Product analytics
Heap vs Amplitude
Heap suits teams who aren't sure yet what to track and want to answer questions retroactively without shipping new instrumentation each time. Amplitude suits teams with a clear analytics plan who want deeper cohort, retention and experimentation tooling on top of well-defined events.
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Heap or Amplitude — which should you use?
Heap suits teams who aren't sure yet what to track and want to answer questions retroactively without shipping new instrumentation each time. Amplitude suits teams with a clear analytics plan who want deeper cohort, retention and experimentation tooling on top of well-defined events. Heap starts at Paid plans are quote-based; check current pricing (free tier: Free plan with limited sessions and history.); Amplitude starts at Paid plans (Plus) from roughly $49/month, then Growth is quote-based (free tier: Free plan (Starter) with generous monthly tracked users.). Prices are list prices and change, so check the vendor pages before buying.
Last updated 3 August 2026
Heap's core idea is auto-capture: it records every click, page view and form submission automatically, so you can define new events after the fact instead of waiting weeks for engineering to add tracking code for a question you didn't anticipate.
Amplitude instead expects you to define the events that matter and send them deliberately, which takes more upfront planning but produces cleaner data and pairs with a broader analysis suite covering funnels, retention, cohorts and experimentation.
Side by side
Heap and Amplitude in short.
Heap
Product analytics platform that auto-captures user interactions for retroactive analysis.
- Free
- Free plan with limited sessions and history.
- Paid from
- Paid plans are quote-based; check current pricing
Good at
- Auto-capture means you can analyse questions you didn't think to instrument in advance
- Faster to get started since you're not waiting on engineering for every new event
- Good for teams without a dedicated analytics engineer
Weak at
- Auto-captured data can be noisier and needs cleanup to name events sensibly
- Pricing isn't published, which makes budgeting harder upfront
Amplitude
Product analytics platform built around deliberately defined events, with deep cohort and retention analysis.
- Free
- Free plan (Starter) with generous monthly tracked users.
- Paid from
- Paid plans (Plus) from roughly $49/month, then Growth is quote-based
Good at
- Deep, well-established toolkit for funnels, retention curves and cohorts
- Clean, deliberate event data since it's defined rather than auto-captured
- Publishes at least an entry price, unlike Heap
Weak at
- Requires planning an event taxonomy before you get value
- New questions often mean shipping new tracking code first
The differences
Where they actually diverge.
| Feature | Heap | Amplitude |
|---|---|---|
| Data collection model | Auto-capture, define events later | Deliberately defined events |
| Free plan | Yes, limited | Yes, generous tracked-user limit |
| Entry paid price | Quote-based | ~$49/month |
| Setup effort upfront | Lower | Higher, needs a tracking plan |
| Data cleanliness | Needs curation after capture | Clean by design |
| Retention/cohort tooling | Solid | Deeper and more established |
| Best for | Teams without a fixed analytics plan yet | Teams with a defined tracking plan and analyst |
Pick one
Which one fits you.
Choose Heap if
- You don't yet know which events matter and want to explore retroactively
- You don't have engineering time to spend on tracking every new question
- You want analytics running before your data model is finalised
Choose Amplitude if
- You already have (or can build) a clear event taxonomy
- Retention curves, cohorts and experimentation are core to how you work
- You want a published starting price to budget against
When neither is the answer
If your product is early and low-traffic, a simpler tool bundled with your analytics stack, or even funnel analysis inside your product itself, may answer your questions without a dedicated platform yet.
Questions
Common questions.
Does Heap's auto-capture replace the need for a tracking plan entirely?
It reduces the need to plan every event upfront, but most teams still end up naming and organising key events for reporting, so some ongoing curation is normal.
Can Amplitude auto-capture too?
Amplitude added some autocapture capability for web and mobile, but its core strength and most mature tooling still assume deliberately defined events.
Which is easier for a non-technical marketer to use day to day?
Both have accessible reporting UIs once set up; Heap's auto-capture can mean less waiting on engineering for a marketer's new question, which some teams find easier in practice.
Do either integrate with data warehouses?
Yes, both support exporting to common warehouses like Snowflake and BigQuery on their higher tiers, which is worth checking against your specific plan.
Is pricing based on events or users?
Amplitude's published tiers are based on monthly tracked users. Heap's pricing isn't public, so you'll need to talk to sales to see how it's structured for your volume.
Prices are list prices published by each vendor and change often — check the linked pricing pages before you buy. We take no affiliate commission and nobody pays to appear here.
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