In this guide
- Running the container on Google Cloud costs about $90 to $135 a month for two or three instances, plus your time.
- With Open Tracked the same container runs on a managed plan sized by requests, with the domain, certificate and power-ups handled.
- Moving is an export, an import and a DNS change. You keep your containers either way.
Google's documentation shows how to run a server-side Tag Manager container on its own cloud, and many teams start there. It works, and it teaches you how the pieces fit. The cost shows up later: a certificate that expires, a scale-up you did not plan, an instance that fails at midnight. This page compares running it yourself with using a managed host. See also how much a server GTM costs and sGTM hosting compared.
What running it yourself involves
Create a Google Cloud project and billing
You are the account owner and pay Google directly.
Provision the tagging server
Through Tag Manager's set-up or manually on Cloud Run, with at least two or three instances for production.
Map your custom domain
DNS records and a managed certificate.
Set scaling and limits
Minimum and maximum instances, memory and timeouts.
Watch it
Logs, errors and billing alerts are yours to set up.
Update it
New versions of the tagging server image are your job.
Connected in minutes
Add your domain, install the pixel, connect your ad platforms and watch the first events land.
What a managed host does for you
Infrastructure
The tagging server, scaling, certificate and domain mapping are handled. You add a subdomain and verify it.
Power-ups
Cookie Keeper, Data Store, Enricher, Bot Detection, File Proxy and more are switches, not projects.
Logs and monitoring
Logs for 3 or 10 days and alerts on Business and above, without building a logging stack.
Support
Community on Free, email on Pro, priority on Business, call on Enterprise.
Cost compared
| Google Cloud yourself | Open Tracked | |
|---|---|---|
| Small store, 300,000 requests | About $90 to $135 | Pro plan |
| Mid-size, 2 million requests | About $90 to $135 or more | Business plan |
| Large, 10 million requests | More instances, cost rises | Business+ plan |
| Your time | Hours to set up, hours a month | Minutes to set up |
The Google Cloud price is an estimate at about $45 per instance. Your bill depends on traffic and settings.
Watch events arrive, live
A sample feed. In Open Tracked you see the same stream for your own store.
Risks of doing it yourself
- Under-provisioning. Too few instances drop events during a traffic spike, and you may not notice.
- Billing surprises. Logging and network traffic add up.
- Certificate and DNS slips. An expired certificate stops all tracking.
- Bus factor. Only one person knows how it is set up.
When running it yourself is right
- you have a cloud engineer
- you need full control or specific regions
- you send tens of millions of requests a month
- you want to start today
- you want the power-ups without building them
- you also want analytics and a CRM in the same account
How to move to Open Tracked
- Export your web and server containers from Tag Manager.
- Create a test subdomain and add it in Open Tracked (Settings, Domains), then point its DNS record to us and verify.
- Download the container files from the Setup Wizard and import or merge with your own.
- Send test events and compare them in Preview.
- Move the real tagging subdomain by changing its DNS record, then switch off the Cloud Run service once you are sure.
A closer look at the work of running your own
The first day on Google Cloud is easy. The work arrives later. You will want an alert when billing passes a limit, an alert when error rates rise, a way to see logs from a specific day, a plan for updating the tagging server image, and a note for the next person explaining how it all fits together. None of it is hard, and all of it takes time that does not go into your marketing. Teams that choose self-hosting for cost reasons often find that the first incident costs more than a year of a managed plan.
A managed plan does not remove the need to understand your container. You still own the tags, the triggers, the consent logic and the data. What changes is the layer underneath: the machines, the certificate, the scaling, the domain mapping and the power-ups. If your team is small, that is the layer you least want to own.
Terms you will see
- Cloud Run
- Google Cloud's service for running containers that scale up and down.
- Instance
- One running copy of your tagging server.
- Image
- The packaged version of the tagging server that Google publishes and updates.
- Managed certificate
- A certificate that is issued and renewed for your domain automatically.
- Egress
- Data sent out of the cloud, which is billed.
Runs on your domain, anywhere
Your tracking runs on your own domain, so a visit from any country is handled the same way.
Frequently asked questions
Is Open Tracked an alternative to Google Cloud?
It replaces the work of running your own server container on Google Cloud with a managed plan. The container is the same.
Is it cheaper than Google Cloud?
For most small and mid-size stores, yes, once you count your time. At very large scale self-hosting can be cheaper.
Will I lose my tracking when I move?
No, if you test on a subdomain first and change the DNS record at the end. Tracking keeps running during the switch.
Can I go back to Google Cloud?
Yes. Export the containers and point your domain back.
Do I need spreadsheets to read my results?
No. Once tracking is live, the Open Tracked analytics shows spend, revenue, ROAS and profit, and you can ask Ari, the built-in AI assistant, questions about your own numbers in plain words. Ari's allowance depends on your analytics plan.
Is Open Tracked different from Open Track or Open Space Track?
No. Open Tracked is the official name of our server-side tracking platform, and the website is opentracked.io. Many people search for it as Open Track, OpenTrack or Open Space Track. All of them lead to the same product: server-side Google Tag Manager hosting, first-party analytics and a CRM pipeline.
Fix your tracking at the source
Open Tracked hosts your server-side Tag Manager, keeps first-party cookies alive and shows what each ad is really worth.
The Open Tracked team
We build Open Tracked: server-side tracking hosting, analytics and the tools around them, for stores that spend on ads. Questions about this guide, or an idea for the next one?
Comments
Loading comments...
Guides · 5 min read
