Microsoft Clarity vs Hotjar (2026): Which to Use

Clarity is free forever. Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, and Hotjar sign-ups are closed. Here's which one to pick, and what neither tells you.

"Clarity or Hotjar?" used to be a close call between a free tool and a freemium one. In 2026 the question has changed. Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, and Hotjar sign-ups are closed: "It's no longer possible to create a new account on Hotjar. New users can sign up for free on Contentsquare" (Contentsquare). So for a new user, the real comparison is Microsoft Clarity vs Contentsquare (Hotjar's new home), and both have a free plan. That's what this page compares.

Last updated: October 27, 2026. Prices were checked on each vendor's own pages that day. Prices are in USD as shown on those pages and change often, so confirm before you buy.

Disclosure: We make Cortality, which comes up at the end of this page as a different kind of product. Where Clarity or Contentsquare is the better choice, we say so.

TL;DR

Pick Microsoft Clarity if you want free recordings and heatmaps with no traffic limits. Microsoft calls it "a free service forever" with no traffic limits and no paid version to upgrade to (Clarity FAQ).
Pick Contentsquare (Hotjar) if you want surveys, longer data history and a paid upgrade path. Its Free plan covers up to 200k sessions a month with 1 month of data access. Growth is $49/month paid monthly or $39/month paid yearly, with 13 months of data (pricing).
Hotjar sign-ups are closed. New users go to Contentsquare's free plan instead (source).
Both show what happened. Neither tells you which page element is costing you sales, exactly what to change, or whether your fix worked. That's a different job, and it's where Cortality fits (see below).

Clarity vs Hotjar (Contentsquare): side by side

	Microsoft Clarity	Hotjar, now Contentsquare
Can a new user sign up?	Yes, "there are no restrictions"	Not for Hotjar. New users sign up for Contentsquare (source)
Price	Free forever, with no paid tier	Free; Growth $49/mo paid monthly or $39/mo paid yearly; Pro and Enterprise through a call
Traffic limits	"No traffic limits"; records up to 100,000 sessions per project per day	Free: up to 200k sessions/month. Growth: 7k to 10m sessions/month, by tier
Session replays	Yes. Kept 30 days (favorites and a random sample up to 9 months)	Free: 5% of sessions captured (max 10k), 1 month of access. Growth: 15% captured (min 20k), 2 months of access
Heatmaps	Click and scroll maps, kept up to 9 months	On all plans; zone-based heatmaps, heatmap summaries and side-by-side comparison from Growth
Analytics data history	Recordings 30 days; heatmaps up to 9 months	Free: 1 month. Growth: 13 months
Surveys	Not listed in the Clarity FAQ	Basic surveys on Free (100 responses/month); Voice of Customer Growth from $79/month
Funnels	Yes	Yes, on all plans
AI features	Copilot heatmap insights and chat; Microsoft says its takeaways "shouldn't be treated as expert recommendations"	Sense AI chat, replay and heatmap summaries from Growth; MCP connection on all plans
At the limit	No traffic limit	On Free and Growth, "you won't get any new heatmap or funnel data until next month's reset date"
Trial	Not needed	Every new account starts with a 15-day Growth trial, and you "don't need to input any payment details"
Cookies and consent	First-party cookies. Visitors in the EEA, UK and Switzerland must consent; without it, sessions fragment and full replays aren't available	Not covered on the pages we checked; read Contentsquare's privacy docs for your setup

Checked on October 27, 2026. Sources: Clarity FAQ, Contentsquare pricing, Contentsquare: What happened to Hotjar?.

Microsoft Clarity in detail

Best for: anyone who wants free session recordings and heatmaps and has time to watch them.

Clarity is "a free service forever. You never encounter traffic limits or are compelled to upgrade to a paid version" (Clarity FAQ). It records sessions, builds click and scroll maps, and flags rage clicks, dead clicks, excessive scrolling and quick backs. Microsoft says it doesn't sample traffic, though it records "up to 100,000 sessions per project per day." Recordings are kept for 30 days, and heatmaps for up to 9 months. Copilot can summarize heatmaps and answer questions about your dashboard.

Watch out for:

Short replay history. Recordings are kept 30 days, unless you favorite one.
Consent in Europe. Clarity needs explicit consent for visitors in the EEA, UK and Switzerland. Without it, "sessions are fragmented, and certain features such as full session replays and user journey continuity are unavailable."
AI summaries aren't advice. In Microsoft's words, takeaways "shouldn't be treated as expert recommendations."
Not for under-18 audiences. "Clarity shouldn't be used on any websites/apps targeting users under the age of 18."

Our honest take: if you're choosing between the two free plans and just want to watch what visitors do, start with Clarity.

Hotjar (now Contentsquare) in detail

Best for: former Hotjar users and teams that want heatmaps, replays, surveys and funnels in one place, with room to grow.

Contentsquare says it "includes everything Hotjar was known for — heatmaps, recordings, surveys" and adds attention maps, error and performance monitoring, funnels and Sense AI (source). The Free plan covers up to 200k sessions a month, 1 month of data access, 1 project, replays on 5% of sessions (max 10k) and basic surveys. Growth is $49/month paid monthly or $39/month paid yearly (paying yearly saves 20%), with 13 months of data, 3 projects, journey analysis and AI summaries. Growth needs no annual contract if you pay monthly, and new Growth accounts that cancel within 30 days get a full refund. Pro and Enterprise sit on Contentsquare's Experience Platform and are sold through a call (pricing).

