[nlh]

I have to say, a few years ago I was the world’s biggest Segment evangelist. My absolutely favorite analytics service, and for any web project I worked on, installing Segment was step 1. I ran it primarily on my own company’s site (100k visitors/month, most of whom were not monetized) and I think I paid them $79/month. Worth every penny as a router to send up to GA, Heap, and others. Their data warehouse became a wonderful adjunct part of my analytics stack (and maybe my bill went up to $200 or so when they added that.)

Then they changed their pricing so that bill became $1200 (per month!). Total insanity. When I did some consulting work for another startup that had even higher traffic numbers (150k-200k uniques) but was also very lightly monetized, I actually lost some serious political capital with the CEO when he saw the Segment price quote of nearly $2000 per month. He thought I was trying to fleece them.

Sorry guys. I think you’ve built a REALLY awesome product and I / similarly small businesses are clearly not the target demographic anymore, and I’m sure you’re now making metric boatloads of money from big enterprise customers who don’t care about a $20k annual bill for analytics, but man, it’s disappointing to be so priced out of what was once a great part of my toolkit.

[chanfest22]

100% agree. We are working on a YC W18 company (www.cointracker.io) and loved that Segment made it easy to get up and running on a bunch of metrics platforms. Really slick product!

Unfortunately, the recent price hikes are completely out of line with the value we are getting with the product and we are being financially forced to stop using the service. Chatting with the sales team has been extremely painful and unhelpful. It has been incredibly validating to hear that everyone else here is feeling the same way.

@Ilya — I really hope you'll consider taking this feedback to heart. You have absolutely nailed the product. The pricing needs a complete overhaul.

[ivolo]

Thanks Chandan, we're hearing this loud and clear. Open to give us feedback on pricing/packaging changes we're working on? If you're willing, can you send me an email at: ilya @segment.com

[jbwyme]

Just curious, what are the reasons to be on "a bunch of metrics platforms"? Specifically, what are the various problems you were trying solve with different tools?

[dbbk]

One of the big benefits of Segment's higher tiers is that you can replay historical data into new tools, which I don't believe is typically possible if you just integrate a new platform directly. Business needs change.

[jon-wood]

In our case we route analytics to Google Analytics, Intercom, and a Postgres database (using Segment's warehousing support) - that gives us high level analytics for marketing, customer support tooling, and raw data for the team who work with that.

We provide a white labelled platform for a few enterprise customers as well, and Segment allows us to route data to the appropriate accounts for each of those services, rather than having to set everything up manually each time.

[ivolo]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that we're reading/listening and this is really helpful feedback. I'd love to do a phone call, and get your feedback on a few pricing/packaging changes we're working on. If you're willing, my email is ilya @segment.com

[ryanwaggoner]

Since you’re here, I highly agree. Segment is awesome and I’d love to pay for it but I need to track entire lifecycle for customers, including their original acquisition. That means tracking anonymous web visitors, and that immediately puts Segment into the “whoa, it’s how much?!?” category for me.

[nlh]

Very cool of you to be active on this Ilya! Happy to chat - I'll drop you a line.

[buf]

I'm in the same boat. I love love love segment at Reforge (and I hear Segment loves Reforge, too). I've built some pretty awesome data pipelines (Personas are my favorite feature of all time) and have armed the marketing team to the teeth.

But my side project, Casting Call Club, has 150k uniques a month, most of which are not monetized. There's just simply no way I can justify paying for Segment. Many of the ideas I think about are simply lost because it would take too much time to build out myself.

[RonanTheGrey]

We get almost 500,000 uniques a month, mostly unmonetized (though that's changing, slowly). I would LOVE to integrate an enterprise tracker but the pricing is just absurd. I mean, there's no way we can even 'try' it. We grew alot faster in organic traffic than we expected.

It's definitely meant for large enterprises, not for growing ones.

[starik36]

I guess, I'll throw my hat into the ring as well. Former customer here as well. Just finished pulling out all the Segment hooks from the code base for same reasons as others.

[ddebernardy]

Similar experience here. When I first discovered Segment there was a free plan, the value was clear (install just one script + ability to replay), and there were affordable plans for small businesses. So I recommended using it right left and center.

I get the reasoning behind the price change, and I presume it was good for their bottom line, but it felt like extortion.

The current prices are still a far cry from what they were back in 2015 [0] and the most valuable feature (replaying historical data) now seems to be enterprise-only. It still looks like great value once you reach a certain size but I'd be hard pressed to use this new startup offering or recommend a client to do so.

On a more strategic note, the door seems wide open for another Segment-like startup to capture early stage businesses. The only thing that might be saving Segment in this respect is that Google isn't suggesting a competitor when you type "Segment vs" -- yet.

[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/20141231114510/https://segment.co...

[robbiemitchell]

Segment is best used with identified real users (i.e., you have their email), not anonymous web traffic, mainly because the former is where all the value is and the latter will unnecessarily drive up your bill.

That said, they could consider a cheaper, lightweight option that pipes traffic for you with a single tracker (the original value prop) but without the identify call and custom track calls, which is where all the downstream and up-market value is with respect to personas and the swing to become a CDP.

[superasn]

What was the thing you most liked about this service compared to its competitors. It's the first time I'm hearing about this service and couldn't really understand why people are raving so much about it. To me this looks like YAAS so I guess best ask someone who used it for sometime and paid $79/mo for it.

[ddebernardy]

https://segment.com/docs/guides/general/what-is-the-differen...

[arborist12]

We had the same experience. Segment's pricing changes in 2017 were borderline fraudulent. We were automatically switched from the free plan to a plan that cost over $450/month without ever agreeing to it. Segment's "free" plan was a bait and switch, I wouldn't trust it.