PostHog vs Mixpanel: Session Replay Pricing, Event Volume Tiers, and Warehouse Integration
Last updated October 23, 2026 · 9 min read
PostHog is the cheaper choice for most engineering-led teams, as long as you control how many of your events carry a person profile. Mixpanel is the easier choice for product managers and analysts who want polished reports, and it is the better fit if your data warehouse is already the source of truth for customer data. The pricing gap between them depends on that one detail, so this page shows the math at several volumes.
All prices below come from PostHog’s public billing tiers and Mixpanel’s pricing page and documentation as of October 2026. Both vendors change prices often. Check the current numbers before you sign anything.
Product Differences in One Table
| Feature | PostHog | Mixpanel |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys, error tracking, data warehouse | Product analytics, session replay, experiments, and feature flags, with data pipelines as a paid add-on |
| Primary user | Engineers and technical product teams | Product managers, growth teams, and analysts |
| Billing model | Metered per product, each with its own free allowance | Events per month, billed in volume bands |
| Free plan | 1M events, 5K web recordings, 1M flag requests | 1M events, 10K session replays |
| Warehouse role | PostHog is the hub; warehouse data is pulled in | Warehouse can be the source of truth via Mirror sync |
| Self-hosting | Open-source hobby deployment available | Cloud only |
Event Volume Pricing at Each Tier
Both tools include the first 1 million events a month for free. After that, PostHog charges per event in falling bands, and Mixpanel prices its Growth plan in volume bands.
PostHog splits events into two kinds. An anonymous event records what happened. An identified event is also attached to a person profile, which you need for cross-device tracking, cohorts based on user properties, and per-user timelines. PostHog bills identified events at the base rate plus an add-on rate, and the add-on costs more than the base event in the early bands. Mixpanel charges one rate per event regardless.
| Feature | PostHog, anonymous events | PostHog, all events identified | Mixpanel Growth, billed annually |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M events / month | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 2M events / month | About $50 | About $248 | $185 |
| 5M events / month | About $153 | About $560 | $438 |
| 10M events / month | About $324 | About $1,080 | $840 |
| 20M events / month | About $643 | About $1,928 | $1,635 |
| 50M events / month | About $1,528 | About $3,892 | Sales quote (above 20M) |
| 100M events / month | About $2,618 | About $5,712 | Sales quote (above 20M) |
We calculated the PostHog figures from its published per-event bands. The base event rate is $0.00005 from 1M to 2M, $0.0000343 to 15M, $0.0000295 to 50M, $0.0000218 to 100M, $0.000015 to 250M, and $0.000009 above that. The identified-events add-on runs from $0.000198 per event in the 1M to 2M band down to $0.000001 above 250M. The Mixpanel figures are the Growth plan’s listed monthly prices on annual billing; monthly billing costs more.
So most real products land between the two PostHog columns. A marketing site plus an app, where only signed-in app traffic is identified, often sends a majority of anonymous events, and PostHog wins clearly. A B2B app where every event belongs to a logged-in user sits near the identified column, and Mixpanel is cheaper there up to 20M events. Before comparing quotes, count what share of your events actually needs a person profile. In PostHog you can turn profiles off for anonymous traffic.
Session Replay Pricing
PostHog publishes every replay band. Mixpanel publishes the included allowance and stops there: Growth includes 20,000 replays a month and can be expanded to 500,000, but the price for the extra volume isn’t on the pricing page.
| Feature | PostHog | Mixpanel |
|---|---|---|
| Free web replays / month | 5,000 | 10,000 (Free), 20,000 (Growth and Enterprise) |
| Web replay rate | $0.005 each to 15K, $0.0035 to 50K, $0.002 to 150K, $0.0017 to 500K, $0.0015 above | Not published; Growth expandable to 500K, Enterprise custom |
| Mobile replay | Separate meter: 2,500 free, then $0.01 each, falling to $0.003 above 500K | iOS, Android, and React Native, inside the same replay allowance |
| Retention | 1 month free plan, 90 days pay-as-you-go, up to 1 year with add-ons, 5 years on Enterprise | 30 days; 7 to 360 days on Enterprise with the replay add-on |
| Cost at 10K web replays | About $25 | $0 (within free allowance) |
| Cost at 25K web replays | About $85 | Growth: 20K included, overage price on request |
| Cost at 50K web replays | About $173 | Growth: expansion price on request |
| Cost at 100K web replays | About $273 | Growth: expansion price on request |
Mixpanel’s bigger included allowance makes it the cheaper option for teams recording up to 20,000 sessions a month, especially if they already pay for Growth. Past that, PostHog’s bands are easy to budget, and you can sample recordings or limit them to specific URLs to stay inside a billing limit. Replay retention matters too. Ninety days on PostHog’s standard paid plan lets you investigate a support ticket from last quarter. Mixpanel’s 30-day default doesn’t, unless you are on Enterprise.
If replay is the main thing you need and product analytics is secondary, also look at dedicated tools. Our Hotjar vs FullStory vs Clarity vs LogRocket comparison covers them, including Microsoft Clarity, which is free.
Warehouse-Native Comparison
“Warehouse-native” usually means the analytics tool treats your warehouse as the source of truth instead of keeping its own separate copy of your customer data. Neither PostHog nor Mixpanel runs its analytics directly on your Snowflake tables. They solve the warehouse problem from opposite directions.
Mixpanel brings the warehouse into Mixpanel. Warehouse Connectors read tables from Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, and Postgres. In Mirror mode, edits and deletes in the warehouse flow through to Mixpanel, so a corrected revenue figure or a GDPR deletion in Snowflake also shows up in your Mixpanel reports. Append, Full, and One-Time modes cover simpler cases, on hourly, daily, or weekly schedules or triggered by API.
