Data Studio

Data Studio is Google's free dashboard and reporting tool, renamed back from Looker Studio in April 2026.

You connect it to GA4, BigQuery, Google Ads, spreadsheets, and hundreds of other sources, then build shareable dashboards with charts, tables, and filters that refresh on their own. It is how most teams turn GA4 numbers into a report a client or a manager will actually look at. The free version covers nearly everything; a paid Data Studio Pro tier adds team management and support features.

You are reporting monthly performance to a client who will not log into GA4. You build one Data Studio page pulling sessions, conversions, and channel breakdowns straight from the property, share a link, and they see current numbers whenever they open it, no export required.

The name confusion is real and recent. Google branded this Looker Studio for years before reverting to Data Studio in April 2026, while Looker stays a separate enterprise BI product, so old tutorials and menu labels still say the wrong thing.

Same tool, old name back, still free.