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Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

segment.com

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Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#11

Post by ivolo »

cyberferret wrote: post #10

We created a Segment account over a year ago, but didn't start using the service because (a) our startup wasn't quite ready, or had the traffic to collect meaningful data, and (b) couldn't afford the pricing at the time. I wonder if we could transition that old account to this new startup plan, as we are still at early stage (just got into our first accelerator a few months ago) and bootstrapped?

Yep, we can get you in :) Apply at segment.com/startups and send me an email: ilya @segment.com. Thanks!

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#12

Post by lapnitnelav »

Ah damn, signed up for segment one week ago or so. Some you win, some you lose I guess.

Echoing other commenters, pricing plans are quite steep for the more modest businesses out there who might have a pretty large reach (Monthly users) but nowhere near the budget to shell out big $$.

Tis a shame cause as someone with a foot in tech and the other one in marketing, I know there's a lof value for the real world businesses out there (outside of the tech bubble) but having to spend what I guess is a hefty amount of cash every month just for the pipes is going to be a hard sell for folks which might be already struggling to see value in investing in technology.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#15

Post by ivolo »

lapnitnelav wrote: post #12

Ah damn, signed up for segment one week ago or so. Some you win, some you lose I guess. Echoing other commenters, pricing plans are quite steep for the more modest businesses out there who might have a pretty large reach (Monthly users) but nowhere near the budget to shell out big $$. Tis a shame cause as someone with a foot in tech and the other one in marketing, I know there's a lof value for the real world busines…

It's okay if you signed up one week ago. Email ilya @segment.com with the details and we'll get something good going!

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#16

Post by lapnitnelav »

webmobdev wrote: post #3

If you run a business, I really don't understand the appeal of sharing a crucial part of your data (for web based applications / services) with a third-party (Google, Amazon etc. or maybe even Segments in the future) that may at some point compete with you ... especially when you can just parse your own web logs ...

The value for pure tech players might be low -as in, you could hack something that does 90%+ of what segment does for you.

But for every other biz that happens to be on the internet, ie e-commerce, not having to rely on a tech team for implementing various services has some value. If you consider that some websites can only be updated every few months or so, having a third party manage that for you is a life-saver.

I've seen / helped too many marketing folks try to get some services (read pixels) implemented and it's always been a Shih-tzuh :)

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#17

Post by lapnitnelav »

ivolo wrote: post #15
lapnitnelav wrote: post #12

Ah damn, signed up for segment one week ago or so. Some you win, some you lose I guess. Echoing other commenters, pricing plans are quite steep for the more modest businesses out there who might have a pretty large reach (Monthly users) but nowhere near the budget to shell out big $$. Tis a shame cause as someone with a foot in tech and the other one in marketing, I know there's a lof value for the real world busines…

It's okay if you signed up one week ago. Email ilya @segment.com with the details and we'll get something good going!

Will do, cheers.

Been following you guys for a while, cool to see you're expanding -esp here in good auld Dublin and having enough momentum to afford such a move.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#18

Post by nicodjimenez »

webmobdev wrote: post #3

If you run a business, I really don't understand the appeal of sharing a crucial part of your data (for web based applications / services) with a third-party (Google, Amazon etc. or maybe even Segments in the future) that may at some point compete with you ... especially when you can just parse your own web logs ...

Agreed.

I'm starting to think that most of these analytics services are more trouble than their worth if you have a good engineering team. A few metrics API's + timescale DB + Grafana goes a long way. If you have a differentiated business you're probably measuring something unique. And if you're measuring something unique then you're better off building your own analytics.

Also, realistically most businesses are built on top of databases. So the most important stuff is in the databases anyway. So might as well just put metrics in SQL too.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#19

Post by raleigh_user »

lapnitnelav wrote: post #16
webmobdev wrote: post #3

If you run a business, I really don't understand the appeal of sharing a crucial part of your data (for web based applications / services) with a third-party (Google, Amazon etc. or maybe even Segments in the future) that may at some point compete with you ... especially when you can just parse your own web logs ...

The value for pure tech players might be low -as in, you could hack something that does 90%+ of what segment does for you. But for every other biz that happens to be on the internet, ie e-commerce, not having to rely on a tech team for implementing various services has some value. If you consider that some websites can only be updated every few months or so, having a third party manage that for you is a life-saver. I…

One product worth checking out might be simpleanalytics.io. its a small company that doesn't track your data. And its cheap. Not entirely sure of your use case but ive seen a good amount of people saying screw the data collectors Ill roll my own and it seems some of what you might be looking for is available from simple (I have no affiliation, just appreciate alternatives to the huge tech companies)

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#20

Post by beater1989 »

cornflake wrote: post #2

Segment is a good concept but when they bumped their pricing up to ludicrous mode, it justified a small rewrite to reproduce their functionality in our back-end to drop them and we haven't looked back. No way i'll be going back to their service factoring that experience. Interested to see what the back-end of this 'free period' will cost for the startups who get in bed with them - $120 per month for up to 10k MAU and…

Yes, I completely agree. It just came across as greedy at the end of the day. Especially given their billing model relies on MTU, when 80% of most websites traffic are fly in fly out visitors.

It's my favourite technology, but unaffordable for pretty much any company not burning some VCs money.

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