Google Optimize review

What Google Optimize was

Google Optimize was a website A/B testing and personalization tool that ran on top of Google Analytics. It followed Google Website Optimizer, whose features moved into Google Analytics as Content Experiments in 2012. Google announced Optimize 360 as part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite in 2016, then opened a free version of Optimize to everyone on March 30, 2017. Google aimed the free version at small and medium-sized businesses without the budget or team for an enterprise tool.

What it did

You added a single line of code, then built variants in a WYSIWYG visual editor or with raw HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It ran A/B tests, multivariate tests, redirect (split URL) tests and personalizations, and it could report on server-side experiments you ran on your own system. Targeting used URL rules, UTM parameters, cookies, JavaScript and data layer variables, device, browser and location.

Results came from Google Analytics. You picked Analytics goals and metrics as objectives, such as sales, clicks or page views, and Optimize used Bayesian methods to show the probability that each variant beat the original.

Free versus Optimize 360

The free version allowed 5 experiments at once, after Google raised the limit from 3 in 2018. It had pre-selected objectives and limited multivariate testing. Optimize 360 allowed up to 100 experiments at once, targeting by Google Analytics audiences, ad-hoc objectives, full multivariate testing, and support with SLAs. It was sold through Google's sales team and invoiced monthly.

Why Google shut it down

Google announced the shutdown in January 2023 and ended Optimize and Optimize 360 on September 30, 2023. Any experiments still running stopped that day. Google said Optimize lacked many of the features and services customers asked for in experimentation, and that it would invest in third-party A/B testing integrations for Google Analytics instead. It didn't build a replacement for websites.

What people replaced it with

Google named three testing tools it was building Google Analytics integrations with: AB Tasty, Optimizely and VWO. It also made its APIs public so any testing tool can connect. Running an A/B test with GA4 now means a third-party tool runs the test and Google Analytics shows the results.

Two of Google's three partners have since combined. AB Tasty and VWO merged in 2026 and now trade as Wingify, with custom pricing. Optimizely is also quote-only. Tools that publish prices include Convert, from $299 a month billed annually, and Kameleoon's PBX Starter, from $495 a month. For apps, Firebase A/B Testing kept running, and new Firebase experiments since October 23, 2023 use frequentist inference instead of Optimize's engine.

For small sites that used Optimize because it was free, the paid tools above cost hundreds of dollars a month or need a sales quote. Lower-priced tools, including Outtest at $29 a month, now compete for those sites.