How Much Should Conversion Tracking Cost? The Honest Answer
Why we are not the cheapest, and when cheaper is the right call. Three things get raised on almost every pricing conversation. Here are all three answered in full, including the parts that do not favour us.
If a model can describe the whole setup, if another agency quotes less, or if a few hundred a month looks cheaper than a build, those are fair questions. This page answers them without asking you to take our word for anything.
Free. Written findings within 24 to 48 hours.
AI can tell you how it should be built. It cannot tell you what your site is doing
We are not going to pretend AI is useless here. It explains Conversion Tracking clearly, describes what a correct setup looks like, and will walk a competent person through the setup. On instructions, it is genuinely good.
It works entirely from what you tell it. It cannot open your container, put a live order through your checkout, and watch what fires. So it cannot know your thank-you page also loads on refresh, or that your platform was already sending the Purchase Event before you added another one.
That is the whole problem. The person describing the setup is the person who does not know what is wrong with it.
Google Ads documents this behaviour. Under the Every conversion counting option, Google Ads counts every conversion that happens after an ad interaction, so a thank-you page that fires again on refresh is counted again. Nothing warns you, because nothing is technically broken.
You end up with something that runs and reports numbers, and nothing to tell you those numbers are wrong. You find out in month four, when the revenue does not match the dashboard.
- Describe how Tracking should work in general
- Explain what an Event is meant to record
- Suggest what is worth checking, in the abstract
- Draft the questions to ask about a setup
- Whether any of that is what your site does
- Which tag fires twice on a refresh
- What a live transaction actually sends
- Whether the number you report upward is right
One question that tells you who has actually looked
Whoever you are considering, including us, ask them this:
Anyone who has genuinely inspected your setup can produce that within a day. Anyone who has not will explain why it is unnecessary, or describe what they intend to build instead.
We will send you ours before you pay us anything. That is what the free audit is.
A monthly fee is fine. Not owning what it pays for is the problem
Some agencies will run your Tracking for a few hundred a month. The monthly cost is not the issue. What that money buys is.
It lives in their container, on their server, under their accounts. Stop paying and it stops working. Leave and you take nothing with you, because there was never anything to take.
We build it once and it is yours. Every tag, every container, every configuration, in your accounts, documented, with a walkthrough.
| Cost over time | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 | You own it? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rented at $500 per month | $6,000 | $18,000 | $30,000 | No |
| BlazeByte build, no monitoring | $1,199 | $1,199 | $1,199 | Yes |
The build alone is a one-time $1,199 against $30,000 of rent over five years, and at the end one of those leaves you owning a documented system and the other leaves you with nothing.
Monitoring is separate and optional, from $899 a month, and cancellable at any time. The build above is yours either way, and it keeps working if you stop paying for monitoring.
Why the difference exists| Rented Tracking | BlazeByte | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the container, server config and tags | They do | You do |
| What happens if you stop paying | It stops working | Nothing. It keeps running |
| What you have after three years | Three years of payments and no asset | A documented system you own |
You should never be the one who finds out
None of these is a fault in the build, which is exactly why building it properly does not remove the risk.
An ecommerce client in Europe came to us with declining campaigns, convinced their Tracking had broken. It had not. The card on their Google Ads account had been declined, and their consent tool subscription had lapsed, so the banner stopped appearing and every visitor was being treated as having refused consent. Tracking was doing precisely what it was told to do.
Neither failure raised an error. On a retainer, that is caught in days, diagnosed correctly the first time, and fixed. Not flagged for you to deal with. Fixed.
They found out from their sales figures, weeks later, and their own diagnosis was wrong.
Your Tracking keeps working. You do not have to watch it, and you do not have to understand why. It remains optional. Your setup is yours and it runs either way.
You are paying for judgment, not for the hours AI gave back
There is a fair version of the cheaper question, and it is this one: if AI has made the work faster, why has the price not come down?
It has made parts of it faster, and we use it for those parts. Retrieving data, cross referencing accounts, covering more of a setup than a manual pass would reach. That is real, and it is why we can look at more of your account in a day than used to be possible in a week.
