Analytics and Tracking: What to Set Up at SaaS Launch

Any new product or app needs analytics — to know what works and what doesn't. There are dozens of tools on the market, and subscriptions quickly add up. Here are several working stacks for 2026.

Basic Web Analytics

Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Free. The de facto standard, but GDPR restrictions in the EU make it problematic without a cookie consent banner. More complex than UA, many still haven't gotten used to it.

Plausible. $9–19/month. A lightweight, privacy-friendly alternative to GA. No cookies, GDPR-compliant without a banner. Good choice for blogs, landing pages, small businesses.

Fathom Analytics. $14/month. Similar to Plausible. Simple and beautiful.

Umami. Self-hosted, free. If you have your own server, it's an option.

Product Analytics

Mixpanel. Free up to 100k MTU, then $25–833/month. Event-based, convenient for funnels and retention. Standard for SaaS.

Amplitude. Free up to 50k MTU, then negotiable. Similar to Mixpanel, slightly better for large teams.

PostHog. Free up to 1M events, then $0.0003/event. Open-source alternative. Can be self-hosted. Includes feature flags, session recordings, A/B testing in one platform.

Session Recordings and Heatmaps

Hotjar. Free up to 35 sessions/day, paid from $39/month. One of the most well-known. Session recordings, heatmaps, surveys.

FullStory. Enterprise pricing. High-quality sessions, but expensive.

Smartlook. Free up to 3000 sessions/month, then $39+/month. Cheaper than Hotjar, similar basic features.

Error Monitoring

Sentry. Free up to 5k events/month, then $26+/month. Standard for tracking errors in frontend and backend.

Bugsnag. $59+/month. Alternative to Sentry, sometimes more convenient UX.

Rollbar. $19+/month. Cheaper, basic features.

Metric Notifications

Slack/Telegram bots with metrics. Once a day/week — a summary of key metrics in the team chat. Can be set up via Zapier or a script. Pays off because the team sees numbers regularly, not just in dashboards.

Realistic Stack for a Small Team

For a new SaaS at launch, it's enough:

• Plausible or GA4 — $10/month or free.
• PostHog (self-hosted or Cloud free tier) — free or $20/month.
• Sentry — free at start.
• Hotjar free — free for the first months.

Total: $10–50/month. When you grow to serious volumes, switch to paid plans and add additional tools.

What Is Often Overpaid

Teams of up to 10 people often pay for enterprise analytics (FullStory, Heap) that isn't justified at their volumes. PostHog or Amplitude free tier is usually enough for the first year.