Hotjar alternative, after the Contentsquare merger

Hotjar became Contentsquare.
The jobs it did are still yours.

Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare. Contentsquare bought Hotjar in 2021 and merged the company into its group on 1 July 2025. New Hotjar accounts can no longer be created, and hotjar.com now sends you to Contentsquare, whose free plan includes 200,000 sessions and 10,000 replays a month. If you would rather move, Microsoft Clarity is the free answer for heatmaps and recordings. For who visited, from where and whether they converted, Builderify’s visitor journeys do a different job.

Pick my new stack Start free
hotjar.com/pricing 308 → contentsquare.com Checked 4 Oct 2026

By the Builderify team

01 Hotjar, until 1 July 2025 02 Now part of Contentsquare 03 Each job, reassigned
01 / What happened

What happened to Hotjar?
The Contentsquare merger.

Nothing shut down. Hotjar was folded into the company that owned it. Contentsquare acquired Hotjar on 1 September 2021, and on 1 July 2025 Hotjar Ltd. in Malta merged into the Contentsquare Group, so invoices and card payments now come from a Contentsquare entity.

The tools are still there: heatmaps, recordings, surveys and feedback widgets are part of Contentsquare now. What changed is the front door. Contentsquare says it is no longer possible to create a new Hotjar account; new users sign up on Contentsquare.

Where things stand4 October 2026
  • hotjar.com
    Redirects to contentsquare.com/hotjar
    301
  • hotjar.com/pricing
    Redirects to contentsquare.com/pricing
    308
  • New Hotjar accounts
    Sign-up happens on Contentsquare
    Closed
  • Billing
    Invoices from Contentsquare since 1 July 2025
    Moved
  • Heatmaps, replays, surveys
    Inside Contentsquare, free plan included
    Carry on

How it got here

  1. 2014
    Hotjar is founded

    Heatmaps, recordings and feedback for small and mid-sized sites.

  2. 1 Sep 2021
    Contentsquare buys Hotjar

    Hotjar keeps its own brand, plans and sign-up for now.

  3. 1 Jul 2025
    The merger

    Hotjar Ltd. merges into the Contentsquare Group. Billing moves to Contentsquare.

  4. Today
    One front door

    hotjar.com redirects to Contentsquare, where the free plan and paid plans live.

Dates from Contentsquare’s acquisition announcement and Hotjar’s billing notice, which also says existing Hotjar installations and integrations keep working.

02 / The free plan

What happened to
the Hotjar free plan?

It got bigger, not smaller. By Contentsquare’s own comparison, Hotjar’s free plan captured 35 sessions a day; Contentsquare Free captures 200,000 sessions a month across your whole account. New accounts also start with a 15-day trial of Growth, no card needed.

Then · Hotjar Free
35
sessions a day

No longer offered: it is not possible to create a new Hotjar account.

Now · Contentsquare Free
200k sessions a month
  • 10,000 session replays a month
  • Heatmaps and funnels
  • Error and performance monitoring
  • Basic surveys: 100 responses a month, 3 surveys at a time
  • 1 project, $0

When free is not enough: the Growth plan

Priced by monthly sessions, billed monthly; paying yearly saves 20%. Growth adds journey analysis, zone-based heatmaps and 13 months of data (2 months for replays). Its replay allowance is fixed and can’t be increased.

Experience Analytics · USD
  1. 7k $49
    7k replays
  2. 10k $69
    10k replays
  3. 15k $99
    15k replays
  4. 20k $119
    20k replays
  5. 25k $139
    20k replays
  6. 30k $159
    20k replays
  7. 35k $179
    20k replays
  8. 45k $219
    20k replays
  9. 60k $279
    20k replays
  10. 75k $339
    20k replays
  11. 85k $369
    20k replays
  12. 100k $409
    20k replays
  13. 120k $469
    20k replays
  14. 150k $569
    22k replays
  15. 200k $739
    30k replays

Above 200k sessions, Contentsquare quotes Growth on request; Pro and Enterprise start at 1 million sessions and are sold through its team. Surveys are priced separately: the free Voice of Customer plan includes 100 responses a month and Growth starts at $99 a month for 500. Read from contentsquare.com/pricing on 4 October 2026.

03 / Clarity vs Hotjar

Microsoft Clarity vs Hotjar,
free plan against free plan.

If what you used Hotjar for was heatmaps and recordings at no cost, Clarity is the free heatmap tool most people move to. Microsoft describes it as free forever, with no paid version to upgrade to. Here it is against what Hotjar’s free plan became.

Microsoft Clarity compared with Contentsquare Free, the plan that replaced Hotjar Free
Feature Free forever Microsoft Clarity Formerly Hotjar Contentsquare Free
Price Free, no paid tier Free; Growth from $49 a month
Traffic Up to 100,000 sessions per project per day 200k sessions a month per account
Session recordings Yes; Clarity says it doesn't sample traffic 10k replays a month
Heatmaps Yes, up to 100,000 page views per heatmap Yes; zone-based heatmaps on Growth
Funnels Yes Yes
Errors JavaScript and click errors, as filters Error and performance monitoring
Surveys Not listed 100 responses a month
Data kept Recordings 30 days; favourites and a sample up to 9 months Not stated for Free; Growth keeps 13 months, replays 2
Sites and people Unlimited projects and team members 1 project on Free, 3 on Growth
Pick Clarity when

You want free heatmaps and recordings with no session tier to watch, on as many sites as you run. Two things to plan for: in regions that require consent, Clarity needs it before it records, and Microsoft says it shouldn’t be used on sites aimed at under-18s.

