I work for a startup with about 25 staff members and fewer than 10 client accounts. We are employing product-led construction methods to create a platform. We’d like to begin tracking user behavior as soon as we begin automating our sign up and onboarding processes by incorporating them into our product.
I’ve previously used Mixpanel, FullStory, and AppCues. Pendo, Heap, and Amplitude are known to me. We are now budget-constrained like many companies; thus, I’m searching for the finest free tier product analytics solution while keeping the medium- to long-term in mind. What do you think about the top free product analytics tool?
Amplitude, Pendo, and PostHog are the holy trinity.
MixPanel was the pioneer, but it is now far behind.
Smaller companies like yours can take advantage of Amplitude’s generous free plan.
For companies that match their requirements and have fewer than 75 employees, Pendo offers a startup discount.
A self-hosted plan for PostHog is free.
Amplitude is my go-to tool because it’s user-friendly and packed with features. It can be employed to control experiments like A/B or multivariate tests. Pendo features excellent in-app alerts with themes and an excellent onboarding tool.
When you upgrade to premium, Pendo is by far the most expensive, so keep that in mind.
Pendo offers a free tier as well as a cheap “Pendo for Startups” program (I use it and previously had an enterprise licence at a previous company).
It’s important to keep in mind that Pendo also has the UserVoice and WalkMe equivalents. In my opinion, during the quick iterations of early stage products, the ability to use user behaviour to trigger instructions that are configured without requiring dev work is invaluable.
I teamed up with ZenDesk to give a new app comprehensive help and support (knowledgebase, support tickets, live chat) with hardly any development work, only the initial install.
It appears to have analytics and manuals but not Pendo Feedback (a feature comparable to uservoice). Analytics and guidance are essentially two sides of the same coin, whereas feedback is dependent on acquired product and is therefore less tightly connected.
Additionally, you may use Pendo’s dynamic segments to manipulate feature flags by connecting it to LaunchDarkly. Therefore, you can enable a previously hidden feature in your app in addition to popping an in-app guide based on a user’s behaviour (or disabling unnecessary capabilities to simplify your app).
LD is pretty low cost to get started with although implementing feature flags is a bigger lift for dev than implementing Pendo (which is super easy).
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There are several great product analytics tools that startups can use to track and analyze user behavior, engagement, and retention. Here are a few popular options:
Google Analytics - Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that can help startups track website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates. It is easy to set up and use, and provides a range of insights that can help startups optimize their website and marketing campaigns.
Mixpanel - Mixpanel is a product analytics tool that helps startups track user behavior and engagement in their web and mobile apps. It offers a range of features, such as event tracking, user segmentation, and A/B testing, that can help startups understand how users interact with their products and identify areas for improvement.
Amplitude - Amplitude is a product analytics platform that helps startups understand user behavior, engagement, and retention across web and mobile apps. It offers a range of features, such as event tracking, user segmentation, and cohort analysis, that can help startups identify key trends and optimize their product strategies.
Heap - Heap is a product analytics tool that helps startups automatically capture user behavior across their web and mobile apps. It offers a range of features, such as retroactive event tracking, user segmentation, and funnel analysis, that can help startups understand user behavior and optimize their product strategies.
Ultimately, the best product analytics tool for your startup will depend on your specific needs, budget, and technical capabilities. It’s important to evaluate several options and choose the tool that best fits your business requirements.
The main advantage of using Heap for a startup was that it automatically logs every click with no developer time needed. We could do a lot of analysis, and they have since included session replays, which are fantastic-looking. Although it was two years ago, the price was also rather reasonable.
Just based on what I’ve read, Amplitude appears to be ill as well. Given the additional development effort required to set up click tracking, I do wonder if it is a better fit for large businesses, but it appears that you receive an even deeper layer of statistics in return.
I use Mixpanel, but if I had a second chance, I’d ditch every “product analytics” solution. Using BigQuery, I would put data into a spreadsheet, clean the data, and then visualise it using Data Studio. In comparison to other tools on the market, it would be less expensive, still be simple to use, and have enormous possibilities.
Have you looked into any logical substitutes for Amplitude? Among other tools, I am aware of the quality of Zendesk and Mixpanel; these might be worth looking out. You could get some ideas from this link to Secret’s Data Analytics software deals.
Just a heads up that depending on how early stage you are and how much funding you have, you could use the Startup Program from MixPanel to make it free for a 1-2 years. I believe Amplitude has a similar program.
Yes, that’s correct! Amplitude recently announced that its product analytics platform is now free for startups with up to 100,000 monthly tracked users. This is a great opportunity for startups to use a powerful product analytics tool without having to pay for it until they reach a certain level of user growth.
Amplitude’s free plan includes a range of features, such as unlimited data history, user segmentation, retention analysis, and cohort analysis. It also includes access to Amplitude’s community forums and support documentation.
Startups that exceed the 100,000 monthly tracked user limit can upgrade to one of Amplitude’s paid plans, which offer additional features and support. Overall, this is a great offering from Amplitude that can help startups gain valuable insights into user behavior and optimize their product strategies.
Also, the cohort reporting in Amplitude is perfect for growth work.
That’s a valid point! While product analytics tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, and others are powerful and can provide valuable insights into user behavior and product performance, there are other options for data analysis that might be more cost-effective or customizable for specific business needs.
Using a cloud-based data warehouse like Google BigQuery to store and process your data, and then using a spreadsheet and visualization tool like Google Data Studio to analyze and visualize the data, can be a great alternative. This approach can provide more flexibility and control over your data analysis, and may be less expensive than some of the more comprehensive product analytics tools.
However, it’s worth noting that using a more manual approach to data analysis can require more technical skills and resources, as well as more time and effort to set up and maintain. It also may not offer the same level of real-time insights or advanced features that some product analytics tools can provide. Ultimately, the best approach for a particular business will depend on their specific needs, resources, and goals.
