Microsoft Clarity vs Hotjar
Clarity vs Hotjar: Hotjar is now Contentsquare, and the free plan changed
Most comparisons still quote Hotjar's 35-sessions-a-day free plan. hotjar.com now redirects to Contentsquare, where the free plan is 200,000 sessions a month. Here is the comparison with the numbers a new signup actually gets, every claim linked to the vendor's own page, fetched 7 October 2026.
First, what happened to Hotjar? It became Contentsquare.
"Hotjar is now Contentsquare."
"It's no longer possible to create a new account on Hotjar. New users can sign up for free on Contentsquare." Existing accounts still log in. The migration page lists Hotjar Free at "35 / day" sessions and Contentsquare Free at "200k / month".contentsquare
The old numbers are wrong now
Every "Clarity is free, Hotjar caps you at 35 a day" post is describing a plan nobody can sign up for. Compared with Contentsquare Free, Clarity's edge is no longer volume. It is the absence of a paid tier, and a very different privacy arrangement.
Hotjar's help centre is still live and still headed "Hotjar Documentation". This page quotes it for retention, storage and the DPA, and says so each time; whether each line applies to a new Contentsquare account is Contentsquare's to confirm.
Price and how much it captures
Both are free to start. The numbers most comparison posts still quote for Hotjar (35 sessions a day, paid from $39) are the old Hotjar; a new signup today lands on Contentsquare’s plans.
| What | Microsoft Clarity | Hotjar, now Contentsquare | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | "It’s free, forever." No paid tier exists.microsoft | Contentsquare Free, $0: "200k monthly sessions", "1 project", "Replays, Heatmaps + Funnels", "Error & performance monitoring", "Basic surveys".contentsquare | Hotjar’s old free plan captured 35 sessions a day; Contentsquare’s own migration page calls the new one "190x more". The free tiers are now comparable in volume. |
| Paid tiers | None. "You’ll never run into traffic limits or be forced to upgrade to a paid version."microsoft | Growth at "$49" a month or "$39" paid yearly, "from 7k monthly sessions", "13 month data access", "3 projects". Pro "from 1m+ monthly sessions", "up to 6 projects". Enterprise with "dedicated support & SLAs".contentsquare | Clarity has nowhere to grow into; Contentsquare has three steps up, and the enterprise tier is where Hotjar’s parent company has always lived. |
| Session ceiling and sampling | "No sampling", and "Clarity records up to 100,000 sessions per project per day."microsoft | Free plan "200k monthly sessions"; Growth "from 7k monthly sessions". The pricing page does not say what happens past the cap.contentsquare | Roughly 3 million sessions a month on Clarity against 200,000 on Contentsquare Free. For a small site neither limit bites; for a busy store, Clarity’s is far higher. |
| Why it is free | Microsoft says so: it "processes a massive amount of anonymous data around user behavior to gain insights and improve machine learning models that power many of our products and services. Clarity is one of the ways Microsoft gathers this important data".microsoft | The free plan is the entry to paid plans; Contentsquare publishes no statement about using free-plan data beyond its own service, so this page makes none. | One tool is paid for in data, the other is a conventional freemium. Neither is wrong; they are different deals. |
What each one records
Both tools do the same core job, recordings and heatmaps, which is why they are compared so often. The differences are at the edges.
| What | Microsoft Clarity | Hotjar, now Contentsquare | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recordings and heatmaps | Both. "Always-on recordings", "instantaneous click, scroll, area, and conversion heatmaps", plus "rage click and dead click insights". Recordings "aren’t video streams" but page reconstructions.microsoft | Both. "Replays, Heatmaps + Funnels" on every plan; "Zone-based heatmaps" and "Attention Maps" from Growth.contentsquare | Core parity. Pick on the rows below, not this one. |
| Funnels, surveys, error monitoring | Conversion heatmaps and "Smart events". Surveys and error monitoring are not listed on Clarity’s pricing page.microsoft | Funnels, "Basic surveys" and "Error & performance monitoring" are all on the Free plan.contentsquare | If you want to ask visitors a question, or see JavaScript errors next to the replay, Contentsquare Free has it and Clarity does not list it. |
| AI inside the product | "Copilot and session insights", "Copilot and heatmaps summarization".microsoft | "Sense Chat & AI summaries" and "Sense Analyst lite" from Growth; not listed on Free.contentsquare | Both summarise recordings for you. On Contentsquare that starts at the paid tier. |
| Your own AI reading the data | A Data Export API and an MCP server on it: 10 requests per project per day, the previous 1 to 3 days, 1,000 rows per request.microsoft | "Connect with LLMs (MCP)" is listed on the Free plan. The pricing page publishes no request or history limits for it.contentsquare | This is the row to check if you want ChatGPT or Claude working the data for you. Clarity’s published limits are tight; Contentsquare’s are unpublished, so test before you rely on either. |
How long the data lasts
This is the row that separates a tool you check this week from one you can ask about last quarter.
| What | Microsoft Clarity | Hotjar, now Contentsquare | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recordings | "The data is retained ... up to 30 days from the time of recording."microsoft | Hotjar’s documentation: "After 365 days, our automatic deletion process will begin"; recordings "365 days starting the date of capture". Contentsquare’s pricing page gives "13 month data access" for Growth and states no window for Free.hotjar | A Clarity recording from six weeks ago is gone. Under Hotjar’s policy a year-old one is still there. Confirm which policy a new Contentsquare Free account is on before you count on it. |
| Heatmaps | "You can access heat maps for up to 9 months." A heat map is "limited to up to 100,000 page views".microsoft | Hotjar’s documentation: heatmaps "365 days starting the date of capture".hotjar | Both keep the aggregate longer than the detail. |
Privacy: who holds the data and where
The part the agency posts skip, and the part a legal or procurement review asks about first.
