posthog-cost-tuning

name	posthog-cost-tuning
description	Optimize PostHog costs: autocapture tuning, event sampling with before_send, bot filtering, session recording sampling, and billing monitoring. Trigger: "posthog cost", "posthog billing", "reduce posthog costs", "posthog pricing", "posthog expensive", "posthog budget", "posthog free tier".
allowed-tools	Read, Grep
version	1.12.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","posthog","api","monitoring","cost-optimization"]
compatibility	Designed for Claude Code, also compatible with Codex and OpenClaw

PostHog Cost Tuning

Overview

PostHog Cloud pricing is event-based: 1M events/month free, then usage-based pricing beyond that. Session recordings, feature flag evaluations, and surveys each have their own free tiers. The biggest cost drivers are typically $autocapture events, $pageview on high-traffic pages, and bot traffic. This skill covers specific techniques to reduce event volume without losing analytical value.

Prerequisites

• PostHog Cloud account with billing access
• Application instrumented with posthog-js
• Understanding of which events drive your analytics

PostHog Cloud Free Tiers (2025)

Product	Free Tier	Overage
Product analytics	1M events/month	~$0.00031/event
Session recordings	5K sessions/month	~$0.04/session
Feature flags	1M API requests/month	~$0.0001/request
Surveys	250 responses/month	~$0.10/response

Instructions

Step 1: Audit Current Event Volume

set -euo pipefail
# See which events consume the most quota (last 30 days)
curl "https://app.posthog.com/api/projects/$POSTHOG_PROJECT_ID/query/" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $POSTHOG_PERSONAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": {
      "kind": "HogQLQuery",
      "query": "SELECT event, count() AS total FROM events WHERE timestamp > now() - interval 30 day GROUP BY event ORDER BY total DESC LIMIT 20"
    }
  }' | jq '.results[] | {event: .[0], count: .[1]}'

Step 2: Tune Autocapture

$autocapture is often the largest event volume. Restrict it to only useful interactions.

import posthog from 'posthog-js';

posthog.init(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY!, {
  : ,
  : {
    
    : [, ],
    
    : [, , , ],
    
    : [, ],
    
    : [, , , ],
  },
});