Microsoft Clarity vs Hotjar — Why I Switched to the Free Option

Hotjar is one of the most popular user behavior analytics tools — heatmaps, session recordings, conversion funnels. It starts at $32 per month for the basic plan. Microsoft Clarity does almost exactly the same thing and is completely free forever.

What Microsoft Clarity offers for free

Microsoft Clarity gives you unlimited session recordings with no data caps, heatmaps showing where users click and scroll, rage click and dead click detection, JavaScript error tracking, and an AI-powered dashboard that summarizes what is happening on your site.

There is no free trial. There is no paid tier. It is simply free, maintained by Microsoft, and used by millions of websites worldwide.

How it compares to Hotjar

Hotjar's free plan limits you to 35 sessions per day. Once you exceed that, you need to upgrade to the $32 per month plan for 100 daily sessions, or $80 per month for more.

Clarity has no session limits at all. You can record every single visitor on a site with millions of monthly visits and pay nothing.

What Hotjar does better

Hotjar has more polished survey and feedback tools, better funnel analysis, and a more refined user interface. If you run a large ecommerce site that actively uses user feedback surveys, Hotjar's extra features may justify the cost.

For most websites, blogs, SaaS products, and small businesses, Clarity's free tier is more than enough.

How to set up Microsoft Clarity

Go to clarity.microsoft.com, create a free account, add the tracking script to your site, and you will start seeing recordings within minutes. The setup takes about 5 minutes.

The bottom line

If you are paying for Hotjar and primarily using it for session recordings and heatmaps, you are paying $384 per year for something Microsoft gives away for free. Switch to Clarity, save the money, and use it for something that actually grows your business.