Amplitude vs Google Analytics
We give Amplitude a 3.0 GPA and Google Analytics a 3.4, out of 4.0. Google Analytics grades higher on the free plan and ease of use. They get the same grade on value for money, features and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Amplitude
Product analytics with session replay, experiments and in-app guides
Google Analytics
Google's free website and app analytics, with a paid 360 tier
How we grade them
| 3.0GPAAmplitudeVery good | 3.4GPAGoogle AnalyticsVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AA site with 10,000 visitors a month fits easily in the free plan's 2M events, so the figure here is $0, with unlimited seats and 10,000 replays included. Past 2M you move to Plus, $900 a year for up to 3M events. | A$0 for a 10,000-visitor site, or one a hundred times that size: the standard version is free, with reports, explorations, attribution and BigQuery export. Only Analytics 360, quoted by Google's sales team, costs money. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree with no time limit and no card: 2M events, unlimited seats and 10,000 replays a month. You'll feel the edges, though. Only 10 saved charts, 1 experiment and 1 guide or survey live at once, and 1 year of data. | AFree for sites and apps of any size, with no traffic cap a normal business would reach. The limits that do exist are about history: user- and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months. |
| Features | BFunnels, retention, cohorts, replays, feature flags, web A/B tests, in-app guides and surveys, all from one vendor. That's the whole product analytics job and then some. Experiment results and SSO need Growth, though, which is sold through sales. | BTraffic and acquisition reports, funnel and path explorations, cohorts, data-driven attribution, predicted audiences and BigQuery export. The whole traffic analytics job, graded against Matomo, Plausible and Fathom. It doesn't record visits; that's Clarity's job. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. Autocapture gets data flowing, but useful funnels and cohorts mean planning your events and learning how the charts work. The AI agents on every plan help with the asking. | B4.6 from 5,249 App Store ratings for its phone app. You can ask questions in plain words, but explorations, events and attribution settings take some learning to get the most from. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, with no desktop or phone app, which keeps it off an A. It connects to Segment, Braze, HubSpot, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Google Ads and Slack, and an MCP server lets Claude and Cursor query your data. | BWeb plus iPhone and Android apps, with links to Google Ads, Search Console, BigQuery, Tag Manager, Firebase and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. No desktop app, which keeps it off an A. |
| Best for | product analytics that stays free for a long while | free traffic reports for any size of site |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Amplitude and Google Analytics. How we grade
Where they differ
- Only Google Analytics lists iOS and Android apps.
- Amplitude also covers surveys, session replay and a/B testing.
- Google Analytics also covers reports.
At a glance
| Amplitude | Google Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $900 per year for up to 3M events a month (Plus; the first 2M are free) | Not published |
| Free plan | Free plan with no time limit: 2M events a month, unlimited seats, 10,000 session replays a month, 1 live experiment, 1 guide or survey, 10 saved charts and 1 year of data. | The standard Google Analytics is free for sites and apps of any size, with reports, explorations, attribution and BigQuery export. User- and event-level data is kept for at most 14 months. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Amplitude, Inc. | |
| Price read from | amplitude.com | marketingplatform.google.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Amplitude
- Product teams measuring funnels, retention and feature adoption
- Startups that can stay under 2M events a month
- Teams that want analytics, replays and experiments from one vendor
Google Analytics
- Small businesses and site owners who want free traffic reports
- Advertisers running Google Ads campaigns
- Teams that want raw event data in BigQuery
Worth knowing
Amplitude
- Plus has no price list in text: it is free to 2M events a month, then billed by volume, and the pricing page's chart is the only published figure.
- Experiment results, A/B/n testing for feature flags and SSO start on Growth, which is priced through sales.
- Session replays are kept for 1 month on every plan; longer retention is an add-on for Growth and Enterprise.
- Free keeps 1 year of data and 10 saved charts; Plus keeps 2 years.
Google Analytics
- Analytics 360 has no published price; it is quoted through Google's sales team.
- In the free version, user- and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months; 26, 38 and 50 months are 360 only.
- Intraday data freshness, sub-properties, roll-up reporting and higher limits on custom dimensions and audiences are 360 only.
- Google Ads data in reports is limited to a rolling 36 months, and Google signals data is kept no more than 26 months.
Key features
Amplitude
- Event-based product analytics
- Funnels, retention, user paths and cohorts built from tracked events, with autocapture and a data assistant to tidy the event list.
- Session replay and heatmaps
- Replays of web and mobile sessions with data masking on every plan (10,000 a month on Free and Plus). Heatmaps start on Plus.
- Feature flags and experiments
- Unlimited feature flags on all plans and a visual editor for web A/B tests. Free and Plus run one experiment at a time without results views.
- In-app guides and surveys
- Tours, prompts and surveys shown inside your product and targeted by cohort. Free and Plus allow one live at a time.
- AI agents and MCP
- AI agents analyze the data on every plan, and an MCP server lets Claude, Cursor and similar tools query your Amplitude data.
- Audience syncs
- Sends cohorts to ad, email and messaging tools. One-time syncs are on every plan; scheduled syncs start on Growth.
Google Analytics
- Traffic and acquisition reports
- Shows how people reach a site or app across paid and organic channels, which pages and screens they use, and what happens in real time.
- Explorations
- Free-form analysis, open or closed funnels, path analysis, segment overlap, cohorts and user lifetime value, built by dragging fields onto a canvas.
- Attribution
- Data-driven attribution, conversion path reports and model comparisons show how each marketing channel contributes to conversions.
- Predictions and insights
- Machine learning predicts actions such as purchase or churn to build audiences, flags notable changes automatically, and answers typed questions.
- Google Ads and BigQuery links
- Imports Google Ads, Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360 data, sends audiences and conversions back, and exports raw events to BigQuery.
Plans
Amplitude
Free$0
2M events a month, unlimited seats, 10,000 session replays, product analytics, AI agents and MCP. No credit card needed.
Plus$900
per year for up to 3M events a month
First 2M events free, then billed by volume up to 70M. Adds heatmaps, custom events, 20 cohorts, 2-year data. $6,912 a year at 10M events.
GrowthCustom
Sold through sales, priced by events: 20,000 replays a month, A/B test results, SSO and project permissions, 2-day support SLA.
EnterpriseCustom
Sold through sales: 50,000 replays a month, data access controls, role-based access, SCIM, account manager and 1-day SLA.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics$0
Free: reports, explorations, attribution, predictive audiences, Google Ads and Search Console links, and BigQuery export.
Analytics 360Custom
Sold through sales: intraday data within an hour, sub-properties, roll-up reporting, higher limits, up to 50 months of data and SLAs.
Ways to pay less
Amplitude
- Startups
One free year of Growth for startups
Startups with under $10M in funding and fewer than 20 employees can apply for a free year of the Growth plan. A separate scholarship gives qualifying Black founders free Growth access.
Google Analytics
No public discounts listed.