Watch out for:

Replays are sampled on Free and Growth. You won't see every session.
Hard monthly caps. Once you hit your session limit on Free or Growth, there's no new heatmap or funnel data until the monthly reset.
Surveys beyond the basics cost extra. Voice of Customer Growth starts at $79/month.

Our honest take: if you need surveys or more than a month of history, Contentsquare is the better fit. If you used Hotjar before, it's the closest thing to it.

Which should you pick?

"I want free recordings and heatmaps, with no traffic limits." → Clarity.
"I want surveys and feedback widgets too." → Contentsquare (Hotjar).
"I need more than 30 days of history." → Contentsquare Growth (13 months).
"Most of my visitors are in Europe." → Check how each tool behaves without consent before you choose. Clarity's FAQ is explicit that replays degrade.
"I don't have time to watch recordings. I want to know what to change." → Neither, on its own. Read on.

What Clarity and Hotjar both miss

Recordings and heatmaps are good at showing what happened. They leave three questions for you to answer yourself:

Which element is the problem? A click map shows where clicks landed. It doesn't tell you that only 1 in 14 visitors noticed the headline above your form, or which of ten page elements costs you the most.
What exactly should I change? Watching people hesitate in recordings still leaves you to guess why and what to change.
Did my fix work? Most small sites can't run an A/B test to significance, so teams ship a change and compare date ranges by eye.

If you have the time and traffic to answer those yourself, Clarity plus a few hours a week is a perfectly good setup. Our guide to CRO without A/B testing walks through the method.

Where Cortality fits (and where it doesn't)

Cortality: ranked fixes instead of footage

Best for: lead-gen sites, online stores and SaaS that want to know what to change, especially sites that can't run A/B tests to significance.

Cortality is not a heatmap, and it isn't a recording suite. One tag measures how real visitors use every part of your page: what they notice, where they stop and what they skip, for every headline, image, button and form field. You get a Fix List in order of impact. Each finding has four lines: what was measured, why it costs you, the exact change, and how it'll be proven. When you ship a fix, Cortality re-measures and gives a plain verdict: Improved, Worse, No change, or Not enough data yet.

Example finding: "Only 1 in 14 visitors noticed the headline above this client's contact form."
Example result: form reach went from 26% to 56% in one week. That's one client's measured result, and results vary (see a real finding).
Privacy: no cookies, no keystrokes and no form values are collected (Trust Center).
Pricing: Starter $99/month (2,500 visitors, 1 page), Growth $249/month (10,000 visitors, 3 pages, session viewer), Scale $499/month (25,000 visitors, 5 pages), Enterprise custom. Month to month, with no contract (pricing).
Free first week: Start your free week and get your first report before any charge. You save a card at sign-up, and nothing is charged until 3 days after your first report, which comes once your page has 100 visitors. Cancel before then and you pay nothing. If there's no report by day 30, you're never charged. Any charge can be refunded within 14 days (refunds).

Not sure yet? Scan your page free. It takes about a minute, with no install needed. The free scan is a prediction of where visitors look, made by our attention model, plus an estimate of what fixing it is worth. The paid product measures real visitors.

Where it doesn't fit: Cortality doesn't replace a recordings suite, and it isn't free. If you want to watch every session or run surveys, use Clarity or Contentsquare. Cortality is designed to work alongside them: they show what happened, and Cortality shows which part of the page caused it and what to change.

Sources (checked October 27, 2026)

Microsoft Clarity FAQ: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/clarity/faq
Contentsquare, "What happened to Hotjar?": contentsquare.com/hotjar
Contentsquare pricing: contentsquare.com/pricing
Cortality: pricing, refunds, Trust Center

FAQ

Is Microsoft Clarity better than Hotjar?

For free recordings and heatmaps with no traffic limits, Clarity is the simpler pick: it's free forever and has no paid tier. Hotjar, now part of Contentsquare, is the better pick if you need surveys, longer data history or a paid plan with more features. Contentsquare also has a free plan.

No. Hotjar sign-ups are closed. Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, and new users sign up for Contentsquare's free plan, which covers up to 200k sessions a month (source: contentsquare.com/hotjar/).

Is Microsoft Clarity really free?

Yes. Microsoft says Clarity is "a free service forever" with no traffic limits and no paid version. Recordings are kept for 30 days and heatmaps for up to 9 months.

How much does Hotjar cost now?

Hotjar's plans now live under Contentsquare. Contentsquare Free is $0 for up to 200k sessions a month. Growth is $49/month paid monthly or $39/month paid yearly. Pro and Enterprise are priced through sales. Prices checked October 27, 2026.

Can I use Clarity and Contentsquare together?

Technically yes, but most small sites don't need two recording tools. Pick one for recordings and heatmaps, and add a different kind of product if you need ranked fixes.

What do Clarity and Hotjar both miss?

They show where visitors clicked and scrolled, but you still have to work out which element is hurting conversions, what to change, and whether the change worked. On small sites there's often too little traffic for a clear pattern or an A/B test.

Is Cortality just another heatmap product?

No. Cortality measures how real visitors use every part of a page, ranks the fixes with the exact change for each, and re-measures to show whether each fix worked. Its only prediction is the free page scan at cortality.com/leak/, which needs no install.

How much does Cortality cost, and does the free week need a card?

Starter is $99/month, Growth $249/month, Scale $499/month, and Enterprise is custom, all month to month. You save a card at sign-up, but nothing is charged until 3 days after your first report. Cancel before then and you pay nothing. Start your free week and get your first report before any charge. Any charge can be refunded within 14 days.