ActivationPal is the Heap alternative for iOS and Android apps that want onboarding and paywall conversion from a few explicit events. It publishes this site. Heap's homepage says it has joined forces with Contentsquare, and Heap still sells its plans.
Heap alternatives at a glance
| Product | Best for | Platform | Price as stated by the source |
|---|
| ActivationPal | A fixed install-to-purchase funnel for mobile apps | Native Swift, Native Android, Flutter, React Native / Expo | First 10,000 events free; unlimited apps and members on every plan (pricing) |
| Heap | Automatic capture of user interactions | iOS SDK for UIKit and SwiftUI (docs) | Free up to 10k monthly sessions; Growth shows an estimate after you install the snippet; Pro and Premier on custom session pricing (source) |
| Amplitude | Product analytics with session replay, experiments and guides | Session Replay for web and mobile; developer SDKs and APIs | Free: 2M events a month; Plus starts at $0 with the first 2M events free; Growth and Enterprise on custom event-based pricing (source) |
| PostHog | Product analytics, replay, feature flags and surveys in one tool | Not stated on its pricing page | First 1M analytics events free each month, then pay as you go (source) |
What Heap collects and what to keep
Heap installs on iOS through Swift Package Manager or CocoaPods. After startRecording, it automatically captures a wide range of user interactions, view controller changes and app version changes, with no extra code. SwiftUI pageviews and interactions are captured from version 0.9.0. The same SDK also has an API for custom events and user identity (iOS quick start).
Heap prices by session. On mobile a session ends after 5 minutes of inactivity. Heap Connect, which syncs data to a warehouse, and Heap Activate are add-ons on Pro (pricing).
Stay with Heap if you need every interaction captured without naming events, session replay, or web and mobile in one tool.
ActivationPal for mobile conversion analytics
ActivationPal answers one question well: how many installs reach each onboarding step, the paywall and a purchase. It does not capture anything you did not instrument.
Collection and SDKs. Native Swift is one file with no dependencies, iOS 15+. Native Android is one Kotlin file for Android 5.0+. Flutter and React Native / Expo have their own SDKs. configure sends first_open and app_open automatically. The quickstart has the steps.
Instrumentation. Onboarding and paywall are one call each, with fixed event names:
ActivationPal.configure(app: "myapp", key: "ap_pk_YOUR_KEY")
ActivationPal.onboardingStep(0, id: "goal")
ActivationPal.onboardingCompleted()
ActivationPal.paywallShown("onboarding")
ActivationPal.paywallPlanSelected("yearly")
ActivationPal.paywallPurchased("yearly")
Funnels. The funnel runs install, each onboarding step, completed, paywall shown, plan selected, purchased. Every stage counts unique devices from the install cohort, so no stage can exceed 100% of installs (events reference).
Revenue integrations. Purchases, trials, renewals and refunds arrive through the RevenueCat webhook as rc_* events. Pass the RevenueCat app user id to configure to join them to the buying device (RevenueCat setup). Superwall is supported through its own webhook, with one revenue source per app.
Implementation requirements. The SDK file, the app slug and key from the dashboard, and, for revenue, the webhook's signing secret saved in the setup checklist.
Limits. The funnel is fixed. Custom events appear in the Events card but do not enter it. There is no autocapture, no session replay and no web analytics, and it counts devices, not people. To check the arithmetic on your own numbers, use the funnel calculator. The homepage shows the dashboard.
Other Heap alternatives
Amplitude
Amplitude's pricing page lists analytics, Session Replay, experimentation, guides and surveys on every plan, with unlimited seats. Session Replay covers web and mobile, and the Free plan includes 10K monthly session replays. Autocapture and developer SDKs are listed under data management and activation. Growth and Enterprise are priced by event volume on request.
PostHog
PostHog bills each product on its own usage. The monthly free allowance covers 1M analytics events, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests and 1,500 survey responses. The free plan stops at those limits, and pay-as-you-go removes them. Billing limits can be set per product. PostHog also has an open source edition under the MIT license.
Mobile conversion tracking compared
- Collection: Heap captures interactions automatically and accepts custom events. Amplitude lists autocapture and developer SDKs. ActivationPal records only the events you instrument plus
first_open and app_open. PostHog's pricing page does not describe mobile collection.
- Funnels: Heap's pricing page lists Funnels among its analytics features. ActivationPal's funnel is built and fixed. For Amplitude and PostHog, the sources used here do not describe mobile funnels.
- Revenue: ActivationPal reads RevenueCat and Superwall webhooks. The pages used for this comparison do not describe a revenue integration for the other three.
- Setup effort: Heap needs the SDK and a recording start call. ActivationPal needs the SDK and five fixed calls, then the funnel exists. Amplitude's pricing page lists developer SDKs, with custom events and formulas on Plus and above. PostHog's lists analytics events and session recordings.
How to choose
- Heap if you want automatic capture and one tool for web and mobile.
- Amplitude or PostHog if you want funnels over custom events, plus experiments, feature flags or replay in the same product.
- ActivationPal if the question is onboarding and paywall conversion in an iOS or Android app and you do not want to build reports.
For what the funnel should show, read funnel analysis for mobile apps.