Amplitude
Digital analytics for funnels, cohorts, retention, and experiments.
Best for
- Product analytics
- Funnels
- Retention analysis
Not good for
- Tiny apps that only need a few aggregate counters
Pros and cons
Pros
- The free plan allows up to 2 million events per month with unlimited seats, so a small app can run real product analytics without paying or rationing logins (checked July 19, 2026).
- Experiments, guides, and surveys live in the same platform as analytics, so you can act on a finding without adopting a second tool.
- SDKs cover iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, web, and a server API, which keeps event definitions consistent if you ship on more than one surface.
- Behavioral cohorts and retention analysis go deeper than simple dashboards, which helps once you are optimizing activation rather than counting installs.
Cons
- The depth only pays off with a disciplined event taxonomy; a messy naming scheme makes reports harder to trust, not easier.
- Verbose autocapture can burn through the free event allowance quickly and push you onto usage-based paid pricing sooner than expected.
- Paid Growth and Enterprise pricing is custom and quote-based, so the cost at scale is not something you can read off the page in advance.
- It collects detailed behavioral data, which adds privacy and App Store data-disclosure obligations you would not have with an aggregate-only tool.
Amplitude is a product analytics platform for understanding how people move through your app: funnels, retention, cohorts, and behavioral analysis, with experiments, guides, and surveys layered on top. For a solo iOS developer, it answers the questions that matter after launch, such as where users drop off in onboarding and which features drive retention, without you building a reporting pipeline.
It fits once you have enough traffic that behavioral questions are worth asking and you expect analytics to be an ongoing workflow rather than a launch checkbox. If you only need a few aggregate counters or a privacy-light view of activation, a lighter option such as TelemetryDeck is less to learn and less to maintain. Amplitude rewards a clean event taxonomy, and without one its depth turns into noise.
Pricing
Amplitude uses a freemium model with a large free tier and usage-based paid plans priced on event volume.
Amplitude plans (checked July 19, 2026)
| Plan | Price | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 forever, up to 2 million events per month | Core product analytics, unlimited seats, 10,000 monthly session replays, and limited experiments, guides, and surveys |
| Plus | Starts at $0 and scales with event volume, up to 70 million events | Everything in Free plus custom events and formulas, 20 behavioral cohorts, alerts, and 2-year data retention |
| Growth | Custom, based on event volume | Everything in Plus plus advanced behavioral analysis, monitoring and alerts, SSO, and project permissions |
| Enterprise | Custom | Everything in Growth plus unlimited projects, data access controls, and role-based access control |
Paid pricing scales with the events you send rather than the number of seats, so a small app pays little until it grows. Pricing last checked July 19, 2026; confirm current numbers on the official pricing page.
Setup and integration
Amplitude provides SDKs for iOS in Swift, plus Android, React Native, Flutter, web, and a server-side API. On iOS you add the Swift SDK through Swift Package Manager, initialize it with an API key, and send named events with properties. Autocapture can record screen views and interactions, or you can instrument events by hand for tighter control.
The real work is not the SDK; it is deciding what to track. Plan an event and property naming scheme before you instrument, because renaming events after data accumulates is painful and past data does not backfill. Watch the monthly event volume too, since verbose autocapture can consume your allowance and push you toward a paid tier.
Frequently asked questions
Is Amplitude free for a small app?
Yes, within limits. The Free plan allows up to 2 million events per month with unlimited seats and core product analytics (checked July 19, 2026). A small app can run on it indefinitely, and the Plus plan starts at $0 and scales only as your event volume grows.
How is Amplitude different from Mixpanel?
Both are event-analytics tools covering funnels, retention, and cohorts. Mixpanel leans toward a lean, approachable reporting workflow priced by event volume, while Amplitude is a broader product platform that adds experiments, guides, and surveys alongside analytics, with a larger free event allowance and unlimited seats on every plan.
Does Amplitude replace crash reporting?
No. Amplitude tells you what users did, not why the app broke. Pair it with a dedicated error monitor such as Sentry so you have both behavioral analytics and stack traces when something fails.
Alternatives
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Related guides
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