Looker Studio is Google's free tool that connects sources such as Google Analytics 4, Search Console, Google Ads, Google Sheets and BigQuery and turns them into reports and dashboards you can share with a link. Since April 2026 it has been called Data Studio again: the basic version is still free, and the Pro version costs $9 (about £6.80) per user per project per month.
In the UK, "looker studio" is searched for 12,100 times a month on average (Google Ads data via DataForSEO, October 2026). And in August 2026, for the first time, 4 searches in 10 already used the new name.
On 10 October 2026 we read the first page of Google UK for "looker studio". Above the results, the AI Overview still calls it "Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio)", six months after the name went back. Below it: tutorial videos, agency blogs, a Reddit community. They all explain the same thing: it's free, it connects to everything, you drag the charts in.
So where's the problem?
The only result on the page about price is Google's pricing page for Looker, the enterprise product, not for Data Studio. Nobody says what it really costs or where it breaks. Yet those are the two things you find out in the first month:
- Meta Ads has no Google connector: to see it in the report you pay for a third-party service;
- on a site with real traffic, the report connected to GA4 stops with a quota error;
- Google Ads and Search Console data refresh every 12 hours, and you can't change that.
We see it on the projects we look after. For Macropix, an Italian LED wall manufacturer, the dashboard put 1,600 visits estimated by a rank tracker on the same row as 57 real clicks from Search Console: two correct numbers, from two different sources, that nobody knew how to read together (we told the story in our guide to the SEO dashboard).
For another client, in August 2026, we had to add organic rankings to a Google Ads dashboard already built in Data Studio. There were two ways to do it: the rank tracker's paid connector or a CSV export to Google Sheets. You'll find out how it ended at the bottom of the page.
In this guide you'll find:
- what it is and why it has changed name twice, with UK search data month by month;
- what it really costs: Pro and partner connectors, with price lists checked on 10 October 2026;
- where it breaks: GA4 quotas, sampling, refresh rates, data blends;
- how to build your first report without getting burnt.
Let's start.
What Looker Studio is and why it's now called Data Studio (the second name change in four years)
Looker Studio is a report builder: it doesn't collect data, it reads it from other tools and puts it into charts, tables and filters that anyone with the link can use. It started out as Google Data Studio, became Looker Studio on 11 October 2022, when Google brought all its business intelligence tools under the Looker brand, and went back to Data Studio in April 2026.
In the post announcing the return, dated 10 April 2026, Google positions it as the tool for personal data exploration and quick reports, while Looker remains the enterprise platform with a central semantic model. Existing reports, data sources and users moved to the new name with no action on your part.
So do I have to redo anything?
No. The address is the same (datastudio.google.com) and reports work as before. What has changed is how people in the UK search for it.
| Month | looker studio | google looker studio | data studio | google data studio | Share for the name "Data Studio" |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 2026 | 14,800 | 1,900 | 1,600 | 1,600 | 16.1% |
| March 2026 | 14,800 | 2,400 | 1,600 | 1,300 | 14.4% |
| April 2026 | 14,800 | 1,900 | 2,900 | 1,600 | 21.2% |
| May 2026 | 9,900 | 1,600 | 4,400 | 1,900 | 35.4% |
| June 2026 | 12,100 | 1,600 | 5,400 | 2,400 | 36.3% |
| July 2026 | 12,100 | 1,300 | 5,400 | 2,400 | 36.8% |
| August 2026 | 9,900 | 1,000 | 5,400 | 1,900 | 40.1% |
Between March and August 2026 the new name's share went from 14.4% to 40.1%. "data studio" on its own rose from 1,600 to 5,400 searches a month within three months.
Two practical consequences. First: tutorials and guides with the old name are still valid, but the menus and screenshots you see today say Data Studio. Second, for anyone writing content: almost all the pages on Google UK's first page still use "Looker Studio" in the title, while 4 searches in 10 use a name that doesn't appear in those titles.
What it does and doesn't do (it isn't another Google Analytics)
Looker Studio does one thing: it displays data that lives somewhere else. It doesn't install code on your site, doesn't count visits and doesn't keep history. If a metric doesn't exist in GA4 or Search Console, it won't create it.
That's why the question "Looker Studio or Google Analytics?" makes no sense: the first reads the second. What GA4 really measures and what it doesn't is in our guide to Google Analytics; the limits of Search Console (rows, anonymisation, time zone) are in our guide to Search Console.
Where it's really useful:
- putting different sources on the same page, for example Google Ads spend and GA4 conversions over the same period;
- giving a report to people who shouldn't log into the tools, such as a business owner or a client;
- fixing the same views every month, instead of redoing the same filters by hand.
And for the monthly client report?
It's fine as the engine, not as the report. No connector writes the comment on what changed and why: we explained the difference between a dashboard and a report in our article on the SEO report.
Connectors: 23 are Google's, the rest go through third parties (and Meta Ads isn't there)
A connector is the bridge between Looker Studio and a data source. Google says the tool connects to more than 1,400 data sources, but that number needs reading carefully.
