KISSmetrics vs Heap (Contentsquare)

In September 2023, Contentsquare acquired Heap. That single event changed the trajectory of Heap as a product. Contentsquare is a session-replay and digital-experience platform. Their core business is watching what users do on screen, not standalone behavioral analytics. Since the acquisition, Heap's roadmap has shifted toward session replay, experience scoring, and Contentsquare platform integration.

If you originally chose Heap for product analytics, the product you evaluated is no longer the product you are paying for. Pricing has already increased for many customers at renewal. Feature priorities are dictated by Contentsquare's enterprise sales motion, not by the needs of mid-market analytics teams.

This page lays out exactly where KISSmetrics and Heap differ today — pricing, philosophy, and technical approach — so you can make an informed decision about where your analytics investment goes next.

Pricing: Flat Rate vs Post-Acquisition Escalation

KISSmetrics costs $7,500 per year, flat. That includes implementation, onboarding, and ongoing support. No per-seat charges. No event-volume tiers that force you into a higher plan when your product grows. One price, published openly.

Heap's pricing was already opaque before the acquisition. Since Contentsquare took over, customers report significant increases at renewal — often 40–80% — with little negotiation room. Here is what the market looks like today:

Those savings are not hypothetical. When you factor in Heap's implementation costs — which are either paid to a third-party consultancy or absorbed by your engineering team — the gap widens further. KISSmetrics includes implementation in the $7,500 annual price. There is no separate line item.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Below is a direct comparison of capabilities that matter for mid-market analytics teams. This is not an exhaustive feature list — it focuses on the areas where the two products differ meaningfully.

Person-Based Analytics: A Structural Difference

Both KISSmetrics and Heap can identify individual users. But the underlying data model matters. KISSmetrics was built from day one around the concept of a person — a single entity who visits your site, signs up, uses your product, and generates revenue over time. Every report, every funnel, every cohort is built on that foundation.

Heap started as a session-capture tool and added identity resolution later. The person model exists, but the product's DNA is still rooted in capturing interactions at the session level. This shows up in how reports work, how data is queried, and how easily you can answer questions like "show me everyone who did X but not Y over the last 90 days."

For e-commerce and SaaS businesses where customer lifetime value, retention analysis, and person-level attribution drive decisions, this structural difference is the most important factor in choosing an analytics platform.

15 Years in Behavioral Analytics

KISSmetrics has been building person-based analytics since 2008. We were one of the first platforms to argue that tracking people — not pageviews — was the right way to understand customer behavior. That conviction has not changed.

In those 15 years, we have seen analytics companies come and go, get acquired, pivot to adjacent markets, or chase enterprise deals at the expense of their mid-market customers. We have stayed focused on the same problem: helping businesses understand who their customers are, what they do, and how much they are worth.

That focus is why our product does not have session replay, heatmaps, or A/B testing infrastructure. Those are fine products — they are just not our product. We do behavioral analytics, and we do it well.

Who Should Switch from Heap to KISSmetrics

Not every Heap customer should switch. But if any of the following describe your situation, it is worth a serious evaluation:

• You are concerned about post-acquisition changes. If your Heap renewal came in significantly higher than expected, or if features you rely on are being deprioritized in favor of Contentsquare integrations, the trajectory is clear. Moving now gives you control over timing rather than being forced to migrate later.
• You want pricing stability. If your finance team is pushing back on unpredictable SaaS costs, KISSmetrics' flat $7,500 annual price removes the uncertainty. No event-volume overages, no surprise renewal increases, no per-seat charges.
• You need clean, intentional tracking. If your team has spent months trying to make sense of Heap's autocaptured data — labeling events, building virtual events, filtering noise — a switch to intentional tracking with expert implementation will save time every week going forward.
• You are an e-commerce business. KISSmetrics was built for e-commerce and SaaS. Revenue tracking, LTV analysis, and Shopify/WooCommerce integrations are native, not afterthoughts.
• You want a focused analytics product. If you need analytics, not a digital-experience platform, KISSmetrics does one thing and does it well. No feature bloat, no upsell pressure to buy adjacent products.

Migration from Heap

Switching analytics platforms is not trivial, and we do not pretend it is. But KISSmetrics includes full implementation as part of your subscription. Our team handles the setup — event mapping, integration configuration, funnel definition, and validation — so your engineering team's involvement is minimal.

Most migrations from Heap are completed within 2–4 weeks. You can run both platforms in parallel during the transition to validate data before cutting over. There is no additional cost for migration support.