Hotjar vs Microsoft Clarity: Best Behavioral Analytics in 2026?

Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity are the two names people give the same question: "How do I see what visitors actually do on my site?" Both record sessions, draw heatmaps, and turn user behavior into something you can watch. But the comparison stopped being a simple paid-versus-free matchup. In August 2026 the Hotjar brand was absorbed into Contentsquare, and the most consequential difference between the two products now lives in a terms-of-use document rather than a feature table. This guide breaks down what each tool really costs, what it captures, and which to pick in 2026.

Quick Verdict

Choose Microsoft Clarity if you want heatmaps and session recordings at any traffic volume for zero dollars — it is free forever with no session cap, ships five heatmap types and AI summaries, and takes minutes to install. Choose Hotjar (now Contentsquare) if you need native surveys and feedback widgets, zone-based heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring, 13 months of data access, or a commercial contract instead of advertising-profile terms. For most small sites with a zero budget, Clarity gets the job done; the moment surveys or long-term retention become part of your process, Contentsquare earns its ticket.

Feature Comparison

What Happened to Hotjar

If you came here expecting a split between Hotjar and Clarity, you are a step behind the market. Contentsquare acquired Hotjar in 2021 and ran the brands in parallel for years; that ended in August 2026. Hotjar.com now resolves to contentsquare.com/hotjar, where the FAQ is blunt: "Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare… If you were looking to try Hotjar, Contentsquare is where you sign up." Existing customers keep their access via login.contentsquare.com.

The practical consequence: the old Hotjar free plan (35 sessions per day) is gone, replaced by Contentsquare's 200,000 sessions-per-month plan — a real upgrade, not a rebrand. If you bounced off Hotjar because its free tier was too small to be useful, that reason no longer exists.

The Cost of Free: Data Rights

Clarity is free in the same way many Microsoft products are free: you pay with data. Clarity's Terms of Use, section 4.4(c), states that you and Microsoft are independent controllers of the personal data processed through Clarity — neither party is a processor for the other — and that Microsoft may use the data it collects "for any purpose in accordance with the Microsoft Privacy Statement, including … to create user profiles for purposes that include advertising." There is no opt-out. Non-personal data may additionally be used to train, fine-tune and evaluate machine learning models. Section 9 lets Microsoft start charging for previously free features at any time, and section 17 caps Microsoft's liability at US $5.00.

Contentsquare operates under an ordinary commercial contract: what you pay, Microsoft's ad business never sees. Both tools set cookies and both need a consent banner in the EU and UK, but there is a real difference between a vendor incentivized to keep you subscribed and one whose parent company sells advertising. Accept Clarity's terms knowingly — but at least do the accepting with your eyes open.

Retention: How Long Your Data Lives

This is where "free" starts costing you in ways you notice six months later. Clarity keeps session playback for 30 days. Sessions you favourite or label survive for 9 months, as does the aggregated click data behind your heatmaps. After that, recordings are deleted from Clarity's servers including backups, and cannot be recovered — so you cannot re-watch what users did during a launch from last quarter unless you saved those sessions at the time.

Contentsquare's Growth plan gives you 13 months of analytics data access, with 2 months of replay retention. For seasonal businesses or any team that reports on "how did the last campaign actually behave", the gap between 30 days and 13 months is the difference between evidence and memory.

Hotjar (Contentsquare) — Pros & Cons

Pros

• Native surveys, feedback widgets and user interviews — the one thing Clarity cannot do
• Zone-based heatmaps (Growth) that quantify what a page module contributes instead of coloring pixels
• Funnels, error monitoring and performance monitoring included even on the free plan
• 13 months of data access on Growth vs Clarity's 30-day playback window
• Commercial contract — your visitors' data is not fed into an advertising profile machine
• Generous free tier: 200k sessions/month with a 15-day Growth trial, no credit card

Cons

• Growth is session-metered: $39–49/month at the entry point, rising with volume (roughly $199 at 50k sessions)
• Pro and Enterprise have no published prices — "talk to sales" territory
• AI summaries and Sense features sit behind the paid tiers

Microsoft Clarity — Pros & Cons

Pros

• Genuinely free forever: no paid tier, no seat charge, no session or traffic cap
• Five heatmap types (click, scroll, area, attention, Shopify conversion) plus side-by-side comparison
• AI summaries, AI chat and an MCP server for AI agents — all included free
• Rage-click detection and a script that installs in minutes
• Mobile SDK for Android, iOS, Flutter and React Native
• Runs on 2M+ sites at Microsoft's scale

Cons

• 30-day playback retention — recordings vanish fast unless you favourite them
• No native surveys or feedback widgets (third-party integration only)
• No funnel builder and no error/performance monitoring
• Terms of Use give Microsoft advertising-profile rights over visitor data with no opt-out
• Microsoft can change features or introduce charges at any time (ToU section 9)
• No paid tier means no support obligation or SLA

Pricing

Hotjar (Contentsquare): Free is $0 — up to 200k monthly sessions, 1 project, 1 month data access, heatmaps, replay, funnels, error and performance monitoring, and 100 survey responses per month. Growth is $49/month billed monthly or $39/month billed annually, from 7,000 monthly sessions (the price scales with volume), adding 13 months of data access, 3 projects, zone-based heatmaps, journey analysis and AI summaries. Pro and Enterprise are quote-only.