| What | Microsoft Clarity | Hotjar, now Contentsquare | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Controller or processor | "Clarity is GDPR-compliant as a data controller." Microsoft decides how the data is used.microsoft | Hotjar’s documentation requires "user consent, and for you to have accepted our Data Processing Agreement", the processor arrangement.hotjar | A processor acts on your instructions and signs a DPA. A controller does not need your instructions. This is the deepest difference between the two. |
| Will they sign a DPA? | No. "We are not able to sign any additional terms or contracts (e.g., DPAs)."microsoft | Yes. Hotjar’s legal page lists a "Data Processing Agreement (DPA)" in English and German.hotjar | If your review requires a signed DPA, only one of these can give you one. |
| Where it is stored | "Clarity data is stored in one of Microsoft’s US data centers." Not configurable.microsoft | Hotjar’s documentation: "stored in Ireland, European Union (EU) on the Amazon Web Services infrastructure, eu-west-1", with "designated sub-processors, some of which are located outside of the EU".hotjar | For an EU or UK operator, one is a transfer out by default and the other is not, though the sub-processor line still matters. |
| Health, finance and government sites | Excluded by the terms: "You will not use the Offering in connection with content which may contain sensitive user materials, such as health care, financial services or government-related information."microsoft | No equivalent clause found in Hotjar’s documentation, and no first-party statement on HIPAA either way. Compliance vendors report that Hotjar does not sign a Business Associate Agreement; ask Contentsquare in writing. | Clarity rules itself out of regulated sites in its own terms. Contentsquare does not, but has not said yes either. |
The question neither tool answers
A recording shows one person leaving. A heatmap shows where a thousand people clicked. Neither says the button they tapped did nothing, that the error sat below the fold on a phone, or which element is costing the most orders this month. That is a third job, and it is the one Harvv does alongside either of them.
Where Clarity and Contentsquare are ahead of Harvv
Stated plainly, because a comparison that hides them is not one.
- Watching a session. Both can show you one person's visit. Harvv measures behaviour and does not record it, so it cannot.
- Surveys. Contentsquare Free can ask a visitor a question. Harvv does not.
- Long memory. Hotjar's documented 365 days beats Harvv's hot window of approximately 30 days, though Harvv keeps daily roll-ups for the life of your account.
What Harvv adds
Measured, not recorded.
- 71 event types across 10 categories: dead clicks, rage clicks, aborted taps, hesitation, form abandonment, scroll depth, Core Web Vitals, errors, and the element behind each.
- Zero personally identifiable information and no recordings, so there is no footage to mask, no single visitor to find, and nothing for a regulated site to hand over.
- Findings in plain English, naming the page, the element and the fix, and the same answers inside Slack, Claude, and ChatGPT through the Harvv MCP.
- One 40 KB gzipped script, loaded async, free for one site with 50K events a month.
Related, sourced the same way
Harvv vs Microsoft Clarity, row by row, including the Data Export API limits. Microsoft Clarity vs Google Analytics, counting against watching. Is Microsoft Clarity HIPAA or GDPR compliant?, answered in Microsoft's own words.
The questions people actually search
What are the key differences between Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity?
Both record sessions and draw heatmaps. The differences: Clarity is free with no paid tier and keeps recordings 30 days; Hotjar, now Contentsquare, has a free plan of 200,000 sessions a month and paid plans from $39 a month, with Hotjar’s documentation keeping data 365 days. Clarity is the data controller, stores data in the US and will not sign a DPA; Hotjar’s documentation describes a processor arrangement with a DPA and EU storage. Clarity’s terms exclude health, finance and government content.
What happened to Hotjar?
Contentsquare’s own page says "Hotjar is now Contentsquare" and that "it’s no longer possible to create a new account on Hotjar. New users can sign up for free on Contentsquare." hotjar.com redirects there. Existing Hotjar users can still log in. Contentsquare acquired Hotjar earlier and has folded the brand into its own platform; Contentsquare’s page gives no date, so this page does not state one.
How much does Hotjar cost now?
Hotjar’s pricing page redirects to Contentsquare’s. Free is $0 with 200,000 monthly sessions and one project. Growth is $49 a month, or $39 a month paid yearly, from 7,000 monthly sessions with 13 months of data access and three projects. Pro and Enterprise are quote-based. Those are the published numbers on 7 October 2026; the old Hotjar prices in most comparison posts no longer apply to a new signup.
Is Hotjar free?
The product that replaced it is. Contentsquare’s Free plan is $0 and includes replays, heatmaps, funnels, basic surveys and error monitoring for up to 200,000 sessions a month. That is far more than Hotjar’s old free plan, which Contentsquare’s own page lists at 35 sessions a day.
Is Microsoft Clarity any good?
For recordings and heatmaps at no cost, yes. Unlimited free use with "no sampling" and up to 100,000 sessions a day is a real offer. The limits are the ones Microsoft publishes: 30-day recordings, Microsoft as data controller, no DPA, US storage, terms that exclude regulated content, and an API that allows 10 requests a day. Whether those matter depends on your site.
Which one should a small site pick?
If you need a signed DPA, EU storage, surveys, or recordings older than a month, Contentsquare Free. If you want the most recordings for nothing and none of those apply, Clarity. Either way, both show you what happened; neither tells you why the visitor gave up or which element is costing you orders, which is the job Harvv does alongside them.
Keep the recordings. Find out why.
Point Harvv at your site and get the findings a replay tool leaves out, each one naming the element, the page and the fix. No card, no video to watch.
Harvv vs Clarity · Clarity vs Google Analytics · Clarity and privacy