GA4 Realtime API

The Realtime API is GA4's "what's happening right now" endpoint. Different from runReport:

Don't try to use runReport for now-data — its freshest data point is yesterday. Use runRealtimeReport.

Minimum viable call

from google.analytics.data_v1beta import BetaAnalyticsDataClient
from google.analytics.data_v1beta.types import (
    RunRealtimeReportRequest, Metric, Dimension,
)

client = BetaAnalyticsDataClient()
resp = client.run_realtime_report(RunRealtimeReportRequest(
    property="properties/123456789",
    metrics=[Metric(name="activeUsers")],
))

# Single-row response when there are no dimensions
total = int(resp.rows[0].metric_values[0].value) if resp.rows else 0
print(f"Active users right now: {total}")

No date_ranges block — the implicit window is the last 30 min. Adding one will error.

Realtime metrics (the full list)

Custom-event aggregates (e.g. purchase_revenue) are NOT in the Realtime API. If you need realtime revenue, derive it from eventCount filtered to eventName=="purchase" plus your average AOV.

Realtime dimensions (the full list)

That's the full list. ~15 dims total. Compare to runReport's ~150.

Common realtime queries

"How many people are on my site right now?"

resp = client.run_realtime_report(RunRealtimeReportRequest(
    property="properties/123456789",
    metrics=[Metric(name="activeUsers")],
))
print(int(resp.rows[0].metric_values[0].value) if resp.rows else 0)

"Active users by country, right now"

resp = client.run_realtime_report(RunRealtimeReportRequest(
    property="properties/123456789",
    metrics=[Metric(name="activeUsers")],
    dimensions=[Dimension(name="country")],
    limit=20,
))
for r in resp.rows:
    print(f"{r.dimension_values[0].value:25s} {r.metric_values[0].value}")

"Which events are firing in the last 30 min?"

resp = client.run_realtime_report(RunRealtimeReportRequest(
    property="properties/123456789",
    metrics=[Metric(name="eventCount")],
    dimensions=[Dimension(name="eventName")],
    limit=30,
))

This is the live event firehose — useful to verify a new tracking deployment is actually firing.

"Top pages right now"

resp = client.run_realtime_report(RunRealtimeReportRequest(
    property="properties/123456789",
    metrics=[Metric(name="screenPageViews")],
    dimensions=[Dimension(name="unifiedScreenName")],   # NOT pagePath — that's Data-API-only
    limit=20,
))

Realtime doesn't expose pagePath directly. Use unifiedScreenName (the page title) or unifiedScreenClass. To get path-level granularity in realtime, push a custom event with the path as a parameter, then query by eventName + that custom dimension.

Filters

Same shape as runReport — FilterExpression / Filter blocks. Realtime supports dimensionfilter and metricfilter but not the full set of dimensions / metrics; check the Realtime API schema before writing complex filters.

Quotas — different from Data API

Realtime has its own quota bucket. Defaults (2026):

• 5,000 requests per project per day
• 250 requests per property per day
• 60 requests per minute per property

For a live dashboard polling every 10s: that's 6 RPM, well within limits. For a hot incident where you want minute-by-minute data, you can poll up to 60x/min per property.

Don't poll faster than 30s

The data window is the last 30 min. Polling faster than ~30s wastes quota without meaningful resolution change. For most "live" use cases, 60s polling is plenty.

Common gotchas

Related skills

• ga4-auth-setup — prerequisite
• ga4-data-api-query — for any window longer than 30 min
• ga4-common-reports — for canonical reports (DAU/MAU/retention) which are NOT realtime-able