Documentation
Coming from another tool
Reading the reports
Count what matters
Machine access
How long your data is kept.
The per-site window the database itself enforces, what each plan includes, where the longer add-ons are bought, and the one warning: longer history is never retroactive.
How retention works
Retention is a window in days, set per site under Settings, Site, as one of ten spans: 30, 90, 180, or 365 days, then two, three, four, five, seven, or ten years, with spans above your allowance requiring a plan change or retention add-on. Rows older than the window become eligible for deletion during database background merges. Expiry is not proof of immediate physical removal. Backups can retain earlier rows: product pruning targets seven days, while the object-storage lifecycle makes backup objects eligible for expiration after eight days. Provider deletion runs asynchronously. Security explains these separate controls. Visitor salts are excluded from current logical database backups; that does not remove the event rows stored in them. Imported history lives under the same window as counted history. A plan keeping three years keeps three, whatever you imported.
What each plan includes
| Plan | History included |
|---|---|
| Solo | 1 year |
| Core | 2 years |
| Growth | 3 years |
| Commerce | 4 years |
| Operator | A window of your choosing, up to 10 years, agreed in the contract |
GA4 standard properties offer two or 14 months of retention for event-level and user-level data used in explorations. That setting does not limit standard aggregated reports, and Analytics 360 and BigQuery exports have different rules. Compare the data you need to retain, not just the number of months. Google's retention documentation explains those boundaries.
Where to buy 5, 7 or 10 years
On the Billing screen in the panel, as an add-on to any plan: 5 years for €49 or $49 a month, 7 years for €69 or $69 a month, 10 years for €99 or $99 a month. It joins your subscription and is billed with its renewals. A confirmation arrives in writing the moment it is on. The add-on raises the ceiling for every site on the account. Each site then chooses its own window under Settings, Site, so raise it where you want the longer history.
It stops future deletion. It cannot bring back days a shorter window already removed. If you know you will want ten years, buy it before the window your plan includes ends, not after.
Lowering the window deletes
Reducing a site's retention deletes whatever falls outside the new window, and the screen says so before you confirm. This is the one setting where a smaller number is destructive. Treat it like the Danger area even though it lives on the Site screen.
The edges, stated plainly
- Deleting a site takes it out of the panel and stops counting at once, keeps it restorable from Sites for 30 days, and erases everything it measured after that. Retention plays no part in that path.
- Ending the subscription keeps reports readable for 30 days for the export, then deletes the sites regardless of any window. The billing page owns that timeline.
- Visitor and visit codes start fresh at midnight UTC whatever the retention says. Retention governs the recorded events and the codes already stored with them. Rotation does not erase those rows or earlier exports. How counting works.