Amplitude is a product analytics platform that helps companies understand user behavior, ship the right features fast, and drive business outcomes.
Most start-ups begin using Amplitude's start-up credits, which allows you to test out the product for free. When your usage exceeds a certain limit, you can upgrade via a conversation with their sales team.
Before you try to negotiate a discount with Amplitude, you must understand what levers you can pull to maximise the ROI on your time spent.
To help with this, we've analyzed hundreds of Amplitude contracts and millions of dollars of spend to help you understand what levers you can pull in the following scenarios:
Managing a Amplitude renewal when your contract value is increasing:
When your contract increases, it’s because your events (monthly tracked users) are going up. It’s critical that you accurately forecast how these costs will grow because your new contract is based on this number. When you negotiate Amplitude, the levers you can pull are:
- Billing structure: Review the pricing structure and how the tracked events cost goes down at different stages. It may appear better to go higher because the price is lower. The problem is if you don’t use the events, you are overpaying.
- Billing frequency: Paying upfront can secure a higher discount with Amplitude.
- Time: Conversations need to kick off 90 days in advance. The closer to your renewal date, the less leverage you have.
- Push for higher discounts: Analytics companies are known for offering generous discounts. Depending on your tracked events, its common for companies to receive 40% or higher.
- Competition: The analytics space is highly competitive. Use Hudled’s engineering and analytics pricing insights to determine what Amplitude or other analytics companies charge.
- Benchmark price: Gather information on what other companies similar to yours are paying and the best terms that are offered.
Managing a Amplitude renewal when your contract value is staying the same:
If you are content with your current discount, there is no need to engage in negotiations. Your contract can be auto-renewed without the need for additional time investment. However, if you do decide to negotiate with Amplitude, the levers you can pull are:
- Billing frequency: It's unlikely you can negotiate the best possible terms and discounts without material changes in your contract. There may be an opportunity for you to get a bigger discount if you pay annually.
- Competition: Research what other analytics platforms like Mixpanel or Hotjar cost using Hudled’s engineering and analytics pricing insights. If you have data on a competitive tool, your leverage increases.
- Negotiations timeframe: 30 days is a sufficient time frame to conduct productive conversations during the negotiation.
Managing a Amplitude renewal when your contract value is decreasing:
When your contract with Amplitude decreases, the chances of successfully negotiating a significant discount may be low. The bargaining power is limited, and it may be difficult for the Amplitude account managers to secure approval for significant reductions. However, there are still a few levers you can pull:
- Creating Sympathy: Share a convincing story about the reasons for needing to reduce costs as a negotiation strategy. Whatever you share here should be genuine.
- Rollover unused events: If you had overestimated the number of events for the current contract term, explore the possibility of transferring the credits to the next contract year.
- Temporary discount: You can negotiate a temporary discount e.g. 40% off for six months until you close your next round of investment. This is normally approved on a case-by-case basis.
- Competition: Find out what other companies charge e.g. Mixpanel or Hotjar. It's not ideal to migrate, but you can use our engineering and analytics pricing insights a reference point
- Time: 30 days is a sufficient time frame to conduct productive conversations during the negotiations.
Negotiate a discount with Amplitude when purchasing for the first time:
You will be able to negotiate a discount with Amplitude when you purchase for the first time. Many factors will impact the terms, and having access to Amplitude pricing insights will help. The levers you can pull are:
- Request for proposal (RFP): Vendors will take you more seriously if you begin a tender process, and you can likely unlock higher discounts.
- Billing frequency: Find out what companies like you are paying and what the best terms that are offered are.
- Time: Start speaking to Amplitude at the end of the financial year or the end of the month/quarter to unlock the highest possible discounts.
- Urgency: Can you get a discount if you close the deal immediately? This creates a stronger incentive for the salesperson to rally for you internally.
- Competition: Use competitor to your advantage.
It’s essential to remember that cost is just one factor any business needs to consider when purchasing or renewing SaaS tools like Amplitude.
Would you like more pricing insights?
At Hudled, we’re building a SaaS intelligence platform to manage the full lifecycle of your SaaS stack. Our data-driven approach enables you to leverage data to buy the right tools at the best price. To ensure you're paying the best price across your entire SaaS stack, get started for free and request a SaaS audit.
Please note the author generated this text in part with GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. Upon generating draft language, the author reviewed, edited, and revised the language of this publication
