How much does server GTM cost and why Stape is cheaper than Google Cloud Run

In 2020, Google released the new version of Google Tag Manager - server-side. Server-side tracking has many advantages over client-side tracking, among them:

• more precise data (server-side tracking allows bypassing ad blockers and browser restrictions)
• faster website load (with sGTM, you don’t need to use third-party codes)

• data control (easy to comply with GDPR, CCPA, or CSP).

However, Server GTM is not yet as popular as a web container. The main obstacles preventing people from implementing server GTM are that configuring sGTM requires more profound knowledge than the web and its price.

In this blog post, we want to talk about the price of server Google Tag Manager hosted on Google Cloud. Why Stape’s hosting for server GTM is cheaper and how we secure our user’s data. 

The bad news is that Google does not yet have an online calculator that estimates prices for you. The good news is that you can use Stape’s calculator on the pricing page.

Our calculator will help to calculate the price if you host at Stape. What about the cost of hosting at GCP? Let’s take a step back and check Google’s official documentation on what resources Google Cloud Run requires. 

Google recommends having at least 3 servers in a production environment to reduce the risk of losing data due to a server outage. Each server is a Google Cloud Run instance with 1 vCPU, 0.5 GB memory, 10 GB disk in the Flexible environment. In a flexible environment, Google can autoscale from 3 to more servers if they see the need. They expect that 3-6 servers will handle 50-200 requests per second. Each server costs approximately $40 / month, so the production environment’s monthly price would be a minimum of 3*$40=$120. 

For websites with higher traffic volume and number of tags, Google Cloud will autoscale to 5-6 servers, leading to $240-$300 a month. 

Additional costs may arise if you do not disable logging when deploying server GTM. By default, all requests will be recorded, and it may add around $100 for 500 000 requests. 

We host Stape.io servers on Google Cloud and on Scaleway for the EU.

There are two main reasons why Stape is cheaper than Google’s Cloud Run:

• We pay for the Google Cloud servers in bulk and in advance. If you buy multiple servers and for a long time (more than a year), servers cost less. 
• We optimize our servers for working with server-side GTM where Google Cloud Run servers are optimized to work with any kind of software.

There are many ways to optimize the server’s costs, and most likely, sGTM users won’t bother doing it themselves. 

Global server locations:

• US Center (Iowa)
• US East (South Carolina)
• US West (Oregon)
• EU West (Belgium)
• EU North (Finland)
• EU North (England)
• EU Center (Germany)
• AP East (Singapore)
• AP South (India)
• SA East (Brazil)
• SA West (Chile)
• AU East (Australia)
• CA East (Canada)
• ME Center (Qatar)
• JP Center (Japan)

EU server locations:

• EU South (Italy)
• EU North (Netherlands)
• EU East (Poland)
• EU Center (France)

The default deployment or test GCP environment uses a single server and, in most cases, is free.

But there are several circumstances when costs may occur:

• Your billing account is not new and is already linked to another project. In other words, you can have only one test GCP environment for one billing account.
• The number of requests exceeds the free tier limits. Users often exceed the free tier limit, and server tracking stops working. In this case, you may see a drop in analytics reports, as in the screenshot below:

Google does not recommend using a Test GCP environment on production. And they even named it a Test environment and not a Free environment. 

What could else go wrong with the test environment? The test environment uses one instance, and the most common problem is that this instance stops working. To make it work, you should either wait or log in to the Google Cloud and fix the problem. 

Another reason is sGTM updates. If you use a test environment with one instance, then this instance will be down for the period when it’s running an update. On the other side, with three servers in production, they will be updated one by one, which means you won’t lose any data.

One of the most widely spread misunderstandings with test GCP is that some people think that adding a credit card to Google Cloud automatically updates the setup to the production environment. But it’s not true. To upgrade from test to production, you need to run the shell script. 

Assuming all these reasons, I would not recommend using the test Google Cloud environment in the production of server GTM. The main reason is the chances that one server will be down is very high. And when it’s down, your tracking won’t work.  

We count any request sent to your Google Tag Manager Server container. It includes all script loads like gtm.js, analytics.js, gtag.js, etc. The number of requests highly depends on your website traffic and the number of tags. 

We take into account the number of events in GA4 (“Event count”) and whether you use additional non-GA4 clients. 

To make it easy to estimate the price of server-side tracking at Stape, we created a handy calculator.

Stape does not store or process any data from your containers. All we do is automatically set up a tagging server for you when you create a container in our hosting. 

Stapes’s physical infrastructure is hosted and managed within Google Cloud secure data centers and utilizes the Google Cloud Platform technology.

GCP provides built-in protection and a global network that Google uses to protect your information, identities, applications, and devices.

All GTM Server containers are isolated from one another for security purposes. Stape uses Google Kubernetes Engine with recommended security settings to ensure that access is appropriately restricted for all customers.

Server Google Tag Manager is a great way to control your data and stay compliant with regulations. But it can also be expensive, especially when you consider the hosting costs for servers that are necessary to run server Google Tag Manager. The minimum price of a production environment on Google Cloud will be $120/month, and it can grow up to $250-$300 for websites with a higher volume of traffic and tags. 

Stape’s hosting offers the same setup at just $20/month and has a variety of plans according to your website traffic. Using Stape, you can set up a tagging server for your sGTM in a couple of minutes, and it does not require any technical skills.