Plainly is an AI-powered Google Analytics translator. It reads your GA4 data and tells you in plain English what changed this week, why it happened, and what to try next — so you don't have to interpret charts and tables yourself.

Do I have to upload a CSV, or can I connect Google Analytics directly?

Both work. You can connect your Google Analytics account with one click using read-only OAuth, or upload a GA4 CSV export. There's also a free demo dataset to try it before connecting your own data.

Does Plainly send weekly reports automatically?

Yes — the Business plan ($18/month or $199/year) includes an automatic Monday-morning email report sent every week from your default Google Analytics property.

How much does Plainly cost?

$18/month or $199/year for the Business plan (unlimited analyses + weekly email reports). $79/month for the Agency plan (Business + PDF export + white-label client reports).

What AI does Plainly use?

Plainly is powered by Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.5. Aggregated metrics for your selected periods are sent to Claude to generate the plain-English summary. Raw visitor-level data is never sent.

Is my Google Analytics data safe?

Yes. Plainly uses read-only Google Analytics OAuth (analytics.readonly scope) — we can never write to your account. Your data is not used to train AI models and is not sold or shared with advertisers. You can revoke access any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

GA4 vs Universal Analytics: What Changed and Why It Matters

GA4 vs Universal Analytics — what actually changed

Google sunset Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, and replaced it with GA4 — a completely different model. If your reports look unfamiliar, the metrics don't match what they used to, or you can't find features that were obvious before, you're not crazy. Here's the practical guide to what changed and what to do.

The fundamental change: events, not sessions

Universal Analytics organised everything into sessions. A session was 30 minutes of activity; every page view, click, and event got bucketed under a session ID.

GA4 organised everything into events. Every page view is an event. Every scroll is an event. Every button click is an event. Sessions are calculated from those events, not the other way around.

Practically: your old GA 'sessions' count and your new GA4 'sessions' count won't match. They're measuring slightly different things. Don't try to reconcile them — anchor on GA4 going forward.

Metrics that were renamed or removed

Pageviews → Views (still tracked, just renamed)
Bounce rate — calculated differently in GA4. UA bounce = single-page session. GA4 bounce = session that didn't 'engage' (10s, multi-page, or conversion). Numbers will be very different.
Goals → Conversions (renamed; same idea)
Behaviour Flow — removed entirely. The closest replacement is 'Path exploration' under Explorations.
Site Search reports — gone from the standard reports; must be rebuilt manually in Explorations.

New things GA4 does that UA didn't

Cross-device tracking by default — UA needed paid Google Signals; GA4 includes it free.
Built-in event auto-tracking — scrolls, outbound clicks, file downloads, video views all tracked automatically.
Predictive metrics — purchase probability, churn probability (requires lots of conversions).
Free BigQuery export — UA reserved this for the $150k/yr enterprise tier.
No data sampling on most reports — UA sampled aggressively above 500k sessions.

What to do if you still have old UA data you want to keep

Google deleted the UA UI in July 2024. If you didn't export your historical UA data, it's gone. If you did export to BigQuery or downloaded CSVs, keep them as a reference but don't try to merge them into GA4 — the data models are too different.

Best practice: pretend UA never existed

The single fastest way to make peace with GA4 is to treat it as a fresh start. Don't compare GA4 metrics to your old UA benchmarks. Build new benchmarks from your current GA4 numbers — what counts as a 'good' engagement rate or conversion rate for your specific business — and track changes from there.

Common questions

Can I still access my old Universal Analytics data?

No — Google deleted the UA interface and APIs on July 1, 2024. The only remaining UA data is whatever you exported to BigQuery or CSV before that date.

Why are my GA4 conversion numbers lower than my old UA goal numbers?

Several reasons: GA4 attributes conversions differently (event-based vs. session-based), GA4's default consent settings are stricter (so visitors who reject cookies don't get tracked), and GA4 doesn't double-count the way UA goals sometimes did.