Fathom and mandera start from the same principle: no cookies, no personal data, no consent banner, your visitors left alone. Fathom is a polished, well-engineered tool that takes that seriously, down to isolating EU traffic in Europe by default. So this page sets the privacy question aside, because both tools respect it, and looks at what happens after the counting: keep your traffic dashboard clean and stop there, or also put what it measures to work on your rankings, your content and your growth.
| mandera | Fathom Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy & measurement | ||
| Cookieless, no personal data, no consent banner | ✓ no cookies, no banner | ✓ cookieless, no personal data, no consent banner¹ |
| Claims GDPR compliance (own account) | ✓ | ✓ GDPR and Schrems II compliance pages² |
| EU isolation: EU visitor IPs stay in the EU | ✓ IP dropped on arrival for everyone | ✓ on by default, every plan; IP stripped inside the EU³ |
| Primary data residency | ✓ stored in Germany/EU by default | Partial: a Canadian company; EU visitor IPs isolated in Germany, but anonymized data rests on US servers and non-EU visitors go to US servers³ ⁴ |
| Analytics | ||
| Core traffic analytics (pageviews, visits, sources, countries, devices) | ✓ | ✓ clean single-page dashboard⁵ |
| UTM and campaign tracking | ✓ | ✓⁵ |
| Event / conversion tracking | Partial: events, no conversion goals or funnels | ✓ custom events, including ecommerce with revenue⁵ |
| Data export (CSV), email reports, public API | ✕ in-dashboard only | ✓ unlimited CSV exports, email reports, REST API⁵ ⁶ |
| Forever data retention | ✕ retained under one rolling policy | ✓ data kept forever on every plan⁶ |
| Multiple sites included | ✓ | ✓ up to 50 sites on every plan⁶ |
| Beyond traffic counting | ||
| Heatmaps (click, scroll, mouse) | ✓ built in, every page | ✕ not a documented feature⁷ |
| User Flow / path mapping | ✓ aggregated User Flow map | ✕ no path or flow analysis⁷ |
| Your SEO rankings, retrieved automatically | ✓ native rank tracking, weekly | Partial: a read-only Google Search Console integration surfaces clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, not native rank tracking⁸ |
| AI-discovered growth opportunities | ✓ | ✕ no documented AI feature⁷ |
| AI content writing / co-creation | ✓ | ✕ no documented AI feature⁷ |
| Brand Memory: learns your business | ✓ | ✕ no brand-context store documented⁷ |
| Plans & pricing | ||
| Free trial | ✓ 7 days, 10 opportunities | ✓ 7 days⁹ |
| Pricing model | One flat price, 1 million pageviews per month included | Pageview tiers in USD, from $15/month for 100k pageviews up to $60/month ($600/year) at 1 million pageviews, annual billing is 2 months free⁹ |
If you want exactly clean, private traffic counting and nothing more, Fathom is an excellent choice, honestly. The rest of this page is for those who want their analytics to act on what it counts, not just record it.
Fathom earned its reputation. It is built around the idea that analytics should be insightful, not invasive, and it follows that principle all the way down. You add a single line of code, and everything you need lands on one clutter-free page: visitors, pageviews, average time on site, bounce rate, event completions, live visitors, with instant filters and drill-down.⁵ It tracks custom events, including ecommerce with revenue, and UTM campaigns, and the dashboard was recently rebuilt on a new analytics engine with secondary dimensions and more accurate time-on-page.⁵ For a team that wants exactly clean analytics and nothing more, it does its chosen job very well, and counting traffic cleanly is a virtue, not a shortfall.
It is also serious about EU data, in a way worth crediting plainly. EU isolation is on by default for everyone, on every plan, with nothing to set up: EU visitors' IP addresses are hashed inside the EU using a secret salt that never leaves the EU, so the raw IP never reaches US infrastructure, and Fathom states it refuses even US-owned services like GitHub any access to those EU servers.³ ² On top of that, the fundamentals are generous: every plan includes up to 50 sites, forever data retention, unlimited email reports, unlimited CSV exports, and a full REST API with server-side tracking.⁶ ⁵ If your entire requirement is "show me my traffic, simply and privately, and let me export and automate it freely", you can stop reading here and pick Fathom. Honestly. We'd sooner you pick the tool that's right than the page that's loudest.
Everything below is a live demo, not a screenshot. Click around.
We'll cover the basics first. The everyday questions you open Fathom for, traffic over time, page views, visit duration, sources, top pages, mandera answers the same calm, banner-free way. Treat this as the baseline, not the sales talk. Where the two part ways is everything that happens after the counting.
Fathom gives you aggregate metrics, visitors, pageviews, time on site, bounce rate, referrers, but no path or flow analysis.⁷ mandera's User Flow does it another way: it traces real, aggregated journeys through your site, where visitors come in, where they go next, where they leave, with no funnel steps to define and nobody tracked individually. The detours you didn't see coming, and the exact pages where journeys come to an end, are right there.
Every page you track comes with click, scroll and mouse-movement heatmaps built in, with no add-on tool, no second script and no added invoice. Fathom documents no heatmap feature, which fits its deliberately simple, privacy-first design.⁷ With mandera you see where visitors click, how far they read, and which areas hold attention.
Session recording isn't part of it, and that's a deliberate choice. Following each visitor's path through your site is about the most privacy-invasive thing behaviour tools do, and it has no place in a privacy-first product, which is exactly why Fathom doesn't offer it either.⁷ Aggregated heat, yes. Surveillance replays, no.