On 10 October 2026 we counted the Google connectors in the official list: there are 23. Eight for Google's marketing products (Google Analytics, Google Ads, Search Console, YouTube Analytics, Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360, Ad Manager 360), eight for databases and cloud (BigQuery, MySQL, PostgreSQL and the like), four for spreadsheets and files (Google Sheets, Excel, CSV, extracted data), plus Looker, Apigee and AppSheet.
All the rest of the 1,400 sources are partner connectors, written by third-party companies. Many of them are paid.
So what about Facebook and Instagram?
They're not among Google's. Nor are LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads, Shopify or WooCommerce. To get them into a report you have three options: a partner connector, a regular export to Google Sheets, or the data loaded into BigQuery. This is where the "free" tool starts to cost money.
What it really costs: free, Pro at $9 and the partner connectors (prices on 10 October 2026)
The basic version is free for people who create reports and for people who read them. Data Studio Pro costs $9 per user per project per month according to the official page, which also says the price varies with the length of the subscription. At the Bank of England rate for 8 October 2026 ($1.3226 to the pound), that's about £6.80.
For marketers, though, the real cost is in the connectors. We opened the pricing pages of four partners that bring advertising data (Meta Ads included) into Looker Studio.
| Service | Entry plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data Studio | Free | £0 | All Google connectors, no cost for creators or viewers |
| Data Studio Pro | Licence | $9 (£6.80) per user per project per month | Content owned by the organisation, team workspaces, up to 200 scheduled deliveries per report |
| Windsor.ai | Free / Basic | $0 / $23 a month, $19 billed annually (£17.39 / £14.37) | Forever Free: 1 source, 1 account. Basic: 3 sources, 75 accounts |
| Catchr | Starter | $24 a month, $23.90 billed annually (about £18) | 3 platforms, 10 accounts |
| Dataslayer | Free / Starter | €0 / from €20 a month billed annually (the FAQ says €29) | Free: 1 connector, 1 account, one manual refresh a day. Starter: 3 connectors, 1 user |
| Supermetrics | Starter | $55 a month, $44 billed annually (£41.58 / £33.27); €49 / €39 when viewed from the eurozone | 3 data sources, 1 user, 3 accounts per source |
With a single external source and one account, you can still pay nothing today (Windsor.ai and Dataslayer have a free plan). From two or three sources upwards you start at about £14 a month ($19 billed annually), and plans are measured in sources and accounts: an agency with ten clients on Meta Ads moves out of the entry plan straight away.
There's an alternative many people have already paid for without knowing it: the SEO suites. Semrush includes the Looker Studio connector from the Guru plan ($249.95 a month, about £189, figures from our page on Semrush pricing), Ahrefs from the Advanced plan (see our page on Ahrefs pricing). Several rank trackers also have their own connector: we cover them in our guide to rank tracking.
So who needs Pro?
Anyone with one specific problem: in the free version, reports belong to the account of whoever created them. If the colleague who built them leaves and their account is closed, the reports have to be transferred first. Pro ties reports and data sources to the company's Google Cloud project, adds alerts when a chart crosses a threshold and allows up to 200 scheduled deliveries per report.
Where it breaks: GA4 quotas, sampling and a 12-hour refresh
This is the section none of the pages on Google UK's first page puts into numbers. There are four limits, all documented by Google.
1. Google Analytics 4 API quotas
Reports connected to GA4 are subject to the Google Analytics Data API quotas. For a standard GA4 property, the quota documentation sets these ceilings:
| Quota | Standard GA4 property | Analytics 360 property |
|---|---|---|
| Tokens per property per day | 200,000 | 2,000,000 |
| Tokens per property per hour | 40,000 | 400,000 |
| Tokens per project per property per hour | 14,000 | 140,000 |
| Concurrent requests per property | 10 | 50 |
Every chart connected to GA4 sends its own requests to the API. Google says most requests use 10 tokens or fewer, but the cost goes up with the number of rows and dimensions, with long date ranges and with high-cardinality dimensions such as page path.
What does that mean in practice?
That a report page with lots of GA4 charts, opened by several people at once, hits the limit of 10 concurrent requests and shows "Exhausted concurrent requests quota". Since December 2022 there's been a panel to check this: in edit mode, right-click the report, Google Analytics Token Usage.
2. Sampling you can't see
Looker Studio applies the same sampling rules as GA4. But the documentation admits an awkward detail: Data Studio doesn't indicate whether Google Analytics data is sampled. If a number doesn't match GA4, Google suggests comparing the same date range and leaving out today's date.
3. Data refreshed every 12 hours
According to the page on data freshness, Google Ads, Search Console, YouTube Analytics and Google's other marketing products refresh every 12 hours, and that rate can't be changed. Google Sheets, on the other hand, refreshes every 15 minutes by default. A "real-time" Google Ads report doesn't exist: you can force a refresh by hand, but you can't make it automatic.
4. Blends of up to five sources
Data blends let you put Ads spend and GA4 conversions in one chart. The limit is five sources per blend, and metrics from the sources become non-aggregated dimensions: ignore that and the chart's totals stop matching those of the individual sources.
