The Best Analytics Solution for WordPress
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is an incredibly powerful tool for learning about your website visitors. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty difficult to use, especially for beginners.
If you’re looking for deeper insights into visitor behavior without drowning in complex data sets, then you may be debating between MonsterInsights and Site Kit by Google.
Both of these plugins make Google Analytics reports available within WordPress, but each tool approaches this goal differently.
Site Kit, Google’s official WordPress plugin, offers a simple solution, while MonsterInsights is a more comprehensive tool with additional features.
When making the decision for our own website, we picked MonsterInsights because of its powerful features that let us track the evolving needs of our readers. We’re really happy with it, but we know it might not be the best choice for everyone.
In this article, we’ll compare these two popular analytics solutions, considering important metrics like ease of use, tracking capabilities, and overall value. Let’s get to it!
Quick Overview: MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit
Short on time? Here’s a quick comparison of MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit to help you quickly decide which one best fits your needs.
An Introduction to MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit
Analytics plugins and tools can help you understand how your website is performing and how your visitors interact with it. This data helps you improve your strategies and reach your goals.
But many analytics solutions give you so much complex information that it can be hard to understand or make sense of the data. For beginners, this is definitely the case if you’re using Google Analytics 4.
The good news is that if you’re using WordPress, MonsterInsights and Site Kit by Google can help simplify GA4 data. They will show you the most important metrics right in your dashboard, so you don’t need to be a tech wizard.
With MonsterInsights, you can connect to GA4 in just a few clicks. Then, it allows you to view tons of user-friendly reports. For instance, you can see the number of new and returning website visitors, what countries they are from, and what types of devices they are using.
You can even get real-time stats! That means you can see how many people are visiting your site right now.
If you’re running an online store, it helps you easily track sales and revenue. You can also customize reports to focus on things like your top pages or audience demographics.
Plus, MonsterInsights integrates with popular tools like WPForms, WooCommerce, and Yoast, making it a great choice for WordPress users.
Here’s what the MonsterInsights dashboard looks like:
We use MonsterInsights and have seen firsthand how the plugin makes data analytics very simple. It makes it so much easier to actually use the data to make informed decisions.
💡 Curious about our hands-on experience? See our detailed MonsterInsights review for more details.
On the other hand, Site Kit is an official Google plugin for WordPress.
It’s a central place to connect and manage all your Google tools, including Google Analytics, Search Console, and AdSense, right inside your WordPress dashboard.
Site Kit gives you key stats about your traffic, search performance, and earnings. It also integrates smoothly with Google Tag Manager for more advanced tracking without needing extra plugins.
Related: See our detailed comparison of Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of MonsterInsights and Site Kit, we’ll explore the key factors we thoroughly tested and researched to help you decide which plugin is right for you.
Here’s what we’ll go over:
📣 Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we’re a team of experts specializing in WordPress, eCommerce, online marketing, growth strategies, and much more.
We’ve used lots of different analytics tools, and we have extensive experience with both Google Analytics and MonsterInsights.
In fact, we use MonsterInsights on our websites to track conversions, referrals, and visitor demographics. It has really helped us better understand our readers and improve our strategies.
For tools we don’t use on our own sites, we thoroughly test and research them to make sure we provide our readers with accurate and up-to-date information. For more details, see our editorial process.
Ready? Time to dive in!
Ease of Use
For this first section, we’ll look at the installation process and overall ease of use for MonsterInsights and Site Kit.
Site Kit
To install Site Kit, you can log in to your WordPress dashboard and then go to Plugins » Add New. In the search bar, simply type in ‘Site Kit’ or ‘Site Kit by Google.’
Once you find the tool, you can just follow the prompts to install and activate the plugin.
After that, you can click the ‘Site Kit’ menu in your dashboard.
You’ll then need to sign in with your Google account, grant necessary permissions, and connect services like Google Analytics, Search Console, and AdSense.
After completing the setup, you’ll be able to view key data right inside your WordPress dashboard.
Site Kit is designed with simplicity in mind. You can easily switch tabs to find reports for traffic, top-performing content, site speed, and AdSense earnings.
This can make it feel less overwhelming, especially for beginners who just need the basics without too much complexity.
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is a powerful plugin that brings Google Analytics straight into your WordPress dashboard. It makes complex data easy to understand with simple graphs and reports.
To get started, you’ll install and activate the free MonsterInsights plugin.
Once activated, a new ‘Insights’ menu and a welcome screen will appear in your WordPress admin.
The setup wizard will prompt you to choose a website category (business, blog, or online store) and then ask you to connect to your Google Analytics account.
After logging in and granting access, you can select your website profile and complete the connection.
