $0 (PostHog's free tier). If you move to Plausible Business for funnels and revenue tracking on the site, it is $19/mo at the entry tier.

The alternative, using PostHog for everything, is also reasonable and costs nothing at indie scale. Our read: it works well if you are comfortable with a more complex dashboard and are happy to manage consent for the public site. Using Plausible for everything is the weaker choice for a SaaS, because it cannot show you retention or replay inside the app.

## Decision table

This is our editorial advice, based on the published prices and features above.

| Your situation | Our pick |
|---|---|
| Blog, newsletter site or content site, no login | Plausible (Starter, $9/mo) |
| Landing page or waitlist before you build | Plausible, or PostHog free if you want $0 |
| Marketing site where a cookie-free setup matters most | Plausible |
| SaaS where you need onboarding funnels and retention | PostHog |
| You want to watch session replays of confused users | PostHog (5K recordings/month free) |
| You want to roll out features to some users first | PostHog (1M flag requests/month free) |
| SaaS with a public site and a logged-in app | Both: Plausible outside, PostHog inside |
| Budget is strictly $0 and you will not self-host | PostHog |
| Budget is $0 and you are happy to run a server | Self-hosted Plausible for the site, PostHog free for the app |
| You run several small sites and want one bill | Plausible Growth (up to 3 sites, $14/mo) |
| A team of more than three needs dashboard access | PostHog (unlimited team members on free) or Plausible Business |

## How to choose in ten minutes

1. Write down the one question you most need answered this month. "Where do my visitors come from?" points to Plausible. "Why do new users not come back?" points to PostHog.
2. Check whether your product has a login. No login, start with Plausible. A login, add PostHog inside it.
3. If you are pre-revenue and every dollar counts, start on PostHog's free tier and add Plausible later, when you start publishing content or launching.
4. Revisit once you have paying users. Our guide on [how to bootstrap a SaaS](https://zeroraised.com/blog/how-to-bootstrap-a-saas) shows where analytics fits alongside payments, hosting and your first customers.

Our read: do not over-instrument early. Two or three events that track signup, activation and a repeat visit tell a tiny SaaS more than a hundred auto-captured clicks nobody looks at.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is PostHog free for indie makers?

Yes, for most. PostHog's pricing page says 97% of companies use it for free. The free plan is not a trial: it renews monthly with 1M analytics events, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests, 100K exceptions and 1,500 survey responses, needs no credit card, includes unlimited team members, one project and one year of data retention, and stops collecting at the limits instead of billing you.

### Does Plausible have a free plan?

Not on its cloud service. Plausible offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card, which includes Business features. After that, plans start at $9/mo for Starter at 10k monthly pageviews. The free route is self-hosting the open source version, which is community-supported.

### Is Plausible more private than PostHog?

Plausible's homepage says it uses no cookies and no persistent identifiers, and that it is EU-hosted and open source. PostHog is a product analytics tool built to understand individual user behaviour, so its privacy footprint depends on how you configure it. If a cookie-free public site matters most, Plausible is the simpler choice.

### Can I use PostHog and Plausible together?

Yes, and for a SaaS it is often the best setup. Put Plausible on the marketing site and blog for traffic sources and goals, and put PostHog inside the signed-in app for funnels, retention, session replay and feature flags. On published prices that costs from $9/mo for Plausible Starter plus $0 for PostHog's free tier.

### How is this different from the free website analytics roundup?

Our [free website analytics guide](https://zeroraised.com/blog/free-website-analytics) compares the free plans and trials of 10 tools side by side. This post goes deep on one decision, PostHog vs Plausible, and covers which kind of analytics you need, what each costs as you grow, privacy, and when to run both.

## Launch what you measure

ZeroRaised is a launch directory for products built without institutional VC. Once your analytics is in place, [submit your product](https://zeroraised.com/submit) for free and watch the launch traffic arrive. For more comparisons and guides on growing without investors, [join the ZeroRaised newsletter](https://zeroraised.com/newsletter).

## Sources

- [PostHog pricing](https://posthog.com/pricing), last checked 7 Nov 2026
- [PostHog vs Plausible comparison](https://posthog.com/compare/posthog-vs-plausible), last checked 7 Nov 2026
- [Plausible homepage](https://plausible.io/), last checked 7 Nov 2026
- [Plausible subscription plans documentation](https://plausible.io/docs/subscription-plans), last checked 7 Nov 2026

## Frequently asked questions

### Is PostHog free for indie makers?

Yes, for most. PostHog's pricing page says 97% of companies use it for free. The free plan is not a trial: it renews monthly with 1M analytics events, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests, 100K exceptions and 1,500 survey responses, needs no credit card, includes unlimited team members, one project and one year of data retention, and stops collecting at the limits instead of billing you.

### Does Plausible have a free plan?

Not on its cloud service. Plausible offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card, which includes Business features. After that, plans start at $9/mo for Starter at 10k monthly pageviews. The free route is self-hosting the open source version, which is community-supported.

### Is Plausible more private than PostHog?

Plausible's homepage says it uses no cookies and no persistent identifiers, and that it is EU-hosted and open source. PostHog is a product analytics tool built to understand individual user behaviour, so its privacy footprint depends on how you configure it. If a cookie-free public site matters most, Plausible is the simpler choice.

### Can I use PostHog and Plausible together?

Yes, and for a SaaS it is often the best setup. Put Plausible on the marketing site and blog for traffic sources and goals, and put PostHog inside the signed-in app for funnels, retention, session replay and feature flags. On published prices that costs from $9/mo for Plausible Starter plus $0 for PostHog's free tier.

### How is this different from the free website analytics roundup?

Our free website analytics guide compares the free plans and trials of 10 tools side by side. This post goes deep on one decision, PostHog vs Plausible, and covers which kind of analytics you need, what each costs as you grow, privacy, and when to run both.