Amplitude’s pricing page lists four plans, and the one most founders never read carefully is the first one: the Free plan gives you 2 million events a month, forever — enough to run real product analytics through pre-PMF and well into early traction, with no credit card required. Paid pricing now starts at $0 on the Plus plan and scales with event volume, all the way to 70 million events a month before you ever need a sales conversation. The quote-based tiers above that are where the confusion (and a lot of scary secondhand numbers) comes from.
This post lays out what each tier actually includes, what Plus really costs at startup scale based on Amplitude’s own calculator, the under-publicized scholarship programs that get qualifying startups the Growth plan free, and an honest like-for-like comparison with Mixpanel and PostHog.
Disclosure: This is independent research based on publicly available pricing from Amplitude, Mixpanel, and PostHog, plus procurement data from Vendr and PriceLevel. Startup Yeti does not earn affiliate commissions on Amplitude or any of the alternatives mentioned, and has no business relationship with the vendors discussed.
Amplitude’s Official Pricing: 4 Plans
Per Amplitude’s pricing page, the platform has four tiers. Amplitude now prices on events (each tracked action a user takes), the same unit Mixpanel and PostHog use, which makes comparisons far easier than the old per-MTU model. Free and Plus publish their pricing; Growth and Enterprise are quote-only.
Free — $0. 2 million events per month, forever, no credit card required. Includes AI Agents & MCP, core product analytics, one-time cohort syncs, 2,000 AI feedback records, 10K monthly session replays, limited experiments, guides and surveys, and 500 active AI Visibility prompts. Genuinely enough for solo founders and pre-PMF products, not a crippled trial.
Plus — starts at $0, scales to 70 million events. Your first 2 million events each month stay free; you pay only for volume above that, with no overage penalties. Adds custom events and formulas, 20 behavioral cohorts, alerts, heatmaps, 1,000 active AI Visibility prompts, and 2-year data retention on top of everything in Free. At Amplitude’s own 200-events-per-MTU conversion, 70M events is roughly 350,000 monthly tracked users, which means Plus covers small-to-mid startups and a good chunk of the mid-market before a custom quote enters the picture.
Growth — custom quote, event-based pricing. Everything in Plus, plus advanced behavioral exploration, currency conversion, monitoring and alerts, 20K monthly session replays, 2,500 AI Visibility prompts, and SSO with project permissions. This is also where the add-ons unlock (more below). Where Series A–B startups land once experimentation becomes core.
Enterprise — custom quote, event-based pricing. Everything in Growth, plus unlimited projects per portfolio, data access controls, unlimited monitoring and alerts, 50K monthly session replays, and advanced user management with RBAC. For 500+ employee and multi-product orgs.
The add-on economics matter. Amplitude’s expanded packages (Feature Experiment, Web Experiment, Session Replay at custom volumes, Guides and Surveys, Activation, and Accounts) are available on Growth and Enterprise only, priced as a percentage of your platform plan. Practically: a startup that needs serious experimentation or high-volume replay will get nudged from Plus into Growth, and the add-ons scale with the plan price rather than being flat fees.
On AI: every Amplitude plan, the Free tier included, lists AI Agents & MCP as a built-in feature. The MCP server connects your behavioral data to AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and Notion, and AI feedback records are included from the free plan up. Agentic analytics on a free tier is unusual, and it’s part of why Amplitude’s entry plans are more competitive than the platform’s premium reputation suggests.
What Founders Actually Pay
Amplitude publishes a Plus calculator, so for once the entry-tier math needs no guesswork. On annual billing, per the calculator: $75/month at 3M events, $576/month at 10M, $1,260/month at 20M, and $4,692/month at the 70M ceiling — roughly $900 to $56,000 per year depending entirely on volume. Month-to-month billing runs about 20–25% higher.
Because Plus now stretches to 70M events, it covers far more of the market than the old entry tier did. Most seed and Series A products fire well under 20M events a month, which puts a realistic Plus budget at $900–$15,000/year — self-serve, no sales call, cancel anytime.
Procurement marketplaces like Vendr and PriceLevel document negotiated contracts in the $45,000–$70,000/year range, which matches the top of the Plus curve and typical Growth entry points. If you need the Growth add-ons (experimentation, high-volume replay, activation syncs), expect a higher effective cost per event than Plus; Vendr documents Growth deals up to roughly $80,000/year. Anything above $100K is enterprise territory with add-ons stacked on top.
