Mixpanel is the go-to product analytics platform for SaaS and PLG companies. Unlike page-view-centric tools, Mixpanel is built around user actions and events — making it ideal for measuring activation, retention, and feature adoption across web and mobile products.
Product Overview
Mixpanel's core strength is its self-serve query interface: any team member can build funnels, retention charts, cohort analyses, and flow diagrams without writing code. The platform stores individual user event histories indefinitely, enabling retroactive analysis as questions evolve. Its impact report measures the effect of feature releases on key metrics, while the experiments feature A/B-tests product changes in-platform.
Key Features
- Funnel Analysis: Multi-step funnels with conversion rates, time-to-convert, and breakdown by user property or cohort.
- Retention Reports: Cohort-based retention showing how long users return after any triggering event.
- User Flows: Sankey diagram of actual user paths through the product — useful for finding where users drop off.
- Cohort Analysis: Group users by shared behaviour or attributes and compare their lifecycle metrics over time.
- Lexicon (Data Governance): Centralised event dictionary with descriptions, ownership, and status for clean data management.
Best For
Product, growth, and RevOps teams at SaaS companies — especially those with a product-led growth motion — who need deep insight into user behaviour and retention.
Pricing
Free up to 20M events/month. Growth from $28/month; Enterprise custom pricing. Annual discounts available.
Key Integrations
Segment, Amplitude, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Zapier, BigQuery, Snowflake, dbt
Pros
- Excellent self-serve analytics — no SQL required
- Strong funnel and retention reporting
- Free tier is genuinely useful
- Good data governance with Lexicon
Cons
- Can be complex to implement correctly at the event level
- Costs scale with event volume
- Less suited for marketing/SEO analytics
- Dashboards less polished than BI tools
