OwnlyticsOne-time vs monthly analytics cost over three years
A one-time $49 license is cheaper than any monthly plan above about $1.40 a month over three years (if you stay on the free Cloudflare plan), and it breaks even within six months against our own hosted plans. The honest answer depends on three inputs: the monthly price you would otherwise pay, what you spend on infrastructure, and how long you will really keep the tool.
Fig.Illustrative: a $30/month tool over 36 months against Ownlytics pricing. Check each vendor’s current price.
Why compare over three years?
Monthly prices look small because you see one month at a time. Analytics is also a tool you tend to keep for as long as the site lives, so the useful question is what it costs across the life of the project, not this quarter. Three years is long enough for the difference to show and short enough that most small products are still around.
We will use only our own prices here, because they are the only ones we can state accurately:
- Self-hosted: $49, once. Unlimited websites, every future update.
- Hosted Starter: $9 a month, 50,000 events.
- Hosted Growth: $19 a month, 250,000 events.
For anything else, write "a $X/month tool" and put your own number in. You should check any vendor's current price yourself.
The three-year arithmetic
Thirty-six months of a monthly plan is just 36 times the price.
| Option | Month 1 | Year 1 | Year 3 total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted, free Cloudflare plan | $49 | $49 | $49 |
| Hosted Starter ($9/mo) | $9 | $108 | $324 |
| Hosted Growth ($19/mo) | $19 | $228 | $684 |
| A $X/month tool | $X | $12 × X | $36 × X |
Break-even against a monthly price is the license price divided by that monthly price, rounded up. At $9 a month, $49 is passed in month 6 (6 × $9 = $54). At $19 a month, month 3 (3 × $19 = $57). For "a $X/month tool", divide 49 by X.
What about the cost of running it yourself?
Self-hosted is not always zero. The app runs on Cloudflare, and Cloudflare bills you directly, not us. Our docs say the free plan comfortably handles sites up to roughly 20,000 pageviews a day across all your websites, and that Workers Paid is $5 a month beyond that. Cloudflare changes its limits, so check Cloudflare's current pricing before you plan.
So there are two honest self-hosted scenarios:
- You stay on the free Cloudflare plan. Total is $49, full stop.
- You need Workers Paid. Total over 36 months is $49 + (36 × $5) = $229.
Even the second scenario beats the $9 plan by $95 and the $19 plan by $455 over three years. Against the $9 plan, the paid-Cloudflare case breaks even in month 13, because $49 + 13 × $5 = $114 is the first total below 13 × $9 = $117. Against the $19 plan it breaks even in month 4.
Self-hosting is cheapest when your traffic fits the free Cloudflare plan, and still competitive when it does not. It is never free of effort.
Example (made-up numbers for illustration)
Suppose you are comparing a hypothetical "$15/month tool" with the $49 license.
- 36 months of the hypothetical tool: 36 × $15 = $540.
- Self-hosted on the free Cloudflare plan: $49.
- Self-hosted on Workers Paid the whole time: $229.
- Break-even on the free plan: 49 / 15 = 3.3, so month 4.
Swap in your own number. If your current tool costs $4 a month, the free-plan break-even stretches to month 13, and the case for paying once gets much weaker.
When this comparison misleads you
Cost per month is not the whole story, and there are good reasons to pay monthly:
- You do not want to run anything. Hosted exists for this. Your time has a price, and an update command you forget about is a cost.
- You expect to drop the tool in a few months. If the project is an experiment, a monthly plan you can cancel is a smaller commitment. All our sales are final, so a $49 purchase is not refundable.
- You are above the free Cloudflare limits and growing. Then the $5 monthly Cloudflare bill belongs in your model, as shown above.
- Features matter more than price. A tool that costs less but cannot tell you which source earned a sale may cost more in decisions made blind. See revenue attribution for what we mean.
Hosted has a different shape for overage too. Going over your event allowance does not stop tracking and does not lose data, but if you are over most months we will ask you to move up a plan. The hosted docs list the details.
How to run your own numbers
Take ten minutes with this checklist:
- Write down what you pay now, per month, for analytics.
- Multiply by 36.
- Estimate daily pageviews across all your sites. If you are under about 20,000, assume the free Cloudflare plan and check Cloudflare's current limits.
- Subtract $49 (or $229 if you assume Workers Paid throughout).
- Ask whether the saving is worth a few minutes of one-time setup (our install docs say about three) and an occasional update command.
For a longer take on the same question, see pay once vs monthly analytics. If you are weighing hosting itself, do you need your own analytics server covers it.
At a glance
| Item | Self-hosted | Hosted Starter | Hosted Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 once | $9/mo | $19/mo |
| 3-year total | $49 (or $229 with Workers Paid) | $324 | $684 |
| Events | No limit from us | 50,000/mo | 250,000/mo |
| Websites | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Who runs it | You, on Cloudflare | Us | Us |
You can compare the plans side by side on the pricing page.
FAQ
How much does self-hosted analytics cost over three years?
With Ownlytics it is $49 once, plus whatever Cloudflare charges you. On Cloudflare's free plan that extra is zero. On Workers Paid at $5 a month it is $180 over 36 months, so $229 in total.
How fast does a one-time license pay for itself?
Divide the license price by what you would otherwise pay monthly. At $9 a month, $49 is passed in month 6. At $19 a month, in month 3.
Is the Cloudflare bill predictable?
Cloudflare's current limits and prices are on its pricing page and can change, so check there. Our docs describe roughly 20,000 pageviews a day as the free-plan comfort zone.
Are there hidden renewals?
No. The self-hosted license has no subscription, and updates are included for life.