Used For

• +**Your push notifications get 2% open rates because you're blasting everyone** → Send targeted messages to users who abandoned their shopping cart or haven't opened the app in a week
• +**You have no idea which app features people actually use** → Track custom events to see if anyone uses your premium features or where people get stuck
• +**Your retention campaigns are based on gut feelings** → A/B test different message timing and content to find what brings people back
• +Predictive analytics that flags users likely to churn before they disappear
• +Direct SQL access to your app data without building a data warehouse

Best For

• >Your app has thousands of users but retention drops off a cliff after day 3
• >You're manually sending push notifications and have no idea what's working
• >Your marketing team keeps asking "why did downloads spike but nobody's using the app?"

Not For

• -Solo developers or teams under 20 people — you're paying enterprise prices for segmentation features you don't need yet
• -Web-only companies — this is mobile apps only, no website tracking
• -Anyone wanting plug-and-play analytics — getting useful data requires developer time to tag custom events

Pairs With

• *Firebase (for basic app infrastructure and authentication before users hit your Localytics tracking)
• *Amplitude (some teams run both to compare retention data and validate insights)
• *mParticle (to unify customer data from your app, website, and email into one profile)
• *Foursquare (for location-based targeting when you want to message users near your stores)
• *SendGrid (for email campaigns since Localytics handles mobile but you still need to hit people's inboxes)
• *Mixpanel (alternative analytics platform that some teams prefer for event tracking)

The Catch

• !The basic SDK setup takes 10 minutes, but getting meaningful insights requires weeks of developer work tagging events throughout your app
• !Pricing isn't listed anywhere, which usually means "if you have to ask, you can't afford it"
• !Owned by Upland Software since 2020, so you're dealing with enterprise sales cycles and potentially getting folded into a bigger platform

Bottom Line

The full-stack mobile engagement platform that requires developer time to get right but actually moves retention numbers.