PostHog brings everything into PostHog. Its data warehouse syncs sources such as Stripe, HubSpot, Zendesk, Snowflake, and Postgres into PostHog, then lets you join that data with events, persons, and sessions in one SQL query. Files in S3, GCS, R2, or Azure Blob can be read in place. Batch exports send PostHog events back out to your warehouse.
| Feature | PostHog | Mixpanel |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Sources synced into PostHog; events exported out by batch export | Warehouse tables imported into Mixpanel |
| Source of truth | PostHog, with warehouse data joined in | Warehouse, when using Mirror mode |
| Supported warehouses | Snowflake and Postgres sources, plus SaaS sources and S3, GCS, R2, Azure Blob files | Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres |
| Edits and deletes | Re-synced on your schedule | Propagated automatically in Mirror mode |
| Querying | SQL across events and synced tables inside PostHog | Mixpanel reports over the imported data |
| Pricing | 1M rows synced free, then $0.000015 per row to 10M, falling to $0.000001 above 1B | Connector free on paid event-based plans; imported events billed as events |
| Hidden cost | Large, frequently re-synced tables add up in rows synced | Mirror mode bills updates and deletes as well as inserts |
Choose by where your team already does its analysis. If a data team models customers in dbt and Snowflake and wants product reports to match finance’s numbers, Mixpanel’s Mirror sync is the more natural fit. If you don’t have a warehouse yet and want Stripe revenue next to product usage without building a pipeline, PostHog gets you there with less setup. Our Snowflake vs Databricks comparison covers the warehouse side of that decision.
PostHog: Strengths and Weaknesses
✓Pros
- ✓Every pricing band is published, with per-product billing limits
- ✓Anonymous events are the cheapest of the two at every volume
- ✓Replay, flags, experiments, and surveys share one SDK and one bill
- ✓Built-in SQL across events and synced business data
- ✓90-day replay retention on the standard paid plan
✗Cons
- ✗Identified events can cost more than Mixpanel's flat event price
- ✗Interface assumes some technical comfort
- ✗Smaller free replay allowance than Mixpanel
- ✗Many products means more settings to manage
Mixpanel: Strengths and Weaknesses
✓Pros
- ✓Reports non-technical teams can build without help
- ✓One event price, with no anonymous versus identified split
- ✓10K to 20K session replays included
- ✓Mirror sync keeps reports aligned with the warehouse
- ✓Free warehouse connector on paid event-based plans
✗Cons
- ✗No published price above 20M events or for extra replays
- ✗30-day replay retention outside Enterprise
- ✗Warehouse imports count toward the event bill
- ✗Fewer adjacent tools: no surveys or error tracking
Who Should Choose Which
Choose PostHog if engineers own analytics, a large share of your traffic is anonymous, or you want replay, feature flags, and experiments without buying three tools. It is also the better pick if you record more than 20,000 sessions a month and want to know the bill in advance.
Choose Mixpanel if product managers and analysts are the main users, nearly every event belongs to a logged-in user, or your warehouse is already the source of truth for customer data. Teams under 20M events that need fewer than 20,000 replays a month will often pay less on Mixpanel Growth.
The Verdict
For most startups and engineering-led teams, PostHog is the better value: published prices at every band, a cheaper anonymous event, and replay and feature flags on the same bill. Mixpanel wins for analyst-heavy teams with mostly identified traffic and an established warehouse, where Mirror sync and a single event price matter more than the per-event rate. Before you pick, estimate two numbers: the share of your events that need a person profile, and how many sessions you will record each month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is PostHog cheaper than Mixpanel?
For anonymous events, yes, by a wide margin: 10M events a month costs about $324 on PostHog against $840 on Mixpanel Growth billed annually. If every event carries a person profile, PostHog adds its identified-events charge and the same 10M events costs about $1,080, which is more than Mixpanel. Most products send a mix, so model your own split before deciding.
How much does session replay cost on PostHog and Mixpanel?
PostHog includes 5,000 web recordings a month free, then charges $0.005 per recording up to 15,000, falling to $0.0015 above 500,000. Mobile recordings are billed separately: 2,500 free, then $0.01 each, falling to $0.003. Mixpanel includes 10,000 replays a month on Free and 20,000 on Growth and Enterprise. Growth can expand to 500,000, but Mixpanel does not publish the per-replay price for the extra volume.
Which tool works better with Snowflake or BigQuery?
It depends on which system you want to be the source of truth. Mixpanel's Warehouse Connectors import tables from Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, and Postgres, and Mirror mode keeps Mixpanel in sync with edits and deletes in the warehouse. PostHog pulls warehouse and SaaS data into PostHog so you can join it with events in SQL, and can query files in S3, GCS, R2, or Azure Blob in place.
Do Mixpanel warehouse imports count toward the event bill?
Yes. Mixpanel's documentation says inserted events are billed for every sync type, and updates and deletes are billed when you use Mirror mode. The connector itself is a free add-on for organizations on a paid event-based plan when they update or renew.
How long do PostHog and Mixpanel keep session recordings?
PostHog keeps recordings for one month on the free plan and 90 days on pay-as-you-go, with add-ons extending that to a year, or five years on Enterprise. Mixpanel keeps replays for 30 days by default; Enterprise customers with the Session Replay add-on can set retention between 7 and 360 days.
Related Comparisons
- Google Analytics vs Mixpanel vs Amplitude: marketing analytics against product analytics
- Hotjar vs FullStory vs Clarity vs LogRocket: dedicated session replay and heatmap tools
- Snowflake vs Databricks: the warehouse your analytics data ends up in
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