PulseTrack vs Mixpanel
Mixpanel invented most of the vocabulary — funnels, cohorts, retention — and gives away a million events a month. PulseTrack is smaller on purpose: no cookie, a 3.7 KB script, and revenue attributed to the channel that earned it without modelling anything first.
Mixpanel is the deeper product analytics
Cohorts, breakdowns, saved metrics: if you already think in events and properties, it goes further than we do.
PulseTrack starts working immediately
Pages, sources, devices, revenue and heatmaps are there the moment the script is on the page — nothing to model first.
The cookie difference
Mixpanel's browser SDK stores its identifier in a cookie by default. PulseTrack writes nothing on the visitor's device at all.
Side by side
| Criterion | PulseTrack | Mixpanel |
|---|---|---|
| Works without cookies | No cookie, no local storage: a daily-rotating anonymous identifier computed on the server | The browser SDK ships with cookie persistence by default (mp_ prefix); local storage is a configuration option |
| Free plan | 1 site, 5,000 events a month, 1 funnel, 30 days of history | Up to 1M events a month, unlimited seats, 10K session replays, 10 active feature flags — much larger than ours |
| Base script weight | 3.7 KB gzipped; heatmaps and replay load extra code only when you enable them | mixpanel-2-latest.min.js: 33 KB compressed, measured on 18 September 2026 |
| Funnels, retention and flows | Multi-step funnels with revenue lost per step, weekly cohorts, user flows | The reference implementation: funnels, retention, flows, cohorts and breakdowns |
| Session replay | Recorded sessions with every input masked (Starter plan and above) | 10K replays a month on the free plan, kept 30 days; 7 to 365 days on Growth |
| Heatmaps | Click, scroll and rage-click maps as their own screen, per page | Heatmaps and clickmaps, offered inside session replay |
| A/B tests | Experiments with a significance verdict, no separate quota | Experiments, metered in monthly experiment users: 1k on the free plan, 5k on Growth |
| Feature flags | Percentage rollouts, no cap on the number of flags | Up to 10 active flags on the free plan, up to 50 on Growth |
| Revenue per traffic source from Stripe | A read-only Stripe key; every payment is attributed to the session and channel that brought it (Growth plan and above) | Revenue reporting from the purchase events you send; no native Stripe connection |
| Ready without an event schema | Pages, sources, devices and durations are collected and charted from the first pageview | Built around the events and properties you define; the value comes after the tracking plan |
| MCP server for AI assistants | Hosted, OAuth sign-in, read-only by default: writing needs a connection you explicitly allow to write | Hosted server with US, EU and India endpoints, OAuth or service accounts; once connected it can read and write |
| Data hosted in the EU | Only ever in the EU: stored in Ireland, servers in Dublin | US or EU data residency, chosen for the project |
| Price | Free plan; €9 a month for heatmaps, replay and the assistant; €29 for revenue and the API | Free up to 1M events a month; Growth starts at $0 and scales to 20M events; Enterprise on quote |
Choose PulseTrack if…
- You want nothing stored on your visitors' devices, not even an identifier in local storage.
- You want the traffic report and the revenue report without writing a tracking plan first.
- You want every euro traced back to the channel that earned it, straight from Stripe.
- You want an AI assistant that cannot change anything unless you let it.
Choose Mixpanel if…
- Your team already thinks in events, properties and cohorts, and wants the deepest analysis of them.
- A million events a month for free decides it — that is far beyond our free plan.
- You need unlimited seats without paying per user.
Two starting points, not two feature lists
Mixpanel starts from the events you decide to send: name them well and the analysis is excellent. PulseTrack starts from the page: the script collects pages, sources, devices, durations and revenue with no schema at all, and custom events are an addition rather than a prerequisite. Neither is better in the abstract. If you have a product team that will maintain a tracking plan, Mixpanel rewards it. If the tracking plan is the thing that never gets written, we are the safer bet.
What the cookie difference actually changes
Mixpanel's default persistence is a cookie, which is how it recognises the same browser across weeks. That is a real capability, and dropping it is a real cost: PulseTrack counts visitors per day and cannot tell you that today's visitor came back from a campaign three weeks ago unless you identify them yourself. We think the trade is worth it — no banner, nothing to store, nothing to leak — but you should know what you are trading.
Both have an MCP server; they are not the same shape
Mixpanel's is hosted, signs you in with OAuth, and once connected the assistant can read and write. Ours is hosted and signs you in with OAuth too, but the connection is read-only unless you deliberately create one that can write, and every writing tool is flagged as destructive to the assistant. Same protocol, different default.
Frequently asked
Is PulseTrack a Mixpanel replacement?+
For traffic, funnels, retention, flows, heatmaps, replay, experiments and revenue, yes. For very deep cohort analysis on a large event schema, Mixpanel goes further and we would rather say so.
Can I keep the same event names?+
Yes. PulseTrack takes arbitrary event names and properties through track(), so a tracking plan written for Mixpanel can be sent to us unchanged. What we cannot do is import the history that is already in Mixpanel.
Will my numbers match Mixpanel's?+
Event counts should be close. Unique-user counts will not: Mixpanel follows a browser across days with its cookie, while PulseTrack counts visitors per day. Compare events and conversions, not uniques.
Sources, checked on 18 September 2026
- Mixpanel — Pricing (free and Growth allowances, data residency)
- Mixpanel docs — MCP server (hosted, OAuth, read and write)
- cdn.mxpnl.com/libs/mixpanel-2-latest.min.js, measured and read by PulseTrack (size, default persistence)
Products change: something looks out of date? It was accurate on the date above, and we correct it as soon as it is reported. Mixpanel is a trademark of its owner, not affiliated with PulseTrack.