Google Analytics 4 on PrestaShop: modules, setup and why GA4 misses orders

PrestaShop maintains a free module simply called Google Analytics. It is GA4 only: you paste a measurement ID that starts with G- and it adds Google's tag to every page of the shop.

Version 6.0.0, released in June 2026, needs PrestaShop 8.2 or newer. Shops on 1.7.7 to 8.1 should stay on version 5.0.3, which also sends GA4 events.

• Browsing: product lists, product views, searches, sign-ups and logins.
• Cart and checkout: add to cart, remove from cart, cart view, checkout start, shipping and payment steps.
• Purchases: sent from the order confirmation page, with tax and shipping included in the value.
• Refunds: a full refund when an order moves to a cancelled state, and partial refunds from the back office.

Everything is sent from the browser. The module has no server-side sending and no consent mode settings, so how GA4 behaves with your cookie banner depends on the banner module, not on this one.

Turn on “Re-send failed orders” in the module settings. It is off by default, and without it an order whose customer never reaches the confirmation page is never sent to GA4.

1. In Google Analytics, create a GA4 property and a web data stream for your shop, and copy the measurement ID (G-…).
2. In the PrestaShop back office, open Modules › Module Manager, find Google Analytics and install or upgrade it.
3. Open the module's settings, paste the measurement ID and save.
4. Turn on “Re-send failed orders” and check which order states count as cancelled.
5. Place a test order, then look for the purchase in GA4 under Reports › Realtime.
6. Link Google Ads and Search Console to the property in GA4's admin, if you use them.

Reports need time. Realtime shows events within minutes, but standard reports take 24 to 48 hours to settle, so judge yesterday's numbers tomorrow.

Paid modules on the Addons marketplace add what the free one lacks: consent mode, server-side sending, Google Ads enhanced conversions and more control over refunds. Several of them work through Google Tag Manager, which many agencies prefer because tags can be changed without touching the shop.

PrestaShop Marketing with Google, the free-to-install module that often appears in the same searches, is not a GA4 module. It syncs your catalogue to Merchant Center and runs Google Ads campaigns, and setup needs a €19.99 monthly subscription.

Use one tracking module only. Two modules sending purchases, or the free module plus a Tag Manager container, is the most common reason GA4 shows more orders than the shop.

Your back office records every order. GA4 records a purchase only when the customer's browser sends it from the confirmation page. Anything that stops that one request loses the order in GA4, even though the money is in your account.

• Cookie consent: where visitors must agree before GA4 loads, many decline. A 2025 benchmark of German websites found about 60% of visit data lost with a compliant banner.
• Ad blockers: about 30% of internet users run one, and many block Google's tag.
• Payment pages: a customer who pays on the bank's or provider's page and closes the tab never reaches the confirmation page.
• Back-office orders: orders you create by hand are sent from your own browser, and only when you open the next back-office page.
• Delays and time zones: GA4 needs up to 48 hours to settle, and a day in GA4 may start at a different hour than a day in your shop.

Some differences go the other way. A purchase that fires twice, test orders on the live shop, or cancelled orders that are never refunded in GA4 all make GA4 read high. The module also counts unpaid bank transfer and cash on delivery orders as purchases the moment they are placed.

Consent mode does not close the gap for most shops. Google only fills in the missing data with estimates when a property has at least 1,000 events a day from visitors who declined, for at least seven days, which is more traffic than most PrestaShop shops have.

1. Pick a full week that ended at least two days ago, so GA4 has finished processing.
2. In the back office, count the valid orders for those days under Orders, filtered by date and by the states you count as paid.
3. In GA4, open Explore, start a free-form exploration and add the Transactions metric for the same dates.
4. Divide GA4 transactions by back-office orders. That is the share of your sales GA4 can see.
5. If it is below about 80%, compare the missing order numbers with their payment methods. When one method is missing much more often, that payment page is not returning customers to the shop.

For money, trust the back office. Use GA4 for where visitors came from and what they did, and remember every conversion rate it shows is lower than the real one by the size of the gap.

ManteIQ reads your PrestaShop orders and your GA4 property side by side. Its data validator matches each confirmed order to a GA4 transaction by order number or reference, shows day by day how many were found and how many are missing, and groups the missing ones by payment method so you can see where to look.

It also compares amounts with and without tax and shipping, and warns you when GA4 records more purchases than the shop has orders. When the share of orders GA4 sees drops, it tells you in the daily briefing, in the app and on Telegram, instead of you finding out at the end of the month. To see how ManteIQ compares with other PrestaShop analytics tools, read PrestaShop analytics compared.