Arktis vs Amplitude: E-commerce Analytics Comparison

Amplitude is one of the leading product analytics platforms, trusted by companies like PayPal, Walmart, and NBC for behavioral analytics and experimentation. But if you're an e-commerce brand trying to figure out which marketing channels drive actual revenue, is Amplitude the right tool? Here's how Amplitude and Arktis compare for different use cases.

The Quick Verdict

Amplitude is a sophisticated product analytics platform designed for product and growth teams at technology companies. Arktis is built for e-commerce marketing teams that need to connect ad spend to revenue. If you're optimizing feature adoption and running experiments in a SaaS product, Amplitude is excellent. If you need to know which Facebook campaign drove your best customers, Arktis answers that directly.

Feature Comparison

Attribution and Campaign Tracking

Amplitude focuses on in-product attribution - understanding which features or user actions lead to conversion or retention. Marketing attribution (connecting ad campaigns to revenue) is not Amplitude's core strength. You'll typically need to feed campaign data in through a CDP like Segment or mParticle, and even then the attribution models are product-centric rather than marketing-centric.

Arktis captures marketing attribution data automatically. Every UTM parameter, ad click ID, and referrer is tracked from the first visit. Direct integrations with Facebook Ads and Google Ads let you calculate true CAC and ROAS against actual purchases - not platform-estimated conversions. The complete customer journey from ad impression to purchase is stitched together using first-party data.

Session Recordings

Amplitude introduced Session Replay as part of their platform, available as an add-on. It captures user interactions and pairs them with behavioral data from their analytics. Like other enterprise tools, recording data is stored on Amplitude's infrastructure.

Arktis includes session recordings as a core feature with a key architectural difference - your recording data is stored in your own Google Cloud Storage bucket using the open-source rrweb library. This means sensitive customer browsing data (product views, form inputs, checkout behavior) never leaves your infrastructure.

Experimentation and A/B Testing

This is where Amplitude genuinely excels. Amplitude Experiment is a full-featured experimentation platform with statistical rigor, feature flags, and holdout groups. If running product experiments is central to your workflow, Amplitude's experimentation tools are among the best in the industry.

Arktis does not include built-in A/B testing. Our focus is on measuring what's already happening - which campaigns work, which customer journeys convert, which products drive demand - rather than running controlled experiments. For e-commerce teams, the marketing attribution data Arktis provides often has higher ROI than product experiments.

Privacy and Data Control

Amplitude processes behavioral data on their servers with options for EU data residency. Enterprise customers can configure data governance policies, but standard plans send all event data to Amplitude's cloud. You need to include Amplitude as a data processor in your GDPR documentation.

Arktis uses first-party cookies on your domain and keeps analytics data in your own cloud infrastructure. No behavioral data passes through third-party servers. This architecture makes GDPR compliance straightforward and eliminates concerns about data processing agreements.

Pricing

Amplitude has moved to event-based pricing. As of September 2026 its free plan includes 2 million events a month, 10,000 session replays and limited experiments, the Plus plan is usage-based starting at $0 and scaling to 70 million events with two years of retention, and Growth and Enterprise are custom event-based contracts that add more replays, SSO and role-based access. Mid-to-large deployments still land in six figures a year once you leave self-serve.

Arktis prices by monthly tracked visitors: Starter at $49 a month for up to 50,000 monthly tracked users with multi-touch attribution and click ID matching, Growth at $149 for up to 250,000 with session recordings and custom attribution models, and Scale at $349 for unlimited users with raw export and API access. View our full pricing details. For most e-commerce businesses, visitors are a more predictable billing unit than events, because a product launch that triples event volume does not triple the bill.

E-commerce Integrations

Amplitude integrates with hundreds of tools via CDPs like Segment and mParticle, but doesn't offer direct integrations with e-commerce platforms or ad networks. Connecting Shopify orders or Facebook ad spend to Amplitude requires custom data pipelines or middleware.

Arktis integrates directly with Shopify for order data, customer demographics, and product demand intelligence. Facebook Ads integration connects campaign spend to actual on-site conversions. These direct integrations mean you see true revenue attribution without building custom data pipelines.

Real-Time Analytics

Amplitude provides behavioral analytics with processing delays of a few minutes. Their real-time features are designed for monitoring feature rollouts and experiment results rather than live traffic.

Arktis shows live visitors on your site with full context - current page, traffic source, session history, conversion status. This is built for e-commerce teams monitoring campaign launches, flash sales, and promotional events in real time.

When to Choose Amplitude

Amplitude is the better choice if you're a SaaS or technology company optimizing product features, you need built-in A/B testing and experimentation, your primary question is "how do users engage with our product?", you have a data team that manages CDPs and event taxonomies, or you need advanced cohort analysis for product-led growth.

When to Choose Arktis

Arktis is the better choice if you run an e-commerce store and need marketing attribution, you want to connect ad spend directly to revenue, you need session recordings stored in your own infrastructure, GDPR compliance without third-party data processors matters to you, you sell on Shopify and want built-in product intelligence, or you prefer straightforward session-based pricing.

Can You Use Both?

Yes, though there's less overlap than you might expect. Amplitude serves product teams (feature optimization, retention, experiments) while Arktis serves marketing teams (campaign ROI, customer acquisition, revenue attribution). Some companies use Amplitude internally for product decisions and Arktis for marketing measurement. The two work independently without conflicts.

The Bottom Line

Amplitude is a world-class product analytics platform built for technology companies. Arktis is a focused attribution and analytics platform built for e-commerce. The choice depends on your primary question: "How are users engaging with our product features?" points to Amplitude. "Which marketing channels drive profitable customers?" points to Arktis.

For e-commerce brands spending money on ads and selling through Shopify, Arktis delivers the marketing attribution, session recordings, and privacy compliance you need - without requiring a CDP, custom data pipelines, or enterprise-tier pricing.

Sources

1. Amplitude, "Pricing Plans" (2026)

2. Amplitude, "Experiment - Feature Flags & A/B Testing"

3. Amplitude, "Session Replay"

4. Vendr, "Amplitude Software Pricing & Plans 2026"

5. Userpilot, "Amplitude Pricing: Is It Worth the Price?"

6. Amplitude, "Plus Plan for Small Teams and Startups"