Amplitude vs Branch

Amplitude is a digital analytics platform from San Francisco, founded in 2012 by Spenser Skates, Curtis Liu and Jeffrey Wang and listed on Nasdaq (AMPL) since its 2021 direct listing. It started as event-based product analytics for mobile apps and now helps product, growth and marketing teams see how people use their apps and websites and what drives conversion and retention.

The platform combines product and web analytics (funnels, retention, cohorts, journeys), session replay and heatmaps, feature flags and A/B testing, in-app guides and surveys (from the 2024 Command AI acquisition) and audience syncing to ad and messaging tools. AI agents can monitor dashboards, explain metric changes and answer questions, and an MCP server exposes Amplitude data to AI tools. Free covers 2 million events a month; Plus is usage-based; Growth and Enterprise are custom-priced through sales.

It fits product-led companies that need self-serve analysis for non-technical teams. Mixpanel is the closest rival with simpler pricing; PostHog is cheaper and open source with an engineering focus; Pendo is stronger on in-app guidance for B2B software; Google Analytics is free but built for marketing attribution.

In July 2026 Amplitude dropped the fixed 49 dollar Plus tier based on monthly tracked users for event-based pricing from 0 dollars, and the Free plan now includes session replay, guides and AI agents. Startups with under 20 employees and under 10 million dollars raised can apply for a free year of Growth.

Branch (Branch Metrics) is a mobile linking and measurement company founded in 2014 in California by Alex Austin, Mike Molinet, Mada Seghete and Dmitri Gaskin. It says more than 100,000 brands use its platform. Its core job: make links open the right screen inside an app across web, email, social, ads and SMS, and measure which campaigns drive installs and in-app actions.

The platform is split into products: Engagement for deep links that survive app installs and handle thousands of platform edge cases, Performance for mobile attribution (multi-touch, SKAdNetwork Conversion Studio, fraud detection, cohort and LTV analytics), Activation for branded short links and QR codes, Banners for web-to-app Journeys, LinkHub link management and data exports. Ivy is Branch's AI product for growth teams. Attribution is sold in Basics, Essentials and Enterprise tiers without public prices; Basics comes with a free trial.

Branch fits consumer apps with heavy web-to-app, email and referral traffic where reliable deep linking matters as much as attribution. Pricing can climb steeply with usage, and its attribution suite is less dominant than AppsFlyer, the market leader for paid user acquisition, or Adjust, which is strong in gaming. Teams using Firebase Dynamic Links need a replacement since Google shut that service down in August 2025.

If you mainly need deep links, ask Branch for an Engagement-only quote; if you need an MMP, run Branch against AppsFlyer and Adjust and compare SKAN modelling and partner coverage with your own ad networks.