Google Analytics Limits – a reference guide

Its good to know the limits of your Google Analytics implementation. All software has it limits and Google Analytics is no exception. From Google’s viewpoint, setting boundaries and limits prevents errors and system overload, and it ensures that other users of the service are not affected by the processing of someone else’s data. For example, a website with a relatively low amount of traffic data should not have its reports delayed due to the processing of another user’s data from a site that has more traffic.

The table below lists the limits set for the free version of Google Analytics with comparisons to GA360 where applicable. This table was originally printed in Chapter 3 of the book Advanced Web Metrics, but is now updated here regularly:

Download the full PDF table – report and processing limits
(last update May-2018, now including GTM limits)

More in the full pdf download…

Looking for a keynote speaker, or wish to hire Brian…?

If you are an organisation wishing to hire me and my team, please view the Contact page. I am based in Sweden and advise organisations in Europe as well as North America.

You May Also Like…

Sayonara Universal Analytics

Sayonara Universal Analytics

My first Google Analytics data point was 15th May 2005 for UA-20024. If you are of a certain age, that may sound off...

40 Comments

  1. Linda

    Hi Brian,

    Can you reconfirm that the 500 hits per session dors not apply to ecommerce hits, like transactions?

    On the Google documentation I wasn’t able to find this… it just says that after 500 hits the additional hits are not processed. I want to make sure this does not affect transactions..

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Hello Linda – If you are running enhanced e-commerce then the e-commerce data is sent along with the pageview or event you trigger for this. So no extra data hits

      If you are running standard e-commerce, then the e-commerce data is a separate set of hits: transaction, item. These will count towards your hit volume.

      Reply
      • Linda

        Hi Brian,

        Thanks for reply. We’re running enhanced ecommerce along with an event.

        But if I understand your answer correctly, if you’ve reached a limit of 500 hits per session and even if you send ecommerce data along with an event. That event hit will not be processed anymore right, and so your enhanced ecommerce data along with that hit will also not be processed?

        Reply
  2. Mike

    Hi Brian,
    Do you know what is the limit for table filters (not view filters) ?
    Thank you

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      From memory 255 characters. Should be an easy test..

      Reply
  3. Michele Pisani

    Hi, can someone confirm that the characters limit for content grouping is 256 (such as the number of characters to define a profile filter)? I can’t find this information either in the document or in the official documentation.
    Thanks!
    Michele

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      In the document, check the “Number of characters to define a profile filter” entry. This is 256.

      Reply
      • Michele Pisani

        Hi Brian,
        so in the document with ‘profile filter’ it generically means content grouping too.
        Thanks for the confirmation.
        Best Regards,
        Michele

        Reply
  4. Stefan

    Where did 2,000 hits per session for 360 come from?

    https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/limits-quotas

    500 hits per session
    If you go over either of these limits, additional hits will not be processed for that session / day, respectively. These limits apply to Analytics 360 as well.

    500 hits per session
    If you go over this limit, additional hits will not be processed for that session. This limit applies to Analytics 360 as well.

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Hello Stefan – It turns out the increased GA360 limit is not an automatic extension. You need to make your request direct to Google for this. I will make this clearer in the next update of this doc.

      Reply
  5. Roger

    I think the 10 million hits limit is based on thits per propery and not on an account level

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Confusingly there is a listing in the Admin area that shows the number of hits per property. However, 10m hits for Free is still very much at the account level.

      Reply
  6. Rodrigo Kestler

    Hi, Brian
    Thank you so much for sharing this great guide.
    I want to use Google Analytics in several apps and websites with my account. Do I have 20 custom metrics per property or all properties combined?

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Good question. CD and CM are limited at the property level. I will make this clear in the next version of the limits pdf

      Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Great catch Christoph – I will update the PDF soon.

      Thanks, Brian

      Reply
  7. Jeff

    Hi Brian, have you heard of anyone ever getting shut down or having hits dropped due to exceeding the 10M hit per month limit?

    If so, how far did they exceed the limit by before there was a problem?

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      @Jeff – yes it happens. I don’t think Google are particularly concerned if an account occasionally goes over the limit, but if regular then your account is definitely at risk. The point is, is your organisation happy with constantly breaking a contract? Would you be happy if your customers did the same to you? Its about how you want to go about doing business, rather than whether or not you get caught…

      Reply
  8. Marcin R.

