StatCounter Rakes In the Clicks

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The StatCounter service is mostly free, supported by ads, and works remotely over the Internet rather than by being installed on client PCs. (High-volume customers with more than 250,000 monthly pageloads pay anywhere from $9 to $29 a month for StatCounter.)

Google Has Taken Notice

Cullen does face one rather formidable competitor in the entry-level market: Search giant Google (GOOG), which bought a Web analytics company called Urchin Software in 2005 and now offers a free, advertising-supported traffic tracking tool called Google Analytics.

Cullen doesn't dismiss the competition, but argues there are key differences. Google Analytics, for instance, is tightly integrated with the company's AdWords advertising service, and users are limited to tracking 5 million hits per month unless they are AdWords customers. "Google Analytics' goal is to increase their advertising business," he says. "StatCounter's goal is to provide the best tracking possible."

Alan Boydell, Goodle Analytics associate for Google France, disputes Cullen's claim about Google's motivations and says its goal likewise is to provide "the best possible free tracking service." He acknowledges the 5-million-page-view limit for noncustomers, but notes that AdWords clients can track unlimited page views.

StatCounter, Cullen adds, also offers live tracking, which lets customers monitor and spot problems on their Websites as soon they happen—a feature Google Analytics lacks. And it displays live visitor path reports to show how each visitor is navigating a Web site and what paths are leading to customer conversions. Google's services are similar, but only display what happened about three or four hours ago. "There is room in this market for new players," says Gartner's Gassman. Though Google has far broader brand recognition, he says, StatCounter "appears to be very good at listening to users and it is growing very fast."

Saying No to VC, for Now

Among its paying customers is Mathaba, an international online news agency based in Hong Kong, London, and Washington, D.C., that gets 2 million page views a month. The company's Web master, Adam King, says Mathaba uses StatCounter several times a day to check for problems on its site, to see where visitors are coming from, and to measure the popularity of the site's toolbar. He also uses the StatCounter tool to verify which news items are doing well, how long people spend on the site, and how many come back regularly.

So what's next for Cullen? Venture capitalists have been beating a path to his door but so far the young entrepreneur says he isn't interested in being bought out. He says he wants to continue growing the company, which has been profitable from the start, on his own, by improving the services he can offer his customers. That's the spirit!

Schenker is a BusinessWeek correspondent in Paris.