Mobile analytics with PostHog React Native, Firebase Analytics, and event tracking patterns.

Analytics

Track user behavior in your mobile app to understand engagement, conversion, and feature usage. ScaleRocket Mobile supports multiple analytics providers.

Choosing a Provider

Provider	Free Tier	Best For
PostHog	1M events/month	Product analytics, feature flags
Firebase Analytics	Unlimited	Google ecosystem, crash reporting
Mixpanel	20M events/month	Funnel analysis, retention
Amplitude	10M events/month	Product intelligence

PostHog (Recommended)

PostHog provides product analytics, session replay, and feature flags in one tool:

npx expo install posthog-react-native

Setup

// lib/analytics.ts
import PostHog from "posthog-react-native";

export const posthog = new PostHog("phc_your_api_key", {
  host: "https://app.posthog.com",
  enableSessionReplay: true,
});

Wrap your app with the PostHog provider:

// app/_layout.tsx
import { PostHogProvider } from "posthog-react-native";
import { posthog } from "@/lib/analytics";

export default function RootLayout() {
  return (
    <PostHogProvider client={posthog}>
      <Slot />
    </PostHogProvider>
  );
}

Track Events

import { usePostHog } from "posthog-react-native";

function CheckoutScreen() {
  const posthog = usePostHog();

  const handlePurchase = async () => {
    posthog.capture("purchase_completed", {
      plan: "pro",
      price: 9.99,
      currency: "USD",
    });
  };

  return <Button title="Subscribe" onPress={handlePurchase} />;
}

Identify Users

Link events to a user after authentication:

function useIdentifyUser() {
  const posthog = usePostHog();
  const { user } = useAuth();

  useEffect(() => {
    if (user) {
      posthog.identify(user.id, {
        email: user.email,
        name: user.name,
        plan: user.plan,
      });
    }
  }, [user]);
}

Firebase Analytics

npx expo install @react-native-firebase/app @react-native-firebase/analytics

import analytics from "@react-native-firebase/analytics";

// Track screen views
await analytics().logScreenView({
  screen_name: "Dashboard",
  screen_class: "DashboardScreen",
});

// Track custom events
await analytics().logEvent("purchase_completed", {
  plan: "pro",
  price: 9.99,
});

// Identify user
await analytics().setUserId(user.id);
await analytics().setUserProperties({ plan: "pro" });

Note: Firebase Analytics requires a development build with native modules.

Event Tracking Patterns

Track these key events for a SaaS mobile app:

Event	Properties	When
`app_opened`	`source`	App launched
`screen_viewed`	`screen_name`	Screen becomes visible
`sign_up_completed`	`method` (email, google, apple)	User creates account
`sign_in_completed`	`method`	User logs in
`purchase_completed`	`plan`, `price`	Subscription purchased
`feature_used`	`feature_name`	Key feature interaction
`error_occurred`	`error_type`, `screen`	Error shown to user

Screen Tracking

Automatically track screen views with Expo Router:

import { usePathname } from "expo-router";

function useScreenTracking() {
  const pathname = usePathname();
  const posthog = usePostHog();

  useEffect(() => {
    posthog.screen(pathname);
  }, [pathname]);
}

Add this to your root layout:

export default function RootLayout() {
  useScreenTracking();
  return <Slot />;
}

Privacy Considerations

Allow users to opt out of analytics in settings
Don't track personally identifiable information (PII) without consent
Comply with GDPR/CCPA — provide a way to delete user data
Use anonymous IDs until the user explicitly identifies themselves

function AnalyticsOptOut() {
  const [optedOut, setOptedOut] = usePersistentState("analytics-opt-out", false);

  const toggle = () => {
    const newValue = !optedOut;
    setOptedOut(newValue);
    if (newValue) {
      posthog.optOut();
    } else {
      posthog.optIn();
    }
  };

  return <Switch value={!optedOut} onValueChange={toggle} />;
}

Analytics

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