    Hi there đŸ™‚ Thanks for the article. It’s great to see the limitations gathered in one place. Still, when it comes to getting around them – there are two ways. You can upgrade to Google Analytics Premium (a rather costly solution) or rely on some of quick-fixes. If you’d like to learn about them, check out this article: http://bit.ly/1k9y8If. Cheers đŸ™‚

    Reply
  9. Michael

    Is there a limit on how many users (Google Accounts) are allowed per view/profile?

    We want our 200 webmasters to use the same analytics/property code on all their sites, but to be able to see a view that shows all traffic on all the sites that are using that code. We understand with a limit of 50 views per property, not all 200 would be able to have a view of their own.

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      AFAIK there is no limit (within reason) to the number of users that can be granted access to a Property/View.

      Reply
  10. Christophe Camart

    Hi Brian,

    Regarding “events per session”, in Universal Analytics (analytics.js), a visitor starts with 20 tokens and earns 2 tokens per second. With ga.js, it’s 10 tokens then 1 token per second.
    See this page for details: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ios/limits-quotas
    Thought it would be good to mention it đŸ™‚

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Great catch Christophe

      Reply
  11. Jorge Cunha

    Thanks Brian !!

    Awesome !

    Can you say the limits for cardinality in the events

    By the way your latest book is awesome!

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Are you referring to the possible combination limits for event category, action, labels?

      If so, as far as I am aware there are no limits on the number of these combinations. Every one could be unique – not great for reporting, but not limited in itself. If you sent a unique event for each hit you may run into other data limits – as per the table.

      Hope this helps.

      Reply
  12. Michael

    Are these limits still current?

    Reply
    • Brian Clifton

      Updated as of today. Thanks for the nudge

      Premium is a constantly rising bar, but Google Analytics standard (free version) is pretty much set in stone now and I do not anticipate them being changed.

      Reply
      • Michael

        Thanks Brian

        Reply
  13. James

    This is a pretty cool cheat sheet, cheers Brian. One of those you print out and use for future reference! @John this guide also says that Google analytics classes websites as properties – http://www.digiresults.co.uk/blog/analytics-guide

    Reply
  14. John

    I agree with the others – great reference.

    Also agree about the ‘soft’ limits. I work with a site that regularly exceeds 80 million pageviews per month + events, etc. No complaints from Google yet.

    One thing I’m not completely clear on is what level these limits apply at. I’m assuming ‘Property’ level, as opposed to either ‘Account’ or ‘Profile’. Correct?

    Reply
  15. Per Pettersson

    Great reference guide, Brian. It would be neat if it could be embedded and re-shared to other posts and websites, linking back to your updated version. Just a thought.

    Reply
  16. Drseo

    Thanks for the good guide.

    M2c:

    Limit of Dashboard in a single profile = 20
    Limite of Total Dashboard in an account = 1000

    DrSeo
    đŸ˜‰

    Reply
  17. Brian Clifton

    @Andre – thanks for the catch with 20 steps in a funnel step. I am not aware of any change to the table aggregation limits.

    @Serge – I have 1 million data “hits” as the limit, compared to the article to reference of 50,000 “visits” – they could be the same but I will double check.

    @Yehoshua – the 10m hits per month is a soft limit IMO, in that G do not intend to cut people off. If you are regularly at 20, 30m data hits per month then you will probably get a message from G asking you to sample or upgrade to Premium…

    Similarly I have data in one GA account that goes back to 2005. Agin in my opinion it is not G’s intention to delete any data, but there are no guarantees beyond 25 month. May be one day they will need the space!

    Reply
  18. Ophir Prusak

    Hey Brian,

    Awesome reference guide.
    Thanks for sharing đŸ˜‰

    Reply
  19. Yehoshua Coren

    Very nice table, Brian

    @Andre – I don’t believe that the table aggregation limits in standard reports have been lifted. However, GA is still collecting the data and will report up to 1 million rows when those reports are ran “on the fly”. For example, if you apply a second dimension to a standard report that has (other) in it, the (other) will disappear because GA take the time to calculate all the rows.

    @Brian – I have not seen the 10 million hits per month or 25 month data storage limits imposed on any of the larger accounts I have worked on. Have you seen any clients that had an issue with these limits?

    Reply
  20. André Scholten

    Brian, a few remarks: the number of funnel steps per goal is 20 in stead of 10. And isn’t the table aggregation limit for the top-content and keywords tables not raised to 1.000.000?

    Reply
  21. Stacey

    Great reference guide for us Analytics geeks!! Will be printing out and pinning to the notice board – yes I still have one of those!

    Thanks!

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Jorge Cunha Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Share This