Connect Plausible – cookieless via the Stats API

Requirements

You connect Plausible per client with an API key for the Stats API — no OAuth, no extra tracking code, since the website already has that. What matters is access to the Stats API: on Plausible Cloud it belongs to the Business plan, and in self-hosted Plausible CE it is included from version 2.1.2 at no extra cost.

Create the API key and connect

1. 1Create an API key for the Stats API in your Plausible account.
2. 2In MetricDash, enter the API key and the domain for the matching client (e.g. example.com).
3. 3For self-hosted Plausible, additionally enter your instance’s host URL.
4. 4Assign the connection to the client account.

Cookieless and GDPR-friendly

Plausible measures without cookies and without personal data — no consent banner, a tiny script, and the data sits in the EU (Plausible Cloud) or on your own server (Plausible CE). For clients who want to steer clear of Google Analytics, that is often the deciding argument.

MetricDash takes exactly those numbers without you changing anything about the measurement. Plausible delivers the traffic channels close to GA4, so you get the same breakdown as with Google Analytics — just cookieless.

What appears in the website tab

Sessions, unique visitors, page views, bounce rate and average session duration sit in the website tab of the client dashboard, plus the dominant traffic source, the most-visited pages and the device split. It is the same provider-agnostic view that GA4, Rybbit and Umami also fill — you can switch provider without changing your workflow.

Through the client portal your client sees the same numbers live and read-only at any time, without access to your Plausible account.

Common pitfalls