This is the point where the comparison moves past Fathom's category. Fathom counts traffic cleanly, and a read-only Google Search Console integration can surface your search terms with clicks, impressions, CTR and average position; but its own docs note this mirrors Google's existing data, with a two to three day delay, no link from a query to a session, and not on shared dashboards.⁸
mandera retrieves every keyword your site already ranks for natively, automatically and refreshed weekly. No Search Console to connect, no manual rank tracking, nothing to set up. Your rankings sit next to the real traffic they send you, so you finally see where you stand in search without leaving your analytics.
Fathom documents no AI features at all, and says so plainly: if a feature is not on its site or in its docs, it does not exist.⁷ That is a clean, honest line, and it draws the edge of its category.
mandera's AI is built to act, not only to answer. Its Agentic Engine draws on your traffic, your rankings and your site, uncovers the growth opportunities tucked inside, and helps you work each into a strategy with ready-to-use content. A Context suite (Brand Memory) learns your business so the work sounds like you. Nothing lands on your site without your go-ahead. There's a difference between counting your numbers and growing them, and that's where mandera comes in.
This is the rare comparison where privacy is not the wedge. Both tools are cookieless and collect no personal data, so neither needs a consent banner, and both present themselves as GDPR-compliant.¹ ² mandera drops the IP on arrival for every visitor and stores data in Germany, inside the EU. Fathom enables EU isolation by default on every plan, stripping EU visitors' IP addresses inside the EU so they never reach US infrastructure.³ You have already chosen privacy right with either one.
There is one factual difference in where data rests. Fathom is a Canadian company whose main servers are in the United States; for EU visitors its EU isolation processes traffic on EU servers in Germany (Hetzner) and strips the IP there, but Fathom states the resulting anonymized data is then stored on its main US servers, and non-EU visitors go to US servers directly.³ ⁴ mandera stores data in Germany and the EU by default, rather than as a layer over US-default infrastructure. Both are GDPR-compliant by their own account; this is an architectural difference, stated neutrally, not a verdict.
See our full privacy & compliance page, written for your legal team: hosting, sub-processors, data location, retention and your rights, on one page.
Fathom prices by pageview volume, in US dollars, and it is transparent about it. Plans start at $15 per month for up to 100,000 pageviews and step up through tiers as your traffic grows, reaching $60 per month, or $600 per year, at the up-to-one-million-pageviews tier; annual billing is advertised as two months free, and every plan includes up to 50 sites and forever data retention.⁹ ⁶ That is a fair, clean model, and for small sites the entry tier is inexpensive. It also ties your bill to your success: a viral month can bump you up a tier.
mandera is a subscription with a single flat fee covering 1 million pageviews a month, a ceiling most sites never get close to, and inside it your price holds steady as traffic grows, so a surge in visitors is simply good news. Neither tool has a free-forever plan: both offer a 7-day free trial, and mandera's includes 10 high-impact opportunities to get you started.⁹ The flat fee takes in the entire system: analytics, heatmaps, SEO rankings, User Flow, and the AI engine with its opportunities, strategies and content. Set it against the stack of tools it replaces, not a single clean analytics bill.
Everything the analytics suite measures also feeds mandera's agentic engine, a deeply integrated, multilayered AI system that works automatically. The engine turns your data into growth opportunities and ready-to-use strategies. Hover any stage to see how it flows, or jump straight to another suite below.
Subscribe to mandera and put the whole system to work on your growth. Your free trial includes 10 high-impact opportunities to get you started.
Start free trialPartial means the capability exists with a documented limit or condition: on residency, Fathom isolates EU visitor IPs inside the EU but states the resulting anonymized data is stored on its main US servers, with non-EU visitor traffic going to US servers directly³ ⁴; on SEO, Fathom's Google Search Console integration mirrors Google's existing data (a 2 to 3 day delay, no link from a query to a session, not on shared dashboards) rather than tracking your rankings natively⁸. mandera does not offer conversion goals or funnels, data export, email reports or a public API; those are genuine Fathom strengths.
Sources. ¹ Fathom data policy: cookieless, no personal data, no consent banner (usefathom.com/data) · ² Compliance: GDPR and Schrems II pages, secret hash salt kept in the EU (usefathom.com/legal/compliance, usefathom.com/legal/compliance/schrems-ii-compliant-website-analytics) · ³ EU Isolation: on by default on every plan, IP stripped inside the EU, EU servers in Germany (Hetzner) (usefathom.com/features/eu-isolation) · ⁴ Data journey: Canadian company, main servers in the US, anonymized data stored on US servers, non-EU traffic to US servers (usefathom.com/data) · ⁵ Features: single-page dashboard, custom events with ecommerce revenue, UTM tracking, CSV export, email reports, REST API (usefathom.com/features) · ⁶ Pricing included features: up to 50 sites, forever data retention, unlimited email reports, unlimited data exports (usefathom.com/pricing) · ⁷ Absence of heatmaps, path analysis, native rank tracking and AI, per Fathom's own "if it is not on our docs, it does not exist" statement (usefathom.com/docs/troubleshooting/features) · ⁸ Google Search Console integration: read-only clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, with a 2 to 3 day delay, no query-to-session link, not on shared dashboards (usefathom.com/docs/features/google-search-console) · ⁹ Pricing: 7-day free trial, USD pageview tiers from $15/month for 100k to $60/month ($600/year) at 1 million pageviews, annual billing 2 months free (usefathom.com/pricing, verified 14 June 2026). Feature availability and limits may depend on plan.
Feature information verified on 14 June 2026, based on each provider's public documentation. Spotted something outdated? Let us know and we'll set it straight.
Fathom and Fathom Analytics are trademarks of their respective owner. mandera is not affiliated with Fathom.