Kratly vs GA4: revenue attribution or web analytics?

GA4 and Kratly overlap less than people expect. GA4 is built to answer "what do people do on my site?" Kratly is built to answer "which campaign, page and email made money, and what should we change?"

This page compares them fairly. Every fact about GA4 links to Google's own documentation, as of October 2026.

A note on bias: Kratly is our product. We've said plainly where GA4 is the better choice.

Who each tool is for#

GA4 is for anyone with a website or app who wants to understand visitors. That covers traffic sources, pages, events, funnels and audiences. It's free, so almost every team already has it. Google positions the paid version, Analytics 360, for "the unique measurement needs of large enterprises" (Google).

Kratly is for SaaS, app and store teams that spend on ads and want to know which spend turns into payments. It reads revenue from Stripe, your store or the app stores. Then it acts on what it finds, within limits you set.

The simplest way to put it: GA4 measures the visit. Kratly measures the money, and then does something about it.

What each does#

GA4 details: attribution, BigQuery Export, Google Analytics.

Pricing as of October 2026#

GA4: free. Google says it gives "the tools, free of charge, to understand the customer journey and improve marketing ROI" (Google). Analytics 360 has no public price; you talk to sales (Google).

There are smaller costs on the free version. BigQuery storage and queries are billed by Google Cloud once you pass the free sandbox. Streaming export adds $0.05 per gigabyte, roughly 600,000 events (Google). The bigger cost is usually time: setting up events, ecommerce data and server-side sends.

Kratly: Starter is $49 a month, Growth $199 and Scale $599. Enterprise is custom. The self-serve plans start with a 14-day free trial.

Where GA4 is better#

GA4 does several jobs better than Kratly, and some Kratly doesn't do at all.

• It's free. For most teams, the free version is enough for behavior reporting.
• Behavior and funnels. Explorations, funnel reports, paths and segments go far deeper than Kratly. Kratly is not a full product analytics suite.
• Audiences. GA4 builds audiences you can use in Google's ad tools. Kratly doesn't build ad audiences.
• Google integrations. GA4 works with Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Display & Video 360 and Search Console (Google).
• Raw data. Standard properties can export events to BigQuery, up to 1 million a day, with streaming export unlimited (Google).
• Data-driven attribution. GA4's data-driven model spreads credit using Google's own modeling. Kratly offers rule-based models only.
• Scale. Analytics 360 raises limits sharply, for example 1 billion events per exploration query, against 10 million on standard (Google).

If your question is "why do visitors drop off on step three of sign-up?", use GA4.

Where Kratly is better#

It reads payments where they happen#

GA4 only knows about revenue you send it. For SaaS, much of the money arrives later: the first invoice after a trial, renewals, upgrades and refunds. Those happen in Stripe, not in the browser.

You can send them to GA4 with the Measurement Protocol. Google says the protocol is meant "to supplement, not replace" tag-based collection, and that "only partial reporting may be available" with it alone (Google). Someone has to build and maintain that link.

Kratly reads Stripe, store and app-store payments directly and joins them to the click and visit that came first.

Simple models on real revenue#

GA4 now offers three models. First click, linear, time decay and position-based were removed in November 2023 (Google). Kratly shows the same Stripe revenue under first touch, last touch and linear. Comparing them shows where credit is contested. See first touch vs last touch vs last non-direct click.

Longer memory for long cycles#

On standard GA4, user and event data in explorations and funnel reports is kept for 2 or 14 months. Standard aggregated reports aren't affected (Google). If you want to study cohorts that pay over a year or more, that window matters.

It acts, then checks#

GA4 reports. Kratly finds wasted ad spend and proposes negatives and budget shifts. It suggests page fixes, drafts content and sends follow-up emails through your SendGrid account. Each change runs as Suggest, Ask first or Autopilot within limits, and is logged and can be undone. Results are measured against a control group, not a before-and-after chart. More on that in did my marketing change work?

Can you use both?#

Yes, and most teams should. They answer different questions.

A sensible setup:

1. Keep GA4 for behavior. Track a short list of key events, as in our GA4 key events for SaaS guide.
2. Use the same UTMs everywhere, so both tools label campaigns the same way. See our UTM naming convention.
3. Use Kratly for revenue by campaign, page and email, and for the changes.
4. When the two disagree, trust the payment. GA4 and ad platforms are directional; Stripe holds the money. Our SaaS marketing attribution guide explains why the numbers never match exactly.

How to decide#

Choose GA4 alone if:

• You don't run paid ads yet, or spend very little.
• Your main questions are about site behavior and content.
• You have an analyst who can send Stripe revenue to GA4 and keep it working.

Add Kratly if:

• You spend on ads and can't say which campaigns bring paying customers.
• Revenue arrives after a trial, as renewals, or through an app store.
• You know what's wrong but nobody has time to act on it.
• You want each change measured against a control.

How to do this in Kratly#

Kratly sits next to GA4. You don't need to remove anything.

1. Connect Stripe and your ad accounts. Kratly reads payments, plus spend from Google Ads, Microsoft Ads or Meta.
2. Install Kratly's tracking on your site. It records visits and click IDs, so payments can be joined to campaigns.
3. Compare revenue by campaign. Switch between first touch, last touch and linear to see where credit moves.
4. Review proposed changes. Negatives, budget shifts, page fixes and follow-up emails, ranked by revenue at stake.
5. Measure against a control. Keep the changes that paid.

Want a quick check first? The free wasted-spend checker reads a Google Ads search-terms CSV in your browser.