Amplitude Pricing by Company Size
Budgeting by event volume is more useful than employee count:
Small to mid (2M–30M events/month): $0–$20,000/year. Typical for AI-native startups, Series A teams, and B2B SaaS with focused product analytics. Under 2M events you’re entirely free; 10M events runs $576/month and 25M runs $1,610/month on the Plus calculator with annual billing.
Mid to enterprise (50M–150M events/month): $45,000–$150,000/year. Series B+ with scaled product teams. Plus itself tops out at $56K/year at 70M events; above that volume, or when Experiment and Session Replay add-ons enter, you’re negotiating Growth, where Vendr data clusters between $45K and $80K.
Enterprise (200M+ events/month): $150,000+/year. Public companies and multi-product orgs, with add-ons priced as a percentage of the platform plan stacking on top.
What pushes the bill up fastest, in order: (1) event volume scaling, (2) the Experiment add-on, (3) Session Replay at custom volumes, (4) multi-product enterprise commitments. Notably absent from that list now: overage charges. Plus has no overage penalties, a genuine change from the per-MTU era.
How to Negotiate Amplitude
First, know when not to negotiate: Free and Plus are self-serve with published prices and no overage traps, and they’re already the cheapest bundled offer on the market at those volumes. Negotiation is a Growth and Enterprise game. The three moves that show up consistently across procurement data:
1. Multi-year commits. Two-to-three-year terms unlock 15–30% discounts vs. one-year deals (Vendr data). If you’re confident in the product after a 90-day evaluation, lock in early. Renegotiating mid-contract is much harder than committing upfront.
2. Competitive bid leverage. Buyers who present alternatives (Mixpanel, PostHog, Heap, or even an in-house data warehouse build) commonly negotiate 20–35% below initial quote. Show the alternative’s pricing in writing. This lever matters mostly on Growth and Enterprise quotes; at Plus volumes, Amplitude is usually already the price leader for a comparable bundle.
3. Quarter-end timing. Amplitude’s sales reps hit harder on March, June, September, and December close dates. Per Vendr, an additional 5–15% discount is common in the final two weeks of a fiscal quarter.
Combined effect: a multi-year, quarter-end Growth deal with competitive leverage can land 25–45% below sticker. That’s five figures of saving on a typical contract.
The Amplitude Startup Scholarship (and Two More Free Paths)
The most under-publicized way to get Amplitude is the Startup Scholarship: qualifying startups get one full year of the Growth plan free, including the features that normally sit behind a custom quote — Analytics, Feature and Web Experimentation, Session Replay, and Activation — with generous limits (200,000 MTUs or 100M events per month). After the free year, Amplitude advertises “competitive discounts for life,” and the company says it approves over 96% of applicants.
Eligibility, per Amplitude’s program criteria:
- Less than $10M in total funding raised
- Fewer than 20 employees
Why it’s worth applying early. The scholarship exists because Amplitude, like most analytics platforms, benefits when a product team builds its measurement habits on their tool during the years a startup is forming them. That incentive works in your favor: you get enterprise-grade analytics during the exact window when understanding activation, retention, and funnel drop-off matters most, at zero cost.
A few practical notes founders ask about:
- Apply before you sign any paid contract. You can’t retroactively convert a paid plan into the scholarship.
- It’s a full year, not a discount trial. The Growth feature set is live the whole time.
- It sets up a stronger renewal. When the free year ends, you negotiate from real adoption data showing your team uses the tool daily.
Tech for Black Founders. Amplitude also runs a dedicated program with Braze for U.S.-based startups led by one or more Black founders: free access to the Growth plan (up to 500K MTUs), and it doesn’t expire after a year — it remains free as long as the company continues to meet the criteria. Eligibility is broader than the scholarship: less than $30M raised and fewer than 150 employees. Founders apply personally through a short form.
Venture portfolio discounts. Companies backed by Y Combinator, AWS, or Sequoia with under $25M in funding can separately get up to 50% off the Growth plan for a year. If you’re in one of those portfolios, ask before paying list.
