Six server-side tracking providers. Six different answers to the question: where does my conversion data actually live? Every managed SST service says you own your data. Their terms of service, marketing pages, and sales calls all include some version of “your data remains 100% yours.” But data ownership without infrastructure ownership is a legal fiction. With GDPR cumulative fines reaching €5.88 billion (GDPR Enforcement Tracker, 2025), the physical location and control of your conversion data isn’t an abstract question—it’s a liability question.

Here’s what each major provider’s documentation actually reveals about where your data goes, who processes it, and what happens when you cancel.

The Data Ownership Claim Every Provider Makes

Tracklution’s website states it plainly: “Your data remains 100% yours—we never claim any rights to it.” Converge’s DPA says they process data “solely for the purpose of performing the Main Agreement.” Elevar, TrackBee, Littledata—every managed SST provider uses similar language.

The language is nearly identical across providers. The infrastructure behind it is not.

Data ownership, in practice, means answering three questions: Where is the data physically stored? Who controls the infrastructure? And if you leave, what stays and what goes?

Provider-by-Provider: Where Your Data Actually Lives

Tracklution: Stockholm Servers They Own

Tracklution processes conversion data on servers in Stockholm that they own and operate. They serve 1,000+ clients through this centralised infrastructure. Your data sits alongside every other Tracklution customer’s data on their hardware, in their data centre, under their control.

Cancel Tracklution, and your data stays on servers in Stockholm. You get an export window—then it’s gone.

Converge: Delaware Corp, EEA/UK Processing

Converge Technologies is a Delaware corporation with a UK entity. Their DPA states: “The Client Data shall be processed within the EEA or in the United Kingdom.” They act as a Data Processor—legally, you’re the Data Controller. Pricing starts at $3,600/year ($300/month) for managed tracking and attribution (Converge Pricing Page, 2025).

That sounds clear until you consider the implications. You’re legally responsible as Data Controller for data you cannot technically audit. The processing infrastructure belongs to Converge. The API connections to ad platforms run through their systems. You control what events fire. You don’t control how they’re processed or transmitted.

You may be interested in: I Almost Migrated to Shopify — Then I Calculated the Data Cost

Elevar: Google Cloud Serverless They Manage

Elevar uses serverless technology on Google Cloud with a Pub/Sub Big Data Pipeline. Their documentation notes that “Google Cloud Functions have no upper scale limit”—which sounds impressive until you realise your conversion data is processed on Google infrastructure that Elevar manages, not infrastructure you have any access to.

Elevar’s Google Cloud infrastructure has experienced one outage in 2+ years lasting approximately 2 hours (Elevar Technical Docs, 2025). Reliable, yes. But that reliability depends entirely on Elevar’s relationship with Google Cloud—not yours. Pricing starts at $50/month, scaling to $150–500/month for growing brands (Cometly SST Tools Comparison, 2025).

Your data flows through Google Cloud resources you didn’t provision, can’t inspect, and don’t control.

TrackBee: Their Servers, Shopify Only

TrackBee processes data on their own servers. They’re Shopify-only, so if you’re on WooCommerce, they’re not an option. For Shopify merchants, the pattern is the same: your conversion data lives on infrastructure someone else owns.

Littledata: Pre-configured Server Container

Littledata runs through a pre-configured server container—no infrastructure management required on your end. That convenience comes with the same trade-off: your data is processed on infrastructure you don’t own, can’t audit, and can’t take with you.

The Cancellation Test

Here’s the question that separates real data ownership from marketing language: if you cancel tomorrow, what happens to your data?

With every managed SST provider, the answer follows the same pattern. Your data sits on their infrastructure. You get a limited window to export what they make available. After that, it’s subject to their retention and deletion policies. The years of conversion events, attribution data, and behavioural signals you’ve been collecting? They’re on someone else’s servers, governed by someone else’s policies.

You may be interested in: WooCommerce to BigQuery: $5/Month. Shopify to BigQuery: $500/Month

The WordPress-Native Alternative: Your Server, Your Database

WordPress-native server-side tracking inverts the entire model. Instead of sending your data to someone else’s infrastructure for processing, events are captured by a plugin on your WordPress site and routed to a first-party server running on your subdomain.

The data flows through your server. It’s stored in your database—MongoDB, BigQuery, whatever you choose. The API connections to ad platforms originate from your infrastructure. Every event, every API call, every delivery status is logged on hardware you pay for and control.

Cancel the service, and nothing changes about your data. It’s already on your server. It stays exactly where it is.

Shopify stores routing data to 6 platforms typically spend $300–1,800/month in tracking app costs. WooCommerce stores with unified server-side routing spend roughly $89–149/month (Seresa.io, 2025). The cost difference is significant—but the infrastructure ownership difference is transformative.

Why Infrastructure Ownership Matters Now

GDPR cumulative fines have reached €5.88 billion (GDPR Enforcement Tracker, 2025). The regulatory environment isn’t softening. Cross-border data transfer scrutiny is increasing. And the distinction between Data Controller and Data Processor matters more every year.

When your data is processed on someone else’s infrastructure, you’re trusting their compliance, their security, their data handling. You’re the legally responsible Data Controller for data flowing through systems you can’t audit.

Data ownership means infrastructure ownership. Everything else is data access with conditions attached.

Transmute Engine™ is built on this principle. It’s a dedicated Node.js server that runs first-party on your subdomain—not a plugin, not a managed service. The inPIPE WordPress plugin captures events and sends them via API to your Transmute Engine server, which routes to GA4, Facebook CAPI, Google Ads, BigQuery, and more. Your data never touches infrastructure you don’t control.

Key Takeaways

• Every managed SST provider claims you own your data—but the infrastructure tells a different story. Tracklution (Stockholm), Converge (EEA/UK), Elevar (Google Cloud), TrackBee and Littledata all process on infrastructure the merchant does not own.
• The cancellation test reveals real ownership. If you cancel and your data stays on someone else’s servers subject to their policies, you have data access—not data ownership.
• GDPR makes infrastructure location a liability question. With €5.88 billion in cumulative fines, being Data Controller for data you can’t audit on infrastructure you don’t control carries increasing regulatory risk.
• WordPress-native server-side tracking stores data on your infrastructure. Your server, your database, your control. Cancel and your data stays exactly where it is.
• Cost and control aren’t mutually exclusive. WooCommerce server-side routing at $89–149/month gives you both lower costs and full infrastructure ownership compared to $300–1,800/month in fragmented Shopify tracking apps.

Your data should live where you do—on your own infrastructure. See how Seresa makes that possible.