Product analytics, marketing attribution, customer engagement, billing…you name it — there’s a tool that can automate a good chunk of any process. As your business grows, naturally your tech stack will mature. And when start exploring mobile app analytics solutions, be sure to keep these options in mind. We’ve compiled a list of five powerful platforms that are essential to any mobile tech stack. And even better, each featured tool offers either an entry-level freemium plan or a free trial so you can try it out!

Note: Any freemium plan or free trial mentioned reflects offerings at the time of this post. We encourage you to find a solution that works for your business; a list of related, recommended platforms are included at the end of each section that may or may not provide a freemium plan or free trial.

Product Analytics

Product analytics software tracks how users engage with an app. Usage, user journeys, behavioral patterns, and drop-off points. Developers are able to track a range of engagement points to collect actionable insights that help inform the product roadmap and prioritize app improvements for a better user experience.

Mixpanel

Mixpanel dashboard with real-time product insights. (Source: G2)

Mixpanel is a product analytics platform that provides clean and easy-to-digest reports on performance that help paint a clear picture of where your business is experiencing the most success and where it needs improvement. In addition, it lets your team’s developers segment sets of data based on custom criteria so advanced users can explore their cohorts even further.

What customers 💛 about Mixpanel:

“Really simple UX and beautiful UI. The data is very straightforward and easy to interpret. We are able to get a lot of useful insights about our customers including where they’re from, session length, sessions per day, and much more.”

“The customization of events is incredible. I love that you can go deep into understanding your product at the event property level versus simply the event level. It’s a great tool, and I would highly recommend it.”

Another noteworthy consideration: Amplitude

Subscription Analytics

Subscription analytics solutions help track the efficiency of subscription models, customer incentives (e.g., free trials), and the impact of pricing or product updates. It can also flag users who are at risk of canceling their subscription. Dashboard and reporting often includes customer acquisition cost, recurring revenue, and customer lifetime value.

Braavo

Filter subscription analytics in Braavo for a complete overview on performance.

In addition to funding, Braavo offers a powerful set of analytics for growing and mid-tier consumer subscription apps to get a handle on their subscriber cohort data. Advanced subscription metrics help optimize and reveal key details about your mobile presence and revenue, providing the knowledge needed to make smarter investments and funding decisions.

What customers 💛 about Braavo:

“More signal, less noise — that’s what sets Braavo Analytics apart for me. Having the ability to forecast revenue reliably = 👏🏼🏆🙏🏽”

“Braavo Analytics is the fastest way for me to keep a daily pulse on subscriber and revenue trends. I can focus on growing our business instead of endlessly stiching together reports.”

Another noteworthy consideration: ChartMogul

Subscription Billing

Subscription billing software manages recurring billing. Mobile app leaders use it to generate recurring invoices at predefined frequencies, send billing notifications or updates to users, analyze the performance of special promotions and plans, and accept payments.

Chargebee

Chargebee dashboard

Chargebee is a one-stop solution for collecting and streamlining your revenue management for the long term. Cutting-edge subscription automation makes Chargebee an innovative and efficient partner, but the platform’s true secret weapon is also in providing subscription services with an unparalleled pricing and subscription tier strategy. Through Chargebee, your service platform can tap into invaluable insights to get the highest possible ROI from customers, using billing experiments and revenue intelligence to guide the decision-making process with proven data.

What customers 💛 about Chargebee:

“UI and simplicity. Everything is set in a logical way and even if you don’t have a previous experience with Chargebee it’s very easy to get used to it. Simplicity and a quick learning curve make it a great tool for all transaction-based processes.”

“As someone who works in finance, I appreciate how Chargebee lists all important information about customer accounts and invoicing on the same page make it more efficient and intuitive.”

Also check out: Recurly

Subscription Revenue Management

Subscription revenue management platforms are versatile and used across an organization — a main differentiator from subscription billing tools. Whereas subscription billing is generally used by finance, subscription revenue management helps inform sales, marketing, product and finance. Subscription plan details can be managed and tracked, with the ability to customize subscription packages and special offers. Marketing can gain a better understanding of subscription performance; sales is able to identify cross sell and upsell opportunities.

Qonversion

Qonversion dashboard

Qonversion is a subscription data platform built for mobile-first companies. Developers can easily build and manage cross-platform subscription infrastructure, track real-time revenue analytics, and automate engagement all in one place. Functionality includes the ability to quickly implement in-app subscriptions, validate user receipts and manage cross-platform user access to paid content without having to build your own server. Additionally, Qonversion also plays well with marketing, attribution, and product analytics platforms, offering out-of-the-box integrations so you can get a complete view of subscription app performance.

What customers 💛 about Qonversion:

“Qonversion SDK is very easy to integrate setup and use. It provides all requred integrations e.g. Slack, Amplitude, Appsflayer and many more. We can manage our subscriptions, plan and execute A/B testing for in-app purchases and subscriptions.”

“Ease of use, accuracy, and reliability. We use Qonversion infrastructure to handle our in-app purchases – create and restore purchases, validate receipts, and track data about subscription events…dashboards are really easy-to-use and flexible and give you a full overview of your metrics.”

Similar noteworthy favorite: RevenueCat

Mobile Attribution and Analytics

Mobile attribution software is used to measure marketing campaign effectiveness — focusing specifically on the techniques that drove each user to install a mobile application. Using multiple identifiers, it tracks the end-to-end user journey — from where each user first learns about an app all the way through post-install.

Marketing attribution is based on a specific window of time in which the user’s action (I.e., view or click) preceding app install counts as having an impact on that decision for installation. Performance data is provided in real-time so marketers can take immediate action to optimize their techniques.

AppsFlyer

AppsFlyer dashboard (Source: G2)

AppsFlyer is a favorite among many app businesses and they have customers across nearly every consumer industry. Innovative, privacy-preserving measurement, analytics, fraud protection, and engagement technologies are included in the AppsFlyer suite. Known for being a data-proven marketing powerhouse, the platform centralizes data so you can build relevant and contextual customer experiences that drive more meaningful conversations.

What customers 💛 about AppsFlyer:

“AppsFlyer gives accurate and reliable measurement of all the installation metrics and events for our apps.”

“Its easy to understand and to create custom dashboards, you can directly share the data with the partners and a lot of reports (like retention, retargeting, cohort and activity). They have tools to prevent fraud and it’s really interesting to understand which partners are delivering bad traffic and which are safe.”

Similar noteworthy considerations: Branch, Singular, Kochava, Adjust, Braze

Shopping for Mobile App Analytics

Your subscription service app can’t reasonably survive on its own, much less grow and expand operations to support the eventual rise in customer acquisitions. The tools you choose to help facilitate growth should be selected with as much care and intention as a new hire or product development — after all, this resource will change a facet of your company and the way business is conducted.

These decisions take a lot of consideration and exploration, which makes this particular list of free trial and freemium options an ideal starting point for those keen on doing a thorough deep dive before committing resources. With the right approach and a thorough understanding of the landscape, you too can bring about growth and facilitate your company’s success.