Tool · Docs guide, ~15 min to set up

Track user retention with Mixpanel

Mixpanel · Mixpanel Docs Freemium Beginner

Benchmarks are useless until you can actually plot your own cohort curve, and Mixpanel's free tier lets you build a real retention chart without writing SQL. This guide covers the two knobs that trip people up first: the retention criteria (which event starts the cohort, which event counts as returning, and the time bucket) and how to read the resulting grid. It is a genuinely free starting point for an early-stage founder, though you will point to the sample board and cohort features to go deeper.

• Set your starting event (for example Signup) and your return event, then pick a time unit (day, week, or month) that matches how often your product should be used.
• The retention grid reads down as cohorts and across as periods, so a flattening curve shows up as columns that stop shrinking to the right.
• Mixpanel's free plan is enough to build this, so you can measure your curve before spending anything on analytics tooling.