Once you finish the wizard, Google Analytics will be set up to track your site’s data.
Google Analytics gathers tons of information, and it can be hard to sift through it all. MonsterInsights makes it easy by displaying simple, clear reports directly in your WordPress admin area.
You can track essential metrics like:
- Traffic sources: Find out where your visitors are coming from, whether the sources are search engines, social media, or other websites.
- Visitor locations: See which countries your audience is from to better tailor your content marketing efforts to specific regions.
- Device usage: Know which devices (desktop, mobile, or tablet) your visitors are using. This data allows you to make sure your site looks great for all users.
- Top-performing pages: Discover which pages get the most attention to create content your audience loves.
There are also specialized reports for SEO performance and page speed.
With this data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions to improve your website’s performance without sifting through complex Google Analytics reports.
Winner – Tie
In our opinion, there’s not a clear winner when comparing MonsterInsights and Site Kit for ease of use. So, we’re calling it a tie.
Site Kit excels with its simplicity and fewer features, making it a great choice for beginners. It’s perfect for those who use Google services and want to get basic insights without feeling overwhelmed.
On the other hand, MonsterInsights offers more features. This is great, but it means beginners may need a little more time to learn. However, once you get the hang of it, MonsterInsights is intuitive and far easier to use than Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Tracking Features
In terms of tracking features, our research revealed that both Site Kit and MonsterInsights come with some serious tools to help you understand your site’s performance.
Let’s see what each one has to offer.
Site Kit
Site Kit’s single report page shows an overview of total visitors and traffic sources. The pie chart breaks down traffic sources by:
- Channels: This covers organic traffic (from search engines), referral traffic (from links on other websites), direct traffic (when users type your URL or use bookmarks), social traffic (from social media), and email traffic (from links clicked in emails).
- Locations: The countries from which your users are accessing the site.
- Devices: The type of device used, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet.
If you scroll down the page, you can also find reports for top search queries, pageviews, and engagement.
Another standout feature is Site Kit’s milestone alerts, which notify you when you hit important milestones for traffic and performance.
This makes it easy to stay updated without constantly checking your stats.
It’s also helpful for small to medium-sized businesses that could use some extra encouragement while growing their site traffic.
If you connect other Google services to Site Kit, you’ll also be able to see the following reports:
- A traffic report showing clicks and impressions from Google Search Console.
- A top queries report showing the most popular keywords on your website.
- A speed report showing your website’s performance according to PageSpeed Insights.
- A monetization report with earnings from your AdSense earnings.
Overall, this makes it easy to manage all your reports and data from one place.
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights has some awesome tracking features that go way beyond the basics.
The plugin provides a variety of reports in the dashboard. You can easily see how your marketing campaigns are doing – whether it’s an email, social media post, or ad.
You can also easily keep tabs on how your affiliate marketing campaigns are doing and if your affiliate links actually make money.
This report is perfect for bloggers or anyone who relies on affiliate income to figure out what’s working and what’s not.
The popular post feature identifies your most viewed content and then lets you highlight these popular posts in other areas of your site, like the sidebar or footer.
It’s a great way to draw attention to what your audience loves most and keep them exploring your site longer.
In addition, you can track browsers, mobile devices, and form submissions. You can also monitor average scroll depth, real-time data, and more.
The best part? All the features we’ve just mentioned are included in the free version of MonsterInsights.
If you upgrade to the premium plugin, MonsterInsights also provides advanced tracking features that Google Analytics doesn’t support by default, or that can be difficult to set up.
One of these standout features is the eCommerce addon.
With this addon, you can track how many times customers add or remove products from their cart. You can also get insights into abandoned cart rates and distinguish between new and returning customers.
It also helps you identify popular products to highlight in your landing pages, ads, and email campaigns.
Additionally, you can track underperforming products and create targeted campaigns to boost sales, such as upselling or cross-selling.
For online store owners, this is far simpler than using Google Tag Manager or hiring a developer to set up similar eCommerce tracking.
🚨 Important Note: If you aren’t using an analytics plugin like MonsterInsights, Google recommends you hire a developer to set up eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics 4. So, MonsterInsights can be a great alternative if you don’t want to deal with the hassle or expense of hiring a professional.
And for those who create video content, MonsterInsights offers a Media addon.
This addon tracks the performance of all your YouTube and Vimeo videos. The report shows video views within WordPress alongside views on the external platform.
If you sell digital products, MonsterInsights also allows you to easily track file downloads for various file types – PDFs, DOCs, ZIP files, and more!
This tracking helps you identify the most popular digital products for promotion in your marketing campaigns.
