--- title: "PQL trials convert 2.8× better; the analytics to score them starts free" summary: "What a product qualified lead is, how it becomes a sales qualified one, and the free event allowances at Amplitude, Mixpanel and PostHog, as of September 2026." url: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/product-qualified-leads-sql-pql format: Note desk: "Cloud & DevOps" published: 2025-10-14 facts_checked: 2026-09-30 author: TechBag (The TechBag Journal) tags: ["product qualified lead","PQL","SQL","product-led growth","product analytics","Mixpanel","Amplitude","PostHog","Gainsight","DPDP"] cover: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/covers/product-qualified-leads-sql-pql.png --- # PQL trials convert 2.8× better; the analytics to score them starts free *What a product qualified lead is, how it becomes a sales qualified one, and the free event allowances at Amplitude, Mixpanel and PostHog, as of September 2026.* Note · Cloud & DevOps · By TechBag · Published 2025-10-14 · Facts checked 2026-09-30 · Canonical: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/product-qualified-leads-sql-pql A product qualified lead is not an alternative to a sales qualified lead; it is the best way to make one. Gainsight reports that free trials using PQLs convert 2.8 times better than trials without them, and the product analytics needed to score them is free up to one to two million events a month at Amplitude, Mixpanel and PostHog.[1] [2] [3] [4] The 2023 version of this piece asked which of the two a business should use. The better question is where the line between them sits, and who draws it. ## A PQL is evidence; an SQL is a decision A PQL is a trial or free user whose behaviour in the product matches what paying customers did before they paid: they invited a colleague, connected a data source, or hit a plan limit. An SQL is a lead a salesperson has accepted as worth a quote. One is measured by software; the other is a judgement by a person. A PQL that sales accepts becomes an SQL; one that sales rejects tells you the scoring rule is wrong. Our view Our view: define a PQL as one activation event plus one fit filter (company size or a work email domain), not a weighted score of twenty signals. Then count how many PQLs sales accepts each month. If the acceptance rate falls, change the rule, not the sales team. ## The one number, and why to discount it Reported Gainsight, citing its Product-Led Growth Index 2022: “free trials using PQLs result in a 2.8x higher conversion rate than those who don’t use PQLs”.[1] It is the only PQL benchmark we could trace to a named report, and it comes with three caveats: Gainsight sells product-adoption software, the sample size is not published on the page, and the medians behind it sit behind a form. Read it as direction, not as a forecast for your funnel. Other figures in circulation, such as PQL-to-paid rates of 20% to 40%, come from vendor blogs without a method and are left out here. ## Scoring PQLs costs nothing until the first million events **Figure: Three product-analytics tools give 1 to 2 million events a month free, enough to score PQLs before you pay** *Free monthly event allowance on each vendor's free plan, millions of events, 2026 price lists* Amplitude Free 10,000 session replays 2 M events Mixpanel Free about US$0.28 per 1,000 events above it 1 M events PostHog 5,000 replays; 1M flag requests 1 M events | | Value (M events) | | --- | --- | | Amplitude Free | 2 | | Mixpanel Free | 1 | | PostHog | 1 | Source: Amplitude and PostHog pricing pages; TechBag Mixpanel intel page · as of 30 September 2026 Above the allowance the bill climbs with volume. TechBag’s Mixpanel page puts the overage at about US$0.28 per 1,000 events, or roughly US$1,120 a month at five million.[4] Amplitude’s Plus plan “starts at $0” and prints no per-event rate.[2] The cost of a PQL programme is therefore the instrumentation and the agreement with sales, not the licence. TechBag countTechBag arithmetic Assume an active trial user fires 200 tracked events a month. One million free events then covers 5,000 active trial users. Track only the events in your PQL rule and the same allowance stretches further. ## Buying in India All three price in US dollars; through a reseller the invoice is in rupees with 18% GST added. Mixpanel offers an India data-residency option and has a Bengaluru office, which matters when the events are tied to a named user.[5] That link is what makes trial behaviour personal data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The DPDP Rules were notified on 13 November 2025, and the substantive duties, including the notice that must accompany a consent request, apply from 13 May 2027.[6] [7] Name sales contact as a purpose in the signup notice now. TechBag’s [Mixpanel Product Analytics page](https://www.thetechbag.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-product-analytics) sets out the plans against Amplitude and PostHog. How we did this Figures as of 30 September 2026 Free allowances are from Amplitude’s and PostHog’s public pricing pages, which carry no effective date, and from TechBag’s Mixpanel intel page as committed on 30 September 2026. Only allowances stated in events are charted; tools metered on users or sessions (Heap, Pendo) are excluded because the units do not compare. The 200-events assumption is ours and is labelled as such. The 2023 post’s 73% and 20% figures could not be traced to a source and were removed. Spotted an error? Write to us; corrections are published at the foot of the piece. Sources 1. [Gainsight, Benchmark: Product qualified lead (PQL) conversion rates, citing the Product-Led Growth Index 2022](https://www.gainsight.com/resource/benchmark-product-qualified-lead-pql-conversion-rates/) — page undated; index edition 2022 2. [Amplitude, pricing](https://amplitude.com/pricing) — vendor pricing page, undated 3. [PostHog, pricing](https://posthog.com/pricing) — vendor pricing page, undated 4. [TechBag, Mixpanel Product Analytics intel page](https://www.thetechbag.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-product-analytics) — version committed 30 September 2026 5. [TechBag, Mixpanel Warehouse-Native intel page (India residency, Bengaluru office)](https://www.thetechbag.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-warehouse-native) — version committed 30 September 2026 6. [DPDP Rules 2025, commencement timeline](https://legismith.com/dpdp-rules-2025-timeline/) — notified 13 November 2025 7. [Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023](https://www.meity.gov.in/data-protection-framework) — 11 August 2023 **Disclosure.** TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view. Go deeper on TechBag - [Mixpanel Product Analytics intel page](https://www.thetechbag.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-product-analytics) — the free tier, the event meter and India data residency - [Observability & APM guide](https://www.thetechbag.com/browse/devops/observability-apm) — event-metered tools, product analytics included, priced side by side