Google Analytics for small business: free setup on any builder (2026)

What Google Analytics does for a small business

Google Analytics tells you how many people visit your site, where they came from and what they did once they got there. For a small business, the useful questions are simple: did the ad, the Google listing or the newsletter bring in people who called, booked or bought?

The current version is Google Analytics 4, usually shortened to GA4. Google describes it as a tool that “collects event-based data from both websites and apps.” An event is any action you can count: a page view, a click on your phone number, a form sent, a purchase.

The older version, Universal Analytics, is gone. Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data on July 1, 2023, and access to the interface and API ended starting July 1, 2024, according to Google’s Analytics Help. Any setup guide that talks about a “UA-” tracking ID is out of date.

What it costs

Google says Google Analytics is free of charge, on its product page. There is a paid tier, Analytics 360, but Google publishes no price for it; the page only offers a Talk to Sales button. Its listed extras are service-level agreements, intraday data within an hour and unsampled results. Few small business sites need any of those.

The real cost is your website plan, because some builders only let you add Analytics on paid plans. Here is the 3-year math, using the same baseline as the rest of this site: 36 months of the plan, a domain ($36.96 when year one is included, otherwise $48.24) and one Google Workspace inbox at $252.

Bluehost Starter is $3.99 a month on a 36-month term and renews at $9.99. Wix Light is $17 a month billed yearly, Squarespace Basic $19 a month billed yearly ($25 billed monthly), and Shopify Basic $29 a month billed yearly ($39 billed monthly). Webflow says its Google Analytics integration needs no paid site or Workspace plan.

Before you install: get your measurement ID

Every builder asks for the same thing: your measurement ID, a code that starts with G-. Google’s setup guide for CMS-hosted sites lays out the steps:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics with the business’s Google account and create a property for your website.
2. Add a web data stream with your site’s address.
3. Go to Admin, then Data streams, then your stream, and copy the measurement ID (G-XXXXXXX).
4. Paste it into your builder’s Google Analytics field, using the steps below.
5. Open the Realtime report and load your site in another tab. Google says data collection can take up to 30 minutes to start.

Setup steps by builder

WordPress (self-hosted)

Use Site Kit by Google, Google’s free official plugin. Go to Plugins, then Add New, search for Site Kit by Google, install and activate it, then connect your Google account. Then follow Site Kit’s setup flow to connect Analytics from inside WordPress. It needs WordPress 5.2 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer.

We build on WordPress every week, and Site Kit is the simplest way we know to connect Analytics without touching theme files. It also connects Search Console and PageSpeed Insights from the same screen.

Wix

Wix needs a Premium plan and a connected domain. In your dashboard, go to Marketing Integrations, then Google Tag, then Connect, then Add Google Tag ID. Paste the G- ID and save. Wix’s help center notes that if your site shows a cookie banner, Analytics only collects data after a visitor consents.

An older Wix help article still says GA4 IDs are not supported. The current Wix article and Google’s own setup page both give GA4 steps, so follow the current one.

Squarespace

Open Developer tools, then External API keys, and paste your measurement ID into the Google Analytics account number field. Squarespace’s help center says data can take up to 24 hours to appear. Its cookie banner supports Google Consent Mode.

Shopify

Shopify stores connect GA4 through the Google & YouTube app. Install the app, then on its Overview page choose “Just want to set up Google Analytics 4,” click Get started and pick your property. A manual Google tag option is in the app settings. Steps are on Google’s Shopify setup page.

Webflow

Go to Site settings, then Integrations, then Google Analytics. Paste the measurement ID, save and publish. Webflow says paid plans are needed only for custom code, not for this integration.

Mark the actions that matter as key events

Page views alone don’t tell you much. What you want to know is how many people called, booked or bought. Google calls these key events: events it treats as particularly important to your business, such as a form submit or a purchase.

To mark an existing event, go to Admin, then Data display, then Events, and click the star next to it. You need the Editor role or higher. New events can be created with a Mark as key event switch (Marketer role or higher), per Google’s key events help page. Free properties can mark up to 30 events as key events.

