Google Analytics vs. Mixpanel

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Analytics
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Google Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.
$150,000
per year
Mixpanel
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Mixpanel helps companies measure what matters, make decisions fast, and build better products through data. With self-serve product analytics solution, teams can analyze how and why people engage, convert, and retain—in real-time, across devices—to improve their user experience. Mixpanel serves over 26,000 companies from different industries around the world, including Expedia, Uber, Ancestry, DocuSign, and Lemonade. Headquartered in San Francisco, Mixpanel has offices in New York,…
$0
per month
Pricing
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
Editions & Modules
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Free
$0
per month
Growth
$17
per month
Enterprise
Contact sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMixpanel uses MTU (Monthly Tracked User) pricing, which is designed to scale with your company. MTUs are roughly equivalent to the number of unique visitors on your product and each user is counted once per month, even if they use multiple devices. If Events based pricing makes more sense for your business, reach out to us and we can work with you!
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
TrustRadius Insights
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Users of both Google Analytics and Mixpanel commonly utilize these platforms for tracking, analyzing, and interpreting user interactions on their websites and/or mobile applications. While Google Analytics users often emphasize its utility in providing comprehensive coverage of a wide range of metrics, such as session duration, bounce rate, and real-time user activity, Mixpanel users point out the product’s strong focus on individual user actions and event tracking as its key differentiator. Users of both products, however, consistently recognize their value in improving their understanding of user behavior, improving customer experience, and thereby refining marketing strategies.

 

When it comes to ease of use and setup, user experiences differ for Google Analytics and Mixpanel. Google Analytics users have noted the steep learning curve and complexity involved in the initial setup. For example, some users have mentioned difficulties in setting up specific event tracking and the need for technical coding expertise. In contrast, Mixpanel users often highlight its intuitive interface and ease of installation as a key advantage, including creating custom events and integration with other platforms.

 

Despite the popularity of Google Analytics in the industry, some users have pointed out limitations compared to Mixpanel. Particularly, users have found that Google Analytics’ user tracking is primarily session-based, making it less adept at providing detailed insights on individual user journeys. Conversely, Mixpanel users praise its ability to provide detailed, user level data that enables them to better understand their audience and refine their user experience strategy. Nonetheless, both are regarded as valuable tools for data analysis and marketing optimization, with the choice largely dependent on the specific needs and resources of the individual or company.

Features
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Mixpanel
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
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Score 8.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AnalyticsMixpanel
Likelihood to Recommend
Honesty, there is no reason that a company wouldn’t want to implement Google Analytics. The regular version is completely free, is very easy to configure, and provides immense volumes of website data. There are also tangible benefits to the other Google tools it can connect to, and it integrates with any BI/data platform that you might use. The only time I’d advise not using standard Google Analytics is if you’ve purchased Google Analytics 360.
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Mixpanel is a versatile platform that integrates features to connect every work team and get the best out of them in productivity and results. Moreover, it will improve the flow of information and interaction between all your company staff; it will unify and help promote collaboration between the different work areas. Without a doubt, I highly recommend this software
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Pros
  • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
  • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
  • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
  • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
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  • Mixpanel's ease of use is easily their best feature, allowing you to quickly create graphs with a few point and clicks. Their UI is also fairly snappy and well-designed.
  • Tying together events with user attributes allows you to properly segment users into cohorts which can then be tracked individually. Proper segmentation is where most analytics solutions earn their keep.
  • Live view is a nice perk that gives you a good feel for who's on your site and what they're doing at any single point in time. This can be further filtered to focus on particular events of interest.
  • Mixpanel has flexible plans that work for smaller startups as well.
  • Their documentation is top notch.
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Cons
  • While raw data is nice to have, I do wish there was an easier way to provide reports from Google Analytics directly. Something that could answer questions straight-forward for people.
  • I would appreciate "helpful hints" or a cheat sheet of some sort, so when quickly searching for something such as time on a certain page, I can find it quickly.
  • I really don't have a third point!
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  • I didn't use the engagement features at all but it seems like they could have a better WYSIWYG editor for the emails for non-technical people using Mixpanel.
  • The custom reports feature seems to be really powerful but I wish they had more resources/templates for creating custom reports. I don't code so it was really hard for me to use this feature...BUT the reports I was able to get help with, were really powerful.
  • I wanted a dashboard area for all of my reports in one view. It seems like they were implementing this when I was moving jobs. If it's not available yet, they definitely need to add a master dashboard page for arranging saved reports.
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Likelihood to Renew
Having used Google Analytics for the last 9 years, I have no intention of discontinuing my service. Google Analytics is a fantastic product that provides me with almost everything I could wish for. The positives in this product outweigh any negatives that you might find. I can not think of a single reason to not immediately start using Google Analytics for your business.
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It's not an all encompassing solution like Google Analytics tries to be, but MixPanel offers much easier to use and understandable data insights. That's valuable when juggling many responsibilities as startup life demands, so a renewal would be easily justified.
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Usability
Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
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Relativity easy to use. Once you get the hang of it, very easy to create dashboards for different use cases. I split my dashboards between customers or use cases
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Reliability and Availability
We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
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There is no support at all for free-plan users. There used to be a good support but something changed. If everything had gone great we could've considered upgrading but it is so bad that we'll look for an alternative once we finish the current project. Given that the documentation is very poor, there are some aspects in which customer support could have helped a lot, but with no support, we are left with some needs unfulfilled.
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Online Training
love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
  1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
  2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
  3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
  4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
  5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
  6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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Mixpanel has a great resource about their product, with videos on how to use it and real world examples from other companies on how they integrate Mixpanel into their business processes.
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Implementation Rating
Make sure to put the tracking code on every page. Ideally this would be part of a template or "include" so you can update the code on all pages (or at least within pages of the same category) at once.
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Mixpanel is a simple JS script installation. For adding events to track, its simply a matter of adding the code where you want it. Their API and documentation are easy to understand and use.
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Alternatives Considered
I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
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Datanomix is an excellent tool, with similar characteristics; however, Mixpanel has been our preference for two main reasons: one, to have customization and to be able to adapt the interface and tools to our use, and two, to be able to count on reports that it automates the work of sales analysis and being able to evaluate progress.
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Scalability
Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Great for visualizing website drop-off pages to theories and test update/iterations.
  • Bounce rates on pages to pinpoint bugs and issues.
  • Inaccuracy can lead to incorrect conclusions and decisions around CRO.
  • Segments can be very useful for validating split testing, providing a free tracking of variation vs. control - great ROI.
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  • User event data has helped us improve our product, which has increased subscriptions.
  • Being able to send helpful messages to some users who drop off after certain events has helped us reduce our churn.
  • We have been able to identify the Monthly super-active users, understand their usage of our product, which we use to conduct focus groups to help us shape the product.
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ScreenShots

Mixpanel Screenshots

Screenshot of Mixpanel's Insights report enables you to see how often users perform meaningful actions, monitor growth of key user cohorts, like power users, and slice and dice trends by any attribute.Screenshot of Mixpanel's powerful Flows report enables you to identify top user paths to see where people get stuck, and discover actions users take before, after, or between key events.Screenshot of Mixpanel's Retention report helps you understand how often users return and visualize feature stickiness. You can also slice and dice retention data to identify user groups that retain best and to find out what causes churn.