Amplitude vs Mixpanel vs PostHog: Price Comparison
All three now price on events, so a like-for-like comparison is finally possible. Annual cost at two realistic startup volumes, using each vendor’s published list pricing:
| Platform | 10M events/mo | 20M events/mo | Free tier | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amplitude (Plus) | ~$6,900/yr | ~$15,100/yr | 2M events/mo | First 2M free, no overage penalties; analytics, replay, flags, experiments bundled |
| Mixpanel (Growth) | ~$30,200/yr | ~$63,800/yr | 1M events/mo | $0.28 per 1K events after 1M (volume discounts on request) |
| PostHog (Cloud) | ~$3,900/yr | ~$7,700/yr | 1M events/mo | Tiered per-event rates, analytics only; replay, flags, etc. billed separately per product |
Reading it honestly:
- Against Mixpanel, Amplitude’s new pricing is dramatically cheaper: roughly a quarter of Mixpanel’s list price at both volumes.
- Against PostHog, the raw analytics line item is cheaper at PostHog, but it isn’t the same product for the money: PostHog bills each product separately (session replay per recording, feature flags per request), while Amplitude’s Plus price includes replay, flags, experimentation, and AI agents in the bundle. Teams using more than bare analytics often land at comparable or higher totals on PostHog.
- The free tiers aren’t close. Amplitude’s 2M events per month is double both competitors’ 1M, and it includes replay and flags.
Where each one wins:
- Amplitude — the cheapest bundled platform at startup volumes, the largest free tier, no overage penalties, and depth (causal analysis, predictive audiences, mutual-exclusion experiment groups) when you grow into it.
- Mixpanel — per-event transparency and a polished analytics UX, though list price gets expensive fast at volume.
- PostHog — lowest raw analytics cost, a self-host option, and a pick-what-you-pay-for product menu that rewards disciplined usage.
The honest version: Amplitude’s Free and Plus tiers are now the strongest entry points in the category. Start free, and move up only when a specific feature need justifies it. For how SaaS tools structure these tiers, see SaaS pricing models.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Amplitude a one-time payment?
No. Amplitude runs on subscriptions. The Free plan is recurring with no expiration; Plus is self-serve with annual or monthly billing; Growth and Enterprise are annual contracts that auto-renew unless cancelled before the renewal date. Multi-year commitments unlock 15–30% discounts.
Does Amplitude have a free version?
Yes. The Free plan gives you 2 million events per month, forever, with no credit card required, and it’s genuinely capable: 10K monthly session replays, limited experiments, guides and surveys, AI feedback records, and AI Agents & MCP are all included. Setup takes minutes with Amplitude’s install wizard CLI. Past 2M events you move to Plus, which starts at $0 and charges only for volume above the free allowance.
How much should I budget for Amplitude in year one?
Less than most founders expect. Under 2 million events a month, budget $0. On Plus with annual billing, Amplitude’s calculator shows $75/month at 3M events, $576/month at 10M, and $1,260/month at 20M. If you have under $10M raised and fewer than 20 employees, apply for the Startup Scholarship and get the Growth plan free for a year. Only Growth-tier deals with add-ons move the budget into the $45,000–$80,000 range Vendr documents.
What are events (and what happened to MTUs)?
An event is any tracked user action: a page view, a click, a signup. Amplitude now prices on events, the same unit as Mixpanel and PostHog. The old unit, MTUs (Monthly Tracked Users), still appears in some program limits; Amplitude’s own conversion is roughly 200 events per MTU, so 70M events corresponds to about 350K MTUs.
Can you pay monthly instead of annually?
Yes, on Plus, and you give up the annual discount: month-to-month runs roughly 20–25% more (at 3M events, $94/month vs $75/month annual, per the calculator). Growth and Enterprise are annual contracts. If your funding situation is uncertain, start on Plus monthly until you have 12 months of runway secured.
Is Amplitude expensive for startups?
At startup volumes it’s currently the most affordable bundled option on the market. The Free plan’s 2 million events per month is double what Mixpanel and PostHog give away, Plus starts at $0 with no credit card needed to try the free tier and no overage penalties, and at 10M–20M events Plus runs roughly a quarter of Mixpanel’s list price. The premium reputation comes from Growth and Enterprise, which are priced for scaled product orgs running heavy experimentation.
For more pricing breakdowns of tools founders use to evaluate companies, see PitchBook pricing.
About the author
Boban Ilik is the founder of Startup Yeti, where he writes about SaaS pricing, remote team management, and the operational decisions early-stage founders actually face. The pricing data in this article comes from Amplitude’s, Mixpanel’s, and PostHog’s public pricing pages and calculators plus public marketplace records on Vendr and PriceLevel; no proprietary or non-public sources were used. More about Boban and the Startup Yeti editorial process →