What it has not changed is the part you are paying for. Deciding what a finding means for your business, choosing what gets built and in what order, and standing behind the number when your finance team disagrees with it. No model has ever been on that call. Being wrong there costs more than the whole engagement, which is why it is not the part we automate.
- Retrieving and cross referencing account data
- Covering more of a setup than a manual pass reaches
- Cutting the hours an audit used to take
- Drafting the first version of your documentation
- Deciding what a finding means for your business
- Choosing what gets built and in what order
- Verifying an Event fires against a live order
- Standing behind the number when a client questions it
Questions About Price and Value
Why do some agencies charge $500 and others charge $5,000 for the same service?
Because they are not selling the same thing. A $500 setup is usually one person installing a tag and moving on. A $5,000 build includes an audit of what already exists, configuration across multiple platforms, and verification against live data before handover. The deliverable looks identical until something breaks.
The spread is documented. Semrush reports that marketing budgets typically range between 5% and 30% of total revenue, and that agency hourly rates run from $50 to $500 with an average of $150. A single service can sit anywhere in that band depending on who does the work and what is included.
Is a cheap marketing agency worth it?
It depends entirely on whether you can verify the work. Cheap works when the task is simple and you can check the output. It fails when the failure mode is silent, which is the case with Tracking: a broken setup still reports numbers, so nothing looks wrong until the revenue does not match.
What happens if I hire the cheapest option and it does not work?
You usually pay twice. The common sequence is a cheap build, months of decisions made on wrong data, then a second engagement to diagnose and rebuild. The rebuild costs more than the original because the diagnosis has to unpick what was done as well as establish what should have been.
How much should Conversion Tracking actually cost?
BlazeByte publishes fixed pricing rather than quoting per project. Conversion Tracking starts at $1,199, GA4 and GTM at $1,299, and Server-Side Tracking at $3,999. Scope is confirmed after an audit, so the figure reflects what is already in place rather than a guess.
Should I hire a freelancer instead of an agency for Tracking?
A good freelancer is often the right choice for a single, well defined task. The risk is continuity and verification. If they leave mid-engagement, or if nobody checks the work against live data, you have paid for something you cannot confirm is correct.
Can I set up Conversion Tracking myself and save the money?
Yes, if you can verify it afterwards. The installation is the easy part and well documented. The hard part is confirming the Event fires exactly once, with the right value, on your specific setup. Most broken Tracking was installed correctly and never tested against live data.
Can AI do this instead?
AI can tell you how Tracking should be built. It cannot tell you what your site is doing right now. It works from your description of your setup, and the person describing it is the person who does not yet know what is wrong with it. It also cannot run a live transaction and watch what fires.
What is the difference between a $500 and a $3,000 Tracking setup?
Verification, scope and documentation. The $500 version installs tags. The $3,000 version audits what exists, covers multiple platforms, de-duplicates Events, tests against live data, and hands over documentation you can take elsewhere. The first is a task. The second is a system you own.
Why should I pay for an audit before the work starts?
Because a quote without an audit is a guess. Two accounts that look identical can differ by a factor of three in scope once you open them. Auditing first means the price reflects the actual work, and you find out what is wrong whether or not you proceed.
Should I pay monthly or one time for Tracking?
Pay once for the build. Monthly is optional and buys something different. The build is yours permanently and keeps working if you stop paying. Monitoring exists because platforms change, subscriptions lapse and themes update, and those failures are silent. Agencies that only offer monthly are renting you a setup you never own.
How do I know if an agency is overcharging me?
Ask them to show you a network capture proving your Conversion Event fires exactly once. Anyone who has genuinely inspected your setup can produce it within a day. Anyone who has not will explain why it is unnecessary. That single question separates diagnosis from a sales pitch.
Why is Server-Side Tracking so expensive compared to a normal setup?
Because it involves infrastructure, not just configuration. Server-Side Tracking runs a container on your own hosting, requires its own consent and data handling, and has to be tested end to end rather than in a browser. BlazeByte prices it from $3,999 for that reason, and will tell you honestly when browser-side is enough.
The Cheapest Option Is the One That Works the First Time
We will tell you which of these three applies to you, and if the honest answer is that you do not need us, we will say so on the call rather than after the invoice.
Free. Written findings within 24 to 48 hours.
