What "free" means on each
Statcounter's free Basic plan tracks up to 5,000 sessions a month and keeps 14 days of data. Older comparisons often describe a log of the last 500 pageviews; that is not how Statcounter's current plans are described.
BYOViral's Free plan keeps the last 500 visitors per site in a person-by-person log and keeps daily totals for visitors, pages, sources, countries and devices with no time limit. It allows unlimited sites. When the log is full, the oldest visitor rolls off, but the daily numbers stay.
Paid plans side by side
Statcounter charges by monthly sessions, on two paid tiers. Paying yearly saves about 10%, and there is a 30-day trial with no credit card. Statcounter shows prices in your local currency.
| Sessions a month | Statcounter Premium | Statcounter Premium Plus | BYOViral |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20,000 | $9 | $19 | $0, $5 or $9 |
| 100,000 | $29 | $45 | $0, $5 or $9 |
| 500,000 | $69 | $99 | $0, $5 or $9 |
| 1 million | $119 | $149 | $0, $5 or $9 |
| 5 million | $399 | $499 | $0, $5 or $9 |
Premium keeps data for three years and Premium Plus for five; Premium Plus also adds heatmaps, Google Ads integration and UTM tracking. A Session Replay add-on costs $9, $19 or $29 a month.
BYOViral's plans do not depend on traffic. Free, Premium and Ultra cost $0, $5 and $9 a month and keep 500, 10,000 or 100,000 recent visitors per site. Premium adds CSV export, alerts, goals and simple funnels, Search Console queries and uptime checks; Ultra adds visitor and IP labels, a daily briefing and API access.
Cookies and IP addresses
Statcounter documents two cookies: a first-party cookie, sc_is_visitor_unique, and a third-party cookie, is_unique. It stores full IP addresses by default and offers an opt-in setting that masks the last block.
BYOViral sets no cookies at all and uses no browser storage. Like Statcounter, it keeps full IP addresses in its visitor log, together with the network, approximate location, browser and referrer, and deletes those rows as they roll out of your plan's log size. Daily totals contain no IP addresses.
Removing cookies changes part of the consent picture, not all of it. Whether your site needs a banner still depends on the other scripts on your pages and on where your visitors are.
Click-fraud detection
Statcounter has a click-fraud tool for Google Ads. It flags repeated ad clicks from the same IP address and lets you export the evidence to claim refunds. BYOViral has nothing comparable, so if you buy search ads and want this check, Statcounter is the one with it. You can keep it for that job and use BYOViral alongside it.
Where BYOViral differs
- No cookies, so no Statcounter-style first-party or third-party cookie entries to document.
- Unlimited sites on every plan and no session caps.
- Likely-bot labeling: visits from hosting and cloud networks are kept in a separate small log and left out of your totals.
- An optional public profile at /site/yourdomain.com and a badge with your monthly visitors.
- 39 free SEO and web tools, and uptime checks every five minutes on Premium.
Keeping your Statcounter history
BYOViral has no importer for Statcounter data, so your past numbers stay in Statcounter. On the free Basic plan that history only goes back 14 days, so if you rely on older reports, export them first or keep the account running for a while.
Switching the tracking itself takes a few minutes: add BYOViral's one-line script to your site's header, open the live view to confirm your own visit shows up, then remove the Statcounter code when you are ready.
Statcounter questions
What does Statcounter's free plan include?
Up to 5,000 sessions a month with 14 days of data, according to Statcounter's pricing page. BYOViral's Free plan keeps the last 500 visitors per site and daily totals with no time limit, for unlimited sites.
Does Statcounter set cookies?
Yes. Statcounter documents a first-party cookie and a third-party cookie. BYOViral sets no cookies.
Do both store IP addresses?
Yes. Statcounter stores full IP addresses unless you turn on masking. BYOViral stores them in each site's visitor log until those visits roll out of the plan's log size.
Does BYOViral detect click fraud?
No. Statcounter's click-fraud tool for Google Ads has no equivalent in BYOViral.
Keep your daily totals for good
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