FAQ - Analytics MAU Pricing Model Update

[Ryiah]

@clarec_unity

Why is Unity making this change?
Changing to MAU-based pricing allows Unity to provide a pricing model that will help Unity make up for their inability to make a profit with their game engine.

Fixed that for you.

[lan_indiez]

I think Unity team needs to hire a Game Designer or Monetization Designer to design product pricing .
Except the Unity Engine has a reasonable price (my assumption), every other products have a price that no one can use, they can choose another product that has better quality but cheaper

[Laurie-Unity]

To answer the questions about the In-App Purchase (IAP) package and whether it can be used without UGS or Analytics.

No, you don’t need to use UGS or Unity Analytics with the IAP package, it can be used seperately. As of IAP v4.7.0 (2023-02-09), the dependency on com.unity.services.analytics has been removed from the IAP SDK.

The latest IAP SDK package version is 4.9.2.
Changeog

[pixilestudios]

If we are only using the legacy analytics still, will that still keep running under this pricing model or just stop when the transition happens?

[Fortunato1]

@Laurie-Unity

To answer the questions about the In-App Purchase (IAP) package and whether it can be used without UGS or Analytics.

No, you don’t need to use UGS or Unity Analytics with the IAP package, it can be used seperately. As of IAP v4.7.0 (2023-02-09), the dependency on com.unity.services.analytics has been removed from the IAP SDK.

The latest IAP SDK package version is 4.9.2.
Changeog

Thank you for your clarification!

But why in the documentation of 4.9.2 version still is that mention about warning, if I’am not using initialization of UGS?

Screenshot:

[Laurie-Unity]

But why in the documentation of 4.9.2 version still is that mention about warning, if I’am not using initialization of UGS?

Thanks for pointing that out @Fortunato1 , it doesn’t look quite right. I’ll confirm it with the IAP engineering team and we can get it updated.

[jenniferplanellas]

can we just turn off analytics in the dashboard or do we have to do something else?

[paljan]

Not even commenting on the actual changes and comparing the actual state of the analytics service right now. Why hasn’t this been communicated properly, and I’m just by chance finding this forum thread about the changes with the update happening in 2 months?

[clarec_unity]

@pixilestudios

If we are only using the legacy analytics still, will that still keep running under this pricing model or just stop when the transition happens?

Data that is transferred from Legacy Analytics to the new UGS Analytics will not contribute to the calculation of billing based on MAU. However, any data received by UGS Analytics through the UGS Analytics SDK will be considered for billing. Once the UGS Analytics SDK is installed in your project and begins to ingest data, that data will be included in the MAU model and will be billable.

[emrys90]

This is an insane increase in the price. If this does not change to something more reasonable within the next few weeks I will be abandoning Unity Analytics as well.

I can understand needing to turn a profit, but if you price yourself so high above your competitors, you’re going to lose even more money from this change by having everyone abandon your services. You’re not offering anything that we can’t get for cheaper elsewhere.

Was your goal instead for a soft shutdown of analytics by having no one want to use it anymore? If so, your goal has been accomplished.

With this change I will go from being in the free tier of analytics to approximately $300/month. My game does not make that much revenue to justify spending hundreds of dollars a month on analytics. Not when I could use GameAnalytics for free instead. I do like Unity Analytics and I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount to use the service. Your pricing is not reasonable.

I also don’t appreciate how you’re trying to hide the ridiculous price of the service. The small numbers sound reasonable, until someone actually does the math.

[MegaMileyStudios]

@emrys90

I also don’t appreciate how you’re trying to hide the ridiculous price of the service. The small numbers sound reasonable, until someone actually does the math.

To be fair, this was already like that before and is quite common for any SaaS product. You always have to do your own calculations (or use a provided calculator) to get your actual cost as each game/app has different needs.

[emrys90]

@clarec_unity

• 500 custom events per MAU

Is that 500 events per month per user? If so that is even more insane. If a games goal is to get a lot of daily players, you can easily get past 500 events a month per user. That’s giving people less than 17 events a day. GameAnalytics is free and offers 500 events per DAY per user.

