Google Announces Free, Unlimited Data Studio Reports

February 2, 2017 | Samantha Barnes
Google Announces Free, Unlimited Data Studio Reports

We’re about to drop some big, real, news that will affect every person reading this blog (assuming you’ve used Google Analytics at some point). If you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited…

Data Studio is Free-er!

You may have been following our Data Studio posts, announcements, and report templates. You’ve hopefully been trying it out and loving the flexibility and ease of creating classy, readable, and insightful reports. The next step was finding out how to budget for the enterprise 360 version.

Google’s surprise (and early Valentine’s Day gift?) is that Data Studio will now be free for unlimited reports. Over on the Google Analytics blog, they recently announced that all Google Data Studio users will have the ability to create and share unlimited reports, a feature previously limited to the paid enterprise version.

With this change, this means currently there are no differences between the paid and free versions. Love you too, Google!

Before this big announcement, the free version of Data Studio had a strict limit of 5 reports owned per user while the Data Studio 360 version offered unlimited reports. So instead of having two separate Data Studio products, there will be only one publicly available. The reason I repeat this is because I believe that it is just as (or more) meaningful than the unlimited reports. It shows that all of Google’s efforts toward new Data Studio features, availabilities, and changes will be focused in one direction, meaning faster ‘upgrades’ and likely more announcements and expansion of the product in 2017.

This doesn’t mean that Data Studio 360 is permanently gone, just that the paid option isn’t currently offered. As new features, actions, and uses are unveiled, you will have access to all of it. Likely some new 360 features will be released, and we’ll keep our eyes open – but for now, enjoy the unlimited usage!

Data Visualization and Google Data Studio Workshop

I’m not the only one excited about this announcement: due to popular demand, we added additional Data Studio trainings through the rest of 2017. Learn about data visualization and using Google Data Studio to communicate effectively in our full-day, in-person workshops.

For now, we’re still only offering the course in select cities – just New York City and Chicago.

More About Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio moved into the reporting, visualization, and business intelligence space recently as an expansion of the new Google Analytics 360 suite. As a product with a gentle learning curve, expanded capabilities beyond Google Analytics reporting, visual tools and collaboration, we eagerly welcomed it.

It’s not just a reporting tool for Google Analytics, but also a tool that allows for other data as well. Just a few basic and common use cases answer the following questions (with ‘yes’):

  • Can I compare how two views or properties are performing over time?
  • Can I make my report interactive and branded?
  • Can I share my reports without giving Google Analytics access?
  • Can I clean up historical data for my reports?

If we haven’t convinced you before, there’s even more incentive to start using Data Studio today. If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you have a Google Analytics account and that is all you need to get started.

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