Our take
Pick Microsoft Clarity if site owners who will stay on Free forever at $0 while they open a first Click map + recording, then keep Clarity beside Plausible for counts — not Hotjar’s paid heatmaps first unless they need that survey stack. Pick Hotjar if uX / product teams who will stay on Free at $0 (200k sessions, 1 project, 1 month of access) while they open a first Session Replay list, then Growth at $39/month
Best for
Microsoft Clarity Recordings you start at a public $0
Hotjar A replay list you start at a public $
Free plan
Microsoft Clarity $0 · homepage: “Free forever.” “No limits” on the marketing block we fetched. No paid upgrade printed
Hotjar $0 · forever. 200k monthly sessions. 1 month data access. 1 project. Replays, Heatmaps, and Funnels. Error and performance monitoring. Basic surveys (100 responses / month, 3 widgets). Replay capture 5% of sessions (max 10k). Replay access 1 month. MCP up to 300 tool calls / month. No card
Lowest paid
Microsoft Clarity Not published by the vendor
Hotjar Growth $39/mo
Runs where
Microsoft Clarity Local or hosted
Hotjar Hosted
Watch out
Microsoft Clarity There is no printed traffic-cap $ to upgrade into
Hotjar Free replay capture is 5% (max 10k) and 1 month of access
Last checked
Microsoft Clarity 2026-10-23 · clarity.microsoft.com
Hotjar 2026-10-23 · hotjar.com/pricing
site owners who will stay on Free forever at $0 while they open a first Click map + recording, then keep Clarity beside Plausible for counts — not Hotjar’s paid heatmaps first unless they need that survey stack.
Read the Microsoft Clarity pageuX / product teams who will stay on Free at $0 (200k sessions, 1 project, 1 month of access) while they open a first Session Replay list, then Growth at $39/month yearly ($49 monthly) when they need 13-month access or a second project.
Read the Hotjar page
