If you are considering upgrading from GA4 (free) to GA4 360, then this post is for you. My aim is to provide you with everything you need to know to make an informed decision.
In this post, I will refer to the free version as GA4 or Standard GA4 and the paid version as GA360 or Paid GA.
Key Differences and Similarities Between GA360 and GA4
- Pricing - GA360 starts at 50K USD, while GA4 is free.
- Interface - Most of the interface is the same in both GA4 and 360
- Subproperties and Rollup Property - GA4 does not allow you to create subsproperties (think views) or rollups, while GA360 does.
- Sampling - The quota limit for event-level queries is 10 million events for GA4, while GA360 has a higher limit, starting from 100 million and can go up to 1 billion events. Higher sampling limits provide more accurate data.
- Data retention - Data for exploration can be retained about to 14 months in the free version, while in the paid version, you can have the data for up to 50 months.
- SLAs - GA4 has no SLA, while GA4 360 provides SLAs for data collection, processing, and reporting. You can see the SLAs at https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics_products/sla/
- Event Parameters - Standard GA4 allows you to pass up to 25 event parameters, while the paid version allows you to pass up to 100 event parameters
- Length of Event Paramater Value - GA4 has a limit of 100 characters for event paramater value, while the paid version has a limit of 500 characters. There are a few exceptions
- In GA4, page_title can be up to 300 characters
- In GA4, page_referer can be 420 characters
- Both versions allow 1000 characters in the page location.
- Event Scoped Custom Dimensions - You can create up to 50 event-scoped custom dimensions per property, while the paid version allows you to create up to 125.
- User Scoped Custom Dimensions - You can create up to 25 user-scoped custom dimensions in the free version, while that limit is up to 100 in the paid version.
- Item-Scoped Custom Dimensions - GA4 allows you to create 10 per property, while GA360 allows you to create 25 per property.
- Key Events or Conversions - Free version allows you to mark 30 events as "Key events", while the paid version ups that limit to 50 events.
- BigQuery Export - You can export up to 1 million events daily in GA4 (free) vs Billions in the paid version. You will have to pay for the BigQuery cost as well.
- Audience - In the free version, you can create 100 audiences, while in the paid version, the limit is 400
- Explorations - Both versions allow you to create up to 200 explorations. While you can up that limit to 500 shared exploration in the free version and 1000 in the paid version.
Source: Google Official
Wrong Reasons for Upgrading to GA360