Winner – MonsterInsights
Based on our testing and research, MonsterInsights is the clear leader in the tracking features category. It is highly flexible and offers a wide range of tracking tools for almost every website element. Plus, many of them are free.
Its campaign tracking and affiliate tools are perfect for business websites, while the popular post feature boosts visibility for bloggers.
Meanwhile, if you sell digital downloads or embed videos, it provides valuable insights into their performance.
These features make MonsterInsights the top choice for anyone who needs more than just the basics.
GDPR Compliance
If you’re running a website that serves users in the European Union (EU), following the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is non-negotiable.
When it comes to WordPress plugins, some are better equipped than others to help you stay compliant. Let’s see how Site Kit and MonsterInsights handle this.
Site Kit
Site Kit helps with GDPR compliance through the WP Consent API. However, you’ll need to enable this feature manually and handle notice and consent requirements yourself.
The good news is that some popular consent software, such as CookieYes, Complianz, GDPR Cookie Compliance, and Cookiebot, work with Site Kit without causing plugin conflicts.
These plugins block data collection until visitors give consent.
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights, on the other hand, makes GDPR compliance much simpler.
If you purchase a premium MonsterInsights license, you’ll get access to the EU Compliance addon. This addon helps anonymize user data, such as IP addresses, to align with GDPR requirements.
Plus, the addon integrates with popular cookie consent plugins like Complianz. This allows you to display cookie banners and collect user consent for tracking.
Winner – MonsterInsights
Once again, MonsterInsights takes the lead here, thanks to its EU Compliance addon. All you need to do is install the addon and turn the switch to activate it. No complicated setup.
If privacy compliance is a priority for you (and it should be), MonsterInsights is a more straightforward choice.
📝 Important Note: While MonsterInsights and Site Kit provide tools to support GDPR compliance, full compliance depends on how your website handles, processes, and stores data overall. For more information see our ultimate guide to WordPress and GDPR compliance.
Integrations
Software compatibility can make all the difference in streamlining your analytics and providing deeper insights. So, let’s compare MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit in terms of integrations.
Site Kit
Site Kit offers some great integrations to make tracking your site easier. As you might have guessed, though, these integrations are mainly with other Google tools and services.
For example, it connects with Google Search Console to bring keyword data directly into your WordPress dashboard. You can also link it to Google Ads to track conversions from ad clicks.
One handy Site Kit feature is the ability to automatically install your Google Tag Manager code.
Plus, it works seamlessly with Google AdSense, automatically adding the necessary code for ad monetization on your site.
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights integrates with various tools to boost your tracking.
When it comes to Google tools, the plugin connects with both Google Search Console and Google Ads.
However, it doesn’t offer the option to install Google Tag Manager code since it already tracks many of the events where you’d usually need Tag Manager.
But the nice thing is that MonsterInsights can integrate with plenty of software and services outside the Google ecosystem.
For instance, if you’re running an online store, MonsterInsights works seamlessly with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, MemberPress, and other eCommerce plugins.
This way, you can enable Google Analytics eCommerce tracking to gain insights into product performance and sales data.
For lead generation, MonsterInsights has the Forms addon to track form views and conversions. It also works well with popular contact form plugins like WPForms.
If you’re running ad campaigns, you can connect Meta (Facebook) to track conversions from your ads by adding your Facebook Pixel ID. You can also link Microsoft Ads with your Tag ID to track conversions from Bing.
Meanwhile, for affiliate marketing, MonsterInsights pairs with Pretty Links to track clicks on your affiliate links. It also integrates with SEO plugins like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) and Yoast to help you track your focus keywords and measure your SEO performance.
For the complete list, just see the ‘Growth Tools’ menu under ‘Insights.’
Winner – MonsterInsights
After careful consideration, we concluded that MonsterInsights wins for integrations. While Site Kit does a great job connecting with Google tools, MonsterInsights goes above and beyond.
It integrates with more tools, including eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce and MemberPress, as well as popular form plugins like WPForms.
Plus, it pairs with Pretty Links to track affiliate link performance, and it works smoothly with SEO plugins like Yoast and AIOSEO.
So, if you’re looking for a plugin with a wider range of integrations, MonsterInsights is the better choice.
Pricing
When choosing an analytics solution, pricing is an important factor. Let’s break down what you should expect with Site Kit and MonsterInsights.
Site Kit
The Google Site Kit plugin is completely free and open source.
You can connect your WordPress site to key Google services like Google Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, PageSpeed Insights, and Tag Manager – all without paying for the plugin itself.
That said, some of the services you connect with might have their own terms and fees. For example:
- Google Ads requires a budget if you want to run ad campaigns.
