Fathom Analytics

Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis launched Fathom Analytics in 2018 as a direct response to the GDPR era. While everyone else was scrambling to add cookie consent banners to Google Analytics, Fathom built something that didn't need one — no cookies, no personal data, no creepy tracking. Just clean visit counts and page views with a privacy-first architecture. They charged from day one: $14/month, no free tier. Paul was already well known in the indie web community from his writing and courses, which seeded the initial user base. Growth came through word-of-mouth from developers and privacy advocates who shared Fathom as an ethical alternative. The company grew steadily to 450k+ sites tracked and clients including GitHub and IBM. In 2024, Jack acquired Paul's stake to become sole owner, and Fathom continues to grow as a profitable, bootstrapped business. It became the definitive example of building a business around values rather than surveillance capitalism.