The cost of these limits doesn't show up on an invoice. It shows up when the owner opens the report in a meeting, finds a quota error or a total that doesn't match Google Ads, and stops trusting the number. From then on, budget decisions go back to gut feeling.
Does your report freeze or show numbers that don't add up?
One quota error in a meeting is enough to lose trust in the data, and from there the budget gets decided on gut feeling. We check where every number comes from, remove the charts that eat up quota and leave you with a report that holds up.
Book a strategy consultationHow to work around them
- Fewer GA4 charts per page, and filters that cut down the rows requested.
- A data extract: a snapshot of up to 100 MB that the report reads instead of the source, with a scheduled refresh.
- GA4's export to BigQuery, which takes the API quotas and sampling out of the report, in exchange for the costs and skills BigQuery needs (we cover it in our guide to Google Analytics alternatives).
How to build your first report (six steps, starting from Search Console)
It's best to build your first report on Search Console: it's the simplest source and the one that measures rather than estimates. The steps, from Google's documentation:
- Sign in to datastudio.google.com with the same Google account that can see the Search Console property.
- Create a data source: Create, then Data source, then the Search Console connector.
- Choose the table: Site Impression for site totals, URL Impression for page-level data (only this one also has Discover and Google News).
- Decide on credentials: with the owner's credentials, anyone who opens the report sees the data without Search Console access; with the viewer's credentials, everyone needs their own access.
- Create the report and add a time series chart for clicks and impressions, a table by page and a date filter.
- Add GA4 as a second source only afterwards, once the first numbers add up.
What about ready-made templates?
The report gallery has plenty, and partners sell more. They save you the layout work, not the choosing: a template with 30 charts is also a template with 30 requests against the same GA4 quota. Which metrics to keep and which to drop is in our guide to SEO KPIs; which source to believe when two numbers don't match, in our guide to SEO analytics.
When Looker Studio isn't enough (Pro, Looker or another route)
Looker Studio stops being enough in three cases, and each has a different answer.
The problem is who owns the reports: you need Pro, at $9 per user. The problem is the data model (shared definitions of "customer" or "revenue" across departments): that's the territory of Looker, the enterprise platform, which is priced on request. The problem is external sources: you need a partner connector or a route through BigQuery.
And then there's a fourth case, which is new in 2026.
Back to the client from August. The choice was between the rank tracker's connector and an export to Google Sheets. In September 2026 the Data Studio project stopped: the client chose to use an AI assistant connected directly to the data sources, which generates an HTML dashboard published on one of its own domains. For that case, at that moment, it was the simplest solution.
It isn't a verdict on Looker Studio. It's a signal: when the job is "put four sources together and read them", there are routes today that didn't exist in 2022. Which measurement tools are still free and cover nearly everything is in our guide to digital marketing tools and in the one on free SEO tools.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The basic version, which has been called Data Studio again since April 2026, is free for people who create and read reports and includes all the connectors built by Google. The paid parts are Data Studio Pro, at $9 per user per project per month, and partner connectors for sources outside Google.
Yes. Google Data Studio became Looker Studio on 11 October 2022 and went back to being called Data Studio in April 2026. Existing reports, data sources and users moved to the new name without anyone having to do anything, and the address is still datastudio.google.com.
It depends: Meta Ads isn't among Google's 23 connectors, so you need a partner connector or an export to Google Sheets. Some partners, such as Windsor.ai and Dataslayer, had a free plan in October 2026 limited to one source and one account; with more sources you pay from about $19 a month upwards.
It depends: usually the report exceeds one of the Google Analytics Data API quotas, such as the 10 concurrent requests or the 40,000 tokens an hour of a standard property. You fix it by cutting the number of GA4 charts per page, using a data extract with a scheduled refresh or reading the data from GA4's export to BigQuery.
No. Looker Studio doesn't collect data: it reads data from GA4, Search Console, Google Ads and other sources and shows it in reports. Without GA4 installed on the site it has no behaviour data to display.
It depends on the source. Google Ads, Search Console and Google's other marketing products refresh every 12 hours and the rate can't be changed; Google Sheets every 15 minutes by default; for databases you can go down to one minute. Editors, and viewers if the editor allows it, can still force a refresh by hand.
What to remember (and the question to ask before you build the report)
To sum up:
Looker Studio and Data Studio are the same tool, and it's free;
Google has 23 connectors; Meta Ads and LinkedIn go through third parties;
a partner connector starts at nothing with one source and at about £14 to £42 a month with two or three;
GA4 allows 10 concurrent requests per property, and the report doesn't tell you when data is sampled.
There's one question almost nobody asks before opening a new report: who will own it in two years' time? A report created with a colleague's personal account, with their credentials on the data sources and a partner connector paid with their card, works as long as that account exists. The day it's closed, the charts turn into errors. Create reports and data sources with a company account from day one, even in the free version, and the problem never arises.
If you want your SEO and campaign numbers in one place, read by someone who knows what they mean, that's the work we do in our SEO service and Google Ads management.
Until next time!