- Google Maps Platform may charge fees if you go beyond the free usage limits.
The good news is that most tools, like Google Analytics and Search Console, are free to use.
This makes Site Kit a cost-effective choice for site owners looking to monitor and improve their website.
MonsterInsights
The free version, MonsterInsights Lite, lets you add Google Analytics to WordPress regardless of your budget. You can track key metrics, learn about your audience, and set goals.
For more advanced features like eCommerce tracking, form conversions, or compatibility with plugins like WooCommerce, you’ll need a premium license.
MonsterInsights offers 3 plans to fit different needs, whether you’re a solo blogger or running multiple client sites.
Here’s a breakdown of the plans:
- Plus ($99.60/year for 1 site): Includes standard reports, media and event tracking, and EU compliance tools. Ideal for single-site owners or bloggers.
- Pro ($199.60/year for 5 sites): Adds form, coupon, and eCommerce tracking, plus integrations with MemberPress and WP Charitable. Perfect for online stores and membership sites, with priority support included.
- Agency ($399.60/year for 25 sites): Built for agencies, offering advanced access control, client license management, and multisite support.
Winner – Site Kit
If your focus is on budget, Site Kit takes the win as it’s completely free to use and integrates seamlessly with powerful, no-cost tools like Google Analytics and Search Console.
That said, MonsterInsights provides excellent value for its premium plans. Its additional features, like eCommerce and form tracking, are tailored for businesses and agencies looking for deeper insights and advanced integrations.
While it’s not free, the pricing is affordable, considering the wide range of advanced tools you get.
MonsterInsights vs. Site: Which One Is Better?
So, who wins when it comes to MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit?
Ultimately, it comes down to what you need right now.
If you’re just starting out and want a simple, free way to see your Google Analytics data, Site Kit is a good choice. It’s easy to set up and works well for personal blogs or smaller websites. Plus, it includes data from PageSpeed Insights, Google Search Console, and Google AdSense.
But if you’re looking for something that can do more, then MonsterInsights is the way to go.
It’s packed with powerful features, offers deeper insights, and connects seamlessly with tons of other tools. Whether you’re running a store, growing a business, or need smarter insights, MonsterInsights has you covered.
Furthermore, MonsterInsights is hands-down the better option for overall value and flexibility. Especially if you want a tool that grows with your website.
🚨 Looking for another alternative? Consider using OnePageGA, a simple dashboard that makes Google Analytics 4 easy for beginners. No plugins, no coding – just instant, clear reports with 25+ pre-made options, eCommerce tracking, and custom funnels. For an in-depth breakdown, you can head over to our comprehensive OnePageGA review.
MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit FAQs
Choosing the right analytics tool for your WordPress site can feel tricky. Here are the answers to frequently asked questions to help you decide:
Is MonsterInsights free?
Yes, MonsterInsights offers a free version with basic features. But you can also unlock advanced tools and insights by upgrading to a premium plan. For example, you’ll get eCommerce tracking and tons more powerful integrations.
Is MonsterInsights the same as Google Analytics?
No, MonsterInsights is a plugin that connects your WordPress site to Google Analytics 4, making it easier to view and understand analytics data directly from your dashboard. It also comes with powerful WordPress features and integrations that aren’t available in Google Analytics.
How do I download Google Site Kit?
You can download Site Kit for free from the WordPress plugin repository or directly from your WordPress admin area by searching for ‘Site Kit by Google’ under Plugins » Add New.
Will Site Kit work with eCommerce tools like WooCommerce?
Yes, Site Kit integrates with WooCommerce, but it might lack the detailed eCommerce tracking features that MonsterInsights provides in its premium version.
Why do I need an analytics plugin?
An analytics plugin helps you track website performance, understand visitor behavior, and make data-driven decisions – all without needing to log in to external platforms.
This can make it a lot easier to use your data to help grow and improve your site. Without data analytics, it will be much harder to refine your strategies.
Will analytics plugins slow down my website?
When properly configured, analytics plugins like MonsterInsights and Site Kit won’t significantly impact your website’s performance. That said, regularly monitoring your site speed and only using optimized plugins is a good idea.
Should I use MonsterInsights, Google Site Kit, or Google Analytics?
It depends on your needs. MonsterInsights is great for user-friendly analytics in WordPress, while Site Kit offers direct Google integration. Google Analytics is the core tool both plugins rely on, but it requires more manual setup if used alone.
That’s it! We hope this article has helped you learn more about MonsterInsights vs. Site Kit. Next, you might want to read our guide on how to do A/B split testing in WordPress or check out our expert list of website marketing data you must track.
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