@clarec_unity

We believe that the new model will provide a more flexible and cost-effective solution for customers.

“cost-effective”? What a complete lie. You’re raising the prices by a ridiculous amount, hiding that its raising it, and trying to tell people you’re actually making it cheaper. What a horrible business practice.

[boubouk]

What if I only got 1 user ?
I use analytics, not for profits but for usage statistics of the application by the visitors of a Museum.
So, I’m limited to 0.05 seconds of SQL data explorer query time per MAU.
I think I’m going to exceed this small amount of free time.
How much do you charge the extra query time ? Is it free until 0.05 * 50000 (free tier MAU limit) seconds ? Or will I be charge 0.006$ for each extra 0.05 seconds ? Or else ?
Thanks.

[pixilestudios]

@clarec_unity

Data that is transferred from Legacy Analytics to the new UGS Analytics will not contribute to the calculation of billing based on MAU. However, any data received by UGS Analytics through the UGS Analytics SDK will be considered for billing. Once the UGS Analytics SDK is installed in your project and begins to ingest data, that data will be included in the MAU model and will be billable.

Just to clarify, when you say UGS Analytics SDK, it only means the new analytics and not the legacy one (ie legacy is UnityEngine.Analytics in code)… and also what’s still not totally clear to me is if we don’t install UGS Analytics SDK, then our legacy events stop working in a few months? Or do they get auto converted to UGS going forward as well?

[MiTschMR]

@emrys90

Is that 500 events per month per user?

It is 500 custom events, meaning not the ones already sent with the SDK, but your own defined events.

[clarec_unity]

@pixilestudios

Just to clarify, when you say UGS Analytics SDK, it only means the new analytics and not the legacy one (ie legacy is UnityEngine.Analytics in code)… and also what’s still not totally clear to me is if we don’t install UGS Analytics SDK, then our legacy events stop working in a few months? Or do they get auto converted to UGS going forward as well?

Correct, the UGS Analytics SDK is the new analytics and not the legacy one. The legacy events will keep flowing into the UGS platform on August 1st. While the legacy events are converted into an event schema that UGS can accept, they are not subject to billing.

[emrys90]

Just letting you know you’ve lost a customer here. I’ve already switched analytic systems due to your unreasonable prices. I would have paid for your service if you were reasonable with your pricing.

Anyone looking into alternatives should consider mixpanel. Their paid tier is quite pricey, but they have a generous 20 million free events tier, so if you were in the free tier on Unity you’d most likely be in their free tier as well.

It’s far more powerful than Unity Analytics is with more features, even in the free version.

[Nathanovicio]

So there are two major concerns in this forum:

1. The pricing is considered unfair
2. The events limit is considered unfair

It would be nice if Unity could respond on these concerns. What is the plan of continuation @clarec_unity & @Laurie-Unity . Will you consider this as invalid concerns or will you revise your plans?

[mdsitton]

@Nathanovicio

So there are two major concerns in this forum:

1. The pricing is considered unfair
2. The events limit is considered unfair

It would be nice if Unity could respond on these concerns. What is the plan of continuation @clarec_unity & @Laurie-Unity . Will you consider this as invalid concerns or will you revise your plans?

Yes i also am waiting on a response to these issues.

Additionally, i would like to add why hasn’t the pricing page been updated to reflect or note these upcoming changes:
https://unity.com/solutions/gaming-services/pricing

[mdsitton]

Also just something to note here for unity developers + managers. Just because people aren’t posting here doesn’t mean that people aren’t watching this. I know at least personally several commercial projects that were planning on using the Unity Services and now are totally moving off all services including networking relay because they can’t trust you won’t raise prices unnecessarily on your other services. This sets a terrible precedent and destroys trust in the company and gives even more reasons for people to look to other engines such as Godot if they are no longer tied to your game services.

If you want to keep people using your engine and ecosystem you need to make it a hard choice for people to leave and give lots of services that can be easily integrated from developers at a reasonable cost. If not people will just move to alternatives.