Google Analytics 4 is free for the vast majority of websites and businesses. You get full access to event tracking, reporting, predictive metrics, BigQuery export (up to 1 million events per day), and integrations with Google Ads and Search Console without paying anything. There's no hidden fee structure or usage cap that suddenly kicks in for small to mid-sized sites. The paid version, GA4 360, only makes sense for enterprise operations processing massive event volumes or needing guaranteed uptime SLAs, dedicated support, and unsampled reporting on huge datasets. We're talking multi-million session sites or complex multi-property setups where the standard 10 million events per month limit becomes restrictive. For context, a site with 100,000 monthly sessions and typical tracking might generate 1-2 million events, well under the free tier ceiling. What costs money is usually everything around GA4, not GA4 itself. You'll pay for: - Developer or agency time to implement tracking correctly (event schema, conversions, custom dimensions) - Tag management tools if you go beyond Google Tag Manager - Third-party connectors or dashboards that pull GA4 data into visualization tools - Server-side tagging infrastructure if you route events through your own servers for privacy or accuracy At Ottawa SEO, we set up GA4 for clients as part of standard site launches or audits. The platform itself never appears as a line item. What we bill is the strategy work—deciding which events matter for your business model, mapping the data layer, testing conversion funnels, and training your team to actually use the reports. The common mistake is assuming free means easy. GA4's learning curve is steep, and most businesses underutilize it because they never defined what success looks like in measurable events. The software is free; the expertise to make it useful is not.