Vexo vs Firebase Analytics for React Native
What “free” really costs once session replay, sampling, and BigQuery export enter the picture
August 2, 2026
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Firebase Analytics — the app side of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) — is the default first analytics tool for a huge share of React Native apps, mostly because it's free. Vexo is a paid, mobile-first tool that bundles analytics, session replay, and heatmaps into one flat plan. Comparing them isn't a simple dollar-vs-dollar exercise: Firebase's sticker price is $0, but the real cost shows up as missing session replay, data sampling, event-name caps, and BigQuery export limits once your app grows.
This post compares both fairly. Vexo's numbers come straight from our own pricing page; Firebase's come from Google's published Firebase pricing page and GA4 BigQuery export docs. Figures are accurate as of August 2026 — always confirm the live pages before budgeting, since limits change.
How the two models differ
Firebase Analytics is free at any volume — there is no per-event charge for the analytics product itself. Instead the constraints are structural: up to 500 distinct event names per app data stream, data sampling in explorations once you cross large thresholds, limited data retention, and a free BigQuery export cap of 1M events/day before you need workarounds or GA4 360 (Google's enterprise tier, custom-priced and historically six figures/year). Crucially, Firebase offers no session replay and no heatmaps.
Vexo is flat-rate: you pick an event tier and pay a fixed monthly price that already includes session replays, unlimited heatmaps, full-fidelity data, and your seats. You pay money instead of paying in limits.
Free tier
| Free plan | Vexo (“Try it out”) | Firebase Analytics (GA4) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly events | 500k | Unlimited (free) |
| Distinct event names | No hard cap | 500 per app stream |
| Session replays | 100 included | Not offered |
| Heatmaps | Included | Not offered |
| Raw data export | Included | BigQuery, capped ~1M events/day free |
For raw event counting, Firebase's free-forever model is genuinely unbeatable on price — if all you need is basic funnels and DAU/MAU, and you can live within 500 event names and sampled explorations, it costs nothing. Vexo's free tier is capped on volume but gives you session replay and heatmaps from day one, which Firebase simply doesn't have at any price.
Paid plans
Firebase Analytics has no paid analytics tier — it's free, and the “upgrade” is really the Blaze pay-as-you-go plan for other Firebase services plus BigQuery compute costs for querying your exported data. Vexo's Premium plan uses a simple slider — you pick an event tier and get session replays included at every step, flat monthly, with the first 500k events free:
| Vexo Premium tier | Session replays | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| 1M events | 4,000 | $15 |
| 2.5M events | 10,000 | $60 |
| 5M events | 20,000 | $135 |
| 10M events | 40,000 | $285 |
| 25M events | 100,000 | $615 |
| 50M events | 200,000 | $1,165 |
Every Premium tier includes unlimited heatmaps, 2 seats, full-fidelity (unsampled) data, and full access to all features. Extra seats are $4.90 each.
A worked example
Say your React Native app does 5M events/month and you want to (a) watch real sessions to debug UX and (b) query unsampled raw data. With Vexo, that's the 5M Premium tier: a flat $135/month with 20,000 session replays, heatmaps, and full-fidelity data included.
With Firebase, the analytics is $0 — but session replay isn't available at all, so for (a) you'd be adding a second tool anyway. For (b), 5M events/month averages ~167K/day, under the 1M/day free BigQuery export cap, so export itself is free — but you then pay BigQuery storage and query compute on Google Cloud (usage-based, typically small at this size but non-zero and variable), and you own the SQL and dashboards yourself. If your app spikes past 1M events/day, you hit the free export cap and need event filtering, sharding, or GA4 360 (custom-priced enterprise). So the honest comparison isn't “$0 vs $135” — it's “$0 analytics plus your engineering time plus BigQuery compute plus a separate replay tool” versus “$135 all-in.”
Enterprise
Vexo's Enterprise plan covers 1+ billion events and 1+ million replays with 10 seats included, onboarding, and custom configuration — priced via Contact Us. Firebase's enterprise path is GA4 360: it raises sampling and export limits and adds SLAs, but it's custom-priced (historically a large annual commitment, six figures for many buyers) and is sold through Google's sales channel — confirm current terms directly, as we can't verify a public figure.
Which should you choose?
If your needs are basic event counting, you can live within 500 event names and sampled explorations, and you don't need session replay, Firebase Analytics is free and hard to argue with — especially if you're already in the Google/Firebase ecosystem. If you run a React Native or Expo app and want session replay and heatmaps, unsampled data, and no 500-event-name or BigQuery-export ceilings — without stitching together multiple tools — Vexo gives you all of it on one flat, predictable bill.
Want to see exactly what you'd pay? Move the slider on our pricing page to match your event volume, or start free and upgrade when you grow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Firebase Analytics offer session replay?
No. Firebase Analytics (GA4) does not offer session replay or heatmaps at any tier. To watch real user sessions in a React Native app you need a separate tool — which is one of the things Vexo includes in every plan.
Is Firebase Analytics really free?
The analytics product is free with no per-event charge, yes. The costs are indirect: a 500 distinct event-name cap per app stream, data sampling in explorations at high volume, limited retention, and a free BigQuery export cap of about 1M events/day before you need workarounds or GA4 360. Querying exported data also incurs standard BigQuery compute charges.
Does Vexo charge overage fees if I exceed my tier?
No. Vexo is flat-rate: you pick an event tier and pay one fixed monthly price with session replays and heatmaps included — there is no per-event overage line at the end of a busy month. Your first 500k events each month are free, and if you consistently outgrow a tier you simply move up to the next one.