Microsoft Clarity: $0. No paid tier, no session cap, no traffic ceiling. Clarity's homepage states it outright: "Free forever. Built to grow with your business. No limits on traffic." Your only real cost is the data-rights trade described above.

If your only question is what you pay, Clarity wins outright — but the paid product's job is to earn its $49 with surveys, retention depth and a vendor you can hold accountable.

Decision Guide

Choose Hotjar (Contentsquare) if:

• You need to ask visitors why, not just watch what they did — native surveys and feedback widgets are central to your research
• You do seasonal or quarterly analysis and need more than 30 days of history
• You want zone-based heatmaps that quantify the contribution of specific page elements
• Your compliance team rejects vendors that build advertising profiles from visitor data
• You need funnels and error/performance monitoring next to your recordings

Choose Microsoft Clarity if:

• Your budget is zero and your volumes are large or unpredictable — no session cap ever
• You mainly want to see clicks, scrolls and recordings and investigate real sessions
• You are fine with a consent banner and have read (and accepted) the data terms
• You want AI summaries and an MCP connection without paying for them
• You need app analytics on mobile — Clarity's SDK covers Android, iOS, Flutter and React Native free

Conclusion

For most small and mid-size sites in 2026, Microsoft Clarity is the default choice: free at any volume, fast to install, and its heatmap and recording quality are close enough to Hotjar's that price decides the match. Treat its data terms as the cost, not the billing.

Hotjar — now Contentsquare — is the upgrade path, and it earns its $39–49/month for three specific reasons: native surveys and feedback (a genuinely different kind of evidence), 13 months of data access instead of 30 days, and a commercial contract that keeps Microsoft out of your visitors' behavioral data. If you run product or UX research, the surveys alone justify the subscription. For the product-analytics layer around these tools, see our PostHog vs Mixpanel and Plausible vs Umami guides. Start with Clarity, and upgrade to Contentsquare the day one of its three advantages becomes a requirement.

FAQ

Is Hotjar still available in 2026?

Not as a standalone product. Since August 2026, hotjar.com redirects to contentsquare.com/hotjar, and Contentsquare states that "Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare". New users sign up for Contentsquare, which offers free, Growth, Pro and Enterprise plans; existing Hotjar customers log in through login.contentsquare.com.

Is Microsoft Clarity really free?

Yes, genuinely free: there is no paid tier, no seat charge and no traffic or session cap. The cost is not billing but data rights. Clarity's Terms of Use (section 4.4(c)) make Microsoft an independent controller of the personal data collected through Clarity and allow Microsoft to use it to create user profiles for purposes that include advertising.

How long does Clarity keep session recordings?

Playback data (the recordings themselves) is retained for 30 days. Sessions you label or favourite are kept for 9 months, as is aggregated click data. After the retention window the data is deleted from Clarity servers, including backups.

Which tool has better heatmaps, Hotjar or Clarity?

Clarity offers more heatmap types free: click, scroll, area, attention and Shopify conversion heatmaps, plus side-by-side comparison of two page versions or segments. Contentsquare covers click and scroll on its free plan and adds zone-based heatmaps on Growth, which attribute engagement and conversion to defined page zones instead of raw pixel density. Choose Clarity for variety at zero cost, Contentsquare for quantifying what a page element is worth.

Does Contentsquare / Hotjar have a free plan?

Yes. The Contentsquare free plan costs $0 and includes up to 200,000 monthly sessions, one project, heatmaps, session replay, funnels, error and performance monitoring, 100 survey responses per month and 10+ integrations — plus a 15-day Growth trial with no credit card required.

Do Hotjar and Clarity need a cookie banner in the EU?

Yes, both — and the more demanding kind, because both record sessions rather than just counting visits. Both tools set cookies, so neither is a route out of the consent problem. If cookieless analytics matters to you, look at privacy-first tools like Plausible or Umami instead.

Sources

• Contentsquare official pricing (Hotjar successor)
• Contentsquare — Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare
• Microsoft Clarity — free heatmaps & session recordings
• Microsoft Clarity data retention documentation
• Microsoft Clarity Terms of Use

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