The category mostly does not do free
One thing is worth knowing before you compare anything. Lead attribution is priced as a mid-market category, and the three best-known tools in it have no free plan.
| Tool | Free plan | Entry price | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhatConverts | No, 14-day trial | $30/mo Call Tracking, up to $160/mo Elite | Journey and multi-click attribution sit on Elite. Usage fees on top, including per form submission |
| Ruler Analytics | No | From around £179/mo annual | 12-month agreement is standard |
| HockeyStack | No | From $2,200/mo | Built for enterprise revenue teams |
If a page told you these had free tiers, it was reading an old pricing table. All three are priced for teams with a measurement budget. We keep the current numbers on our WhatConverts pricing breakdown, our HockeyStack pricing breakdown and our Ruler Analytics alternatives page.
The tools that do have a free plan
Five options, and they are not solving the same problem as each other.
| Tool | What the free plan gives you | What it is limited by | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Unlimited, free permanently | Sessions and aggregate conversions only. No named individual, no lead record | Traffic analysis alongside something else |
| HubSpot | Basic source reporting inside the free CRM | Source fields only. Multi-touch reporting is a paid Marketing Hub feature | Teams already living in HubSpot |
| Attributer | Free plan for low volume | Capped by monthly form submissions. Paid from $49/mo | Getting UTM values into CRM fields |
| Dreamdata | Free tier | Built for B2B account-level attribution, long buying groups | B2B SaaS with a CRM-heavy motion |
| Lead Source | Source, landing page and full page journey on every lead. Analytics dashboard included | One site, one user. No Speed to Lead responder on Free | Service businesses wanting lead-level attribution without a budget |
Dreamdata’s free tier is covered in more detail on our Dreamdata pricing breakdown, and what Lead Source records on each lead is set out on lead source tracking.
The distinction that matters most
Nearly every “free attribution” recommendation you will find points at GA4, and it is a reasonable suggestion for the wrong question.
GA4 measures at population level. It reports that paid search produced 40 conversions last month. What it cannot tell you is which individual submitted your form, what brought that specific person in, or which of those 40 became customers. The lead record and the analytics record are separate things and GA4 only holds one of them. We set the two side by side on Lead Source vs Google Analytics.
Lead-level attribution answers a different question: this person, this source, this journey. If the decision you are trying to make is which campaign to cut, population-level data will get you close. If the decision is which lead to call first and which channel actually produced revenue, it will not.
Free tier, free trial and freemium are three different things
The word “free” does a lot of work in this category, and the difference decides whether you can actually run on it.
| Type | What happens | Who uses it here |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Free permanently, limited by some dimension | GA4, HubSpot, Attributer, Dreamdata, Lead Source |
| Free trial | Full product, then it stops | WhatConverts, 14 days |
| No free option | Contract from day one | Ruler Analytics, HockeyStack |
When comparing, the question to ask is what the free plan is limited by. A volume cap means the tool stops working exactly when it starts mattering. A scope cap, like one site or one user, holds steady no matter how well your marketing performs.
What each tool’s free plan actually costs you later
| Tool | The upgrade trigger | First paid step |
|---|---|---|
| GA4 | Rarely. You outgrow the question, not the plan | GA4 360, enterprise pricing |
| Attributer | Monthly form submission volume | From $49/mo |
| Dreamdata | Usage and integration depth | Custom |
| Lead Source | A second website, a second user, or wanting automated first replies | $19/mo |
The full tier breakdown, including what each paid step adds, is on pricing. For the wider category, including the paid-only platforms, see marketing attribution software.