Good first key events for a small business:

• A contact or quote form sent (often a view of your thank-you page).
• A booking completed.
• A purchase, if you sell online.
• A click on your phone number or email link.

If you run Google Ads, you can create an Ads conversion from a GA key event. Our guide to websites and Google Ads covers landing pages and conversion tracking.

One setting to change on day one

Data retention controls how long Analytics keeps user-level and event-level data tied to cookies and identifiers. On a free property you can set it to 2 months or 14 months; only 360 properties get longer options.

Google’s help page doesn’t state which setting a new property starts on, so open your property’s data retention settings and check which one is selected. Google says the setting only affects explorations (the custom reports) and funnel reports, not the standard aggregated reports. If you want to compare this season with last season in an Exploration, 14 months is the one to pick.

Privacy rules for Analytics

This section is general information, not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer about your own site.

You need a privacy policy

Google’s Analytics Terms of Service (US) require you to post a privacy policy that gives notice of your use of cookies and identifiers, discloses that you use Google Analytics and how it collects and processes data, and, where the law requires, to get visitors’ consent to cookies. Google suggests linking to its page “How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.”

California’s CalOPPA, in effect since July 1, 2004, separately requires commercial websites that collect personal information from California consumers to post a privacy policy and follow it. The FTC says businesses must live up to the privacy promises they make, so reread your policy when you add a new tool.

Consent mode, basic or advanced

Consent mode passes a visitor’s cookie choices to Google so its tags change behavior. Google’s consent mode help page describes two setups:

• Basic: Google tags are blocked until the visitor answers the consent banner, so nothing is sent before consent.
• Advanced: tags load right away with consent set to denied and send cookieless pings while denied. Google uses those pings to model conversions and behavior for visitors who decline.

Squarespace’s cookie banner supports Google Consent Mode, and Wix’s banner holds Analytics until a visitor consents. On WordPress, consent plugins handle the banner.

State opt-out laws: California and Colorado

California’s CCPA covers for-profit businesses doing business in California that meet any one test: gross annual revenue over $26,625,000 (the CPI-adjusted figure from January 1, 2025), buying, selling or sharing the personal information of 100,000 or more California residents or households, or earning 50% or more of revenue from selling personal information. A covered business that sells or shares personal information, where sharing means for cross-context behavioral advertising, must post a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link, offer at least two ways to opt out and honor Global Privacy Control browser signals, per the California Attorney General.

The Colorado Privacy Act applies to companies that process the data of 100,000 or more Colorado residents a year, or earn revenue from selling the data of 25,000 or more. Colorado consumers can opt out of the sale of their data and of targeted advertising, and since July 1, 2024 covered companies must honor universal opt-out signals, according to the Colorado Attorney General.

Other states have their own privacy laws with their own thresholds. If your site uses ad tracking or you serve visitors in many states, have a lawyer review your setup. Our US website laws guide is a starting point.

What you keep if you leave your builder

Your Analytics property lives in your Google account, not inside Wix, Squarespace or Shopify. If you move the site, paste the same measurement ID into the new builder and your reports continue in the same property, with the old history still there.

The catch is ownership of the account. If a designer set up Analytics under their own login, ask them to add you as an administrator before the project ends. Our guide to who owns your website covers what else to collect.

The site itself is harder to move than the data. Our exit scores rate self-hosted WordPress 10/10, Squarespace and Shopify 5/10 and Wix 3/10. See leaving your website builder for what moves and what stays behind.

Common mistakes

• Tagging twice. A builder integration plus a custom code snippet can double your numbers.
• Following old UA guides. Universal Analytics stopped processing data in 2023.
• No key events. Without them you see traffic but not results.
• Testing too soon. Data can take up to 30 minutes to start, or up to 24 hours on Squarespace.
• Skipping the privacy policy. Google’s terms require one.

What to do next

• Verify your site in Google Search Console to see the searches behind your visits.
• Check your speed with PageSpeed Insights.
• Back to the full list of free website tools.
• Learn what your builder lets you control for SEO in websites and SEO.
• New to the jargon? Our plugin entry explains how WordPress add-ons like Site Kit work.