Beam vs Amplitude

Where Amplitude Has the Edge

Amplitude is one of the most sophisticated product analytics platforms on the market. If you need to understand exactly how individual users move through your product — which features they adopt, where they drop out of multi-step flows, which cohorts have the highest lifetime value — Amplitude is purpose-built for that problem. Its behavioural cohorts, funnel analysis, user pathways, and A/B experiment measurement are all class-leading.

For funded SaaS companies with dedicated data teams, Amplitude's depth is worth the investment. The platform can answer questions like "which users who completed onboarding in week 1 are still active at week 12?" — queries that would require significant SQL work anywhere else.

Where Beam Has the Edge

Amplitude's power comes with real costs across three dimensions. First, pricing: Amplitude charges per monthly active user (MAU). Once you graduate from the free Starter tier, costs climb steeply — the Plus plan starts at $49/mo but quickly grows with your user base. Enterprise tiers are quote-based and often run thousands per month. Beam is $5/mo flat, regardless of traffic volume beyond the free tier.

Second, compliance: Amplitude tracks individual users via persistent device IDs and cookies. That triggers GDPR consent requirements for EU visitors and CCPA opt-out obligations in California. Every Amplitude customer needs a cookie banner. Beam collects no personal data and sets no cookies — no consent infrastructure needed, no risk of banner dismissal eroding your data quality.

Third, implementation cost: correctly instrumenting Amplitude requires defining an event taxonomy, implementing SDK calls throughout your application, setting user properties, and testing event fidelity. A typical implementation takes days of engineering time. Beam is one script tag — under 5 minutes start to finish.

Which Should You Choose?

Choose Amplitude if: you're a growth-stage or enterprise SaaS company that needs user-level product analytics — retention cohorts, funnel analysis, A/B testing, and user journey mapping. Amplitude is built for product teams who need granular behavioural data at scale and have the engineering resources to maintain a proper event taxonomy.

Choose Beam if: you want privacy-first web traffic analytics — pageviews, referrers, top pages, countries, devices — without cookies, consent banners, per-MAU pricing surprises, or a weeks-long instrumentation project. Beam also works alongside Amplitude: use Beam for cookieless top-of-funnel web traffic data while Amplitude handles in-product behavioural analytics.