This guide sets up analytics for a Chrome extension sold with Toolaby (what it shows). At the end you see the devices your extension runs on each day, how many reach the paywall and pay, which feature opened the paywall before each purchase, why people remove it, and how each release changed those numbers.
The Chrome Web Store's developer dashboard gives you "aggregated data regarding installs, number of users, and average ratings", in the words of its developer FAQ. An analytics script records the events your own code sends it. Toolaby takes the payment and checks the licence, so it can put the two together: the device that met the paywall is the device that paid.
Before you begin
- An extension wired to a tool, with a plan on sale. See Add payments to a Chrome extension.
- The client of 16 October 2026 or later in your extension: run
npx -y toolaby@latest upgrade <tool-id>.
1. Gate each paid feature by its name
Analytics names what opened the paywall by the key you gate with. Give each paid action its feature:
const permit = await toolaby.gate({ feature: 'export' });
if (!permit.allowed) return { permit };Free uses running out and a paid-only tool are counted too, without a key. The features and the plans that unlock them are set under the tool's Pricing. See Add a paywall to a Chrome extension.
2. Tell your users, then turn counting on
Counting is off for each tool until you turn it on. The Chrome Web Store asks that an extension disclose what it collects, and tell the people who have it when that changes, so first:
- add the wording in Your data to your privacy policy;
- declare the data in your item's Privacy practices tab in the Chrome Web Store's developer dashboard;
- say it in the release notes of the build you publish next.
Then open the tool's Configure → Settings → Analytics and switch on Count how it is used.
3. Publish the build
Devices are counted from the hourly check-in wired copies make. The paywall's counts, what opened each checkout and the uninstall page come with the new client, so they start once people update to the build you publish.
Revenue needs nothing from the extension, and no switch. The first time you open Analytics → Revenue, Toolaby reads the last thirteen months of your tool's payments from Stripe.
4. Read devices and the funnel
Open the dashboard's Analytics tab.
- Devices shows the devices active each day, in the last 7 days and in the last 30, as the Web Store counts weekly users, and the new ones each day. Coming back shows, of each week's new devices, the share active again a day, a week and four weeks later.
- Funnel follows the devices that met the tool in the period: how many met the paywall, opened checkout and paid, and the median days to a purchase. The steepest fall between two steps is marked.
5. See which feature sells
Features ranks what opened the paywall by the purchases that followed: each feature by the name you gave it, with how often it opened the paywall, the checkouts it led to and the revenue. A feature people meet often and rarely buy is a candidate for the Free plan. One that sells well is what your store listing should lead with.
6. Ask why people uninstall
When someone removes your extension, Chrome opens a page that asks why, in their language: seven reasons and a note. A buyer who is still paying sees how to stop, so a removal does not leave a subscription running by mistake.
The answers are under Uninstalls, with the removals by day and how long each device kept the extension. When a paying buyer removes it, your workspace's members get an email. To turn the page off for a tool, open its Configure → Settings. If your code already calls chrome.runtime.setUninstallURL(), Toolaby leaves it alone.
7. Compare releases
Versions draws the devices on each build each day, so you see a release spread, and lists each build's purchases and removals. A build after which removals rise is the one to look at first.
8. Test a price
Experiments shows a share of the devices that meet the paywall another price for a plan, or another headline, and compares what each side bought and earned. See Experiments.
Your privacy policy
Analytics counts devices by the id your extension already signs with, and keeps no names, email addresses or IP addresses. Your data has wording you can copy into your privacy policy.
Some parts of Analytics are on Pro. Configure → Plan shows which. See Analytics for every part.