Mixpanel was overkill. Plausible had no funnels. So I built Tracetics.
I was tired of paying $500/month for Mixpanel — so I built my own funnel analytics
Hey IH community!
I spent two days integrating Mixpanel — then saw the pricing page.
$500/month for funnel analytics. For a solo developer with maybe 200 users.
So I closed the tab and started building my own.
Tracetics is what came out of that frustration: funnel analytics for developers, without the enterprise pricing and the 3-week onboarding process.
The entire integration is one HTTP POST:
POST /api/v1/events
X-OL-Tenant-Key: your-key
X-OL-App-Key: your-app-key
{ "event_name": "signup_started", "user_identifier": "user_42" }
From there you build funnels in the dashboard and see exactly where users drop off. There's also a TypeScript SDK on npm if you prefer that.
Current status:
- Launched March 25th
- Looking for brutally honest feedback
- Free plan available
Try it without signing up:
There's a live demo at tracetics.com — log in with [email protected] / demo123 and explore real funnel data. Everything is pre-seeded and read-only.
What would actually help me:
Have you faced this problem? How did you solve it?
What's missing before you'd consider paying for something like this?
Happy to answer any questions 👋
Love this. “Built from my own frustration” is usually the best origin story. The one-POST integration is a strong wedge, too. If I were you, I’d double down on one persona first (indie devs or PMs), not both.
Curious: What’s your activation event right now after someone sends their first event?
Thanks — that's exactly how it started.
On the persona: already decided — indie devs. A PM can't fire the first event without a dev anyway, so the dev is always the entry point. The one-POST integration is deliberately built for someone who wants to drop it in over a lunch break, not schedule a 3-week onboarding call.
On activation: right now it's "first funnel created + real events coming in + seeing your own drop-off for the first time." That moment where the chart fills with your actual data — that's when it clicks. No deliberate activation flow yet though, it's still organic.
What would you consider a strong activation signal for a tool like this?
This is super clear, and the indie-dev focus makes a lot of sense.
If I had to define activation here, I’d split it into 2 milestones:
“First insight” is strong, but “insight -> second action” usually predicts retention better in tools like this.
Have you noticed which second action your most active users do first?
That 2-milestone split makes a lot of sense — and honestly, I hadn't framed it that clean before.
My hypothesis for the second action would be "adds a second funnel" — because the first one is usually experimental, and coming back to build a real one signals they've internalized the concept. But that's a hypothesis, not data yet. I'm still early enough that I don't have enough returning users to see a pattern.
What I do have is the demo account, which shows me where people explore — and most click into the funnel detail and step breakdown right after seeing the overview. Whether that translates to a second action in a real account, I'll know in a few weeks.
What's your instinct — would "creates second funnel" or "shares/exports an insight" be the stronger retention signal in a tool like this?
Love this level of clarity.
My instinct: “creates second funnel” is the stronger primary retention signal, because it proves behavior change inside the
product (not just curiosity).
I’d track “share/export insight” as a secondary signal — it can be strong, but it depends more on team workflow and role.
If I were choosing one early, I’d use:
Activated = second funnel created within 7 days of first real data.
Your note about users going from overview -> funnel detail -> step breakdown is a great sign too. That path usually means the
problem is felt, not just explored.
That's the clearest activation definition I've had for Tracetics so far — and I'm going with it.
Activated = second funnel created within 7 days of first real data.
Going to track this from day one and build the onboarding flow around getting users to that moment as fast as possible. Thanks for thinking this through with me — genuinely useful.
Love it. That’s a strong north-star activation event.
If useful, I’d also track time-to-second-funnel as your onboarding KPI so you can tighten first-run faster.
Would love to hear what your baseline looks like after your first 20 users.
Will do — time-to-second-funnel goes on the dashboard from day one.
I'll come back with the baseline once I hit 20 users. Thanks for the framework.
Awesome 🙌🏻
Happy to answer any questions! If you're currently using Mixpanel, Amplitude or Heap and find the pricing frustrating — I'd love to hear your setup.