Stay on Contentsquare when

You relied on Hotjar’s surveys and feedback widgets, or you want journey analysis and longer history later. You already have the account: Contentsquare says existing Hotjar tracking keeps working.

Clarity facts from Microsoft’s Clarity FAQ; Contentsquare facts from its pricing and Hotjar pages, both read 4 October 2026.

04 / Compared

Hotjar alternatives,
compared job by job.

Each row was read from the vendor’s own pricing page on 4 October 2026. A plan name in a cell is the cheapest plan that includes the job; a dash means the pricing page doesn’t list it.

Hotjar alternatives compared on free plan, cheapest paid plan and the seven jobs: heatmaps, recordings, surveys, funnels, A/B testing, error tracking and visitor paths
Tool Free plan Cheapest paid Heatmaps Recordings Surveys Funnels A/B tests Errors Visitor paths
Microsoft Clarity Free, no paid tier None ✓ ✓ – ✓ – ✓ –
Contentsquare 200k sessions, 10k replays $49 a month, 7k sessions ✓ ✓ ✓ 100 responses ✓ – ✓ Growth
PostHog A free tier per product Usage-based; replays from $0.005 each ✓ 3 pages on free ✓ 5,000 a month ✓ 1,500 responses ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Mouseflow 500 sessions a month $39 a month, or $25 billed yearly, 5k sessions ✓ ✓ Advanced ✓ 1 funnel – ✓ Premium
Crazy Egg Yes; limits not stated $29 a month billed yearly, 5k pageviews ✓ ✓ 50 a month ✓ ✓ Plus Plus –
Lucky Orange No; 7-day trial $32 a month billed yearly, 3,500 sessions ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ – – –
Builderify 250 credits a month No plans; one-time packs from $9 – – ✓ NPS, polls Goals by URL ✓ – ✓ per visitor

Prices in US dollars as shown on each page. Crazy Egg prices by tracked pageviews, the others by sessions. PostHog charges per product above its free tiers and stops at the free limits until you add a card.

Not an option for new sites

Smartlook is winding down

Smartlook, now part of Cisco, stopped selling new subscriptions on 31 May 2026 and stopped renewals on 31 August 2026. Paid plans end by 31 August 2027 and the platform is decommissioned on 30 September 2027, per its own notice. Its replay, heatmap and funnel features continue inside Splunk Observability Cloud.

05 / Your stack

What do you actually
need from Hotjar?

Most sites used two or three of Hotjar’s jobs, not all of them. Tick yours, set your traffic, and get the cheapest stack of one or two tools that covers the most of them, priced from each vendor’s published plans.

The jobs you hired Hotjar for Tick any
Jobs you need done
10,000
2
Recommended stackPer month

Covers all 3 jobs you ticked, with one tool.

Contentsquare $0 a month
Free Free plan

Covers Heatmaps, Session recordings, Surveys and feedback

Hotjar's successor. Free covers 200k sessions and 10k replays a month, with 100 survey responses.

Total$0 a month
Every job you ticked is covered.

Cheapest stack that covers the most jobs; ties go to fewer tools. Lucky Orange and Crazy Egg are billed yearly, Contentsquare and Mouseflow monthly. PostHog is estimated from pageviews, one event and one flag request each, with every session recorded. Builderify counts every session as a new visitor and one A/B test a month, so its figure is the most it would cost.

06 / With Builderify

Where Builderify fits,
and where it doesn’t.

Builderify doesn’t draw heatmaps or record sessions. If those are the jobs, use Clarity or Contentsquare. What Builderify does is answer the questions a heatmap can’t: who came, where from, which pages they opened in what order, and whether they converted.

User Journey gives each visitor a readable name, their country, device and traffic source, and a page-by-page timeline with time on each page, scored against goals you set by URL. The guide to tracking conversions by URL shows how goals work, and if you are replacing Google Analytics at the same time, read the Google Analytics alternative guide.

Both are one script tag, so running Clarity for heatmaps next to Builderify for journeys is a normal setup. Every account gets 250 credits a month; a tracked visitor journey costs 0.1 credits and 1,000 page loads cost 10. Over that, one-time packs start at $9 and never expire. The full rate card is on the pricing page.

Illustration · one visitor’s record in User Journey

Hotjar job: Visitor paths

User Journey

Every visitor as a person: source, device, every page in order and the goals they reached. Proxy and VPN traffic is flagged, not silently counted.

0.1 credits per tracked journey
Hotjar job: A/B testing

A/B Testing

Change your own page in a visual editor, split traffic, and read a two-proportion z-test at 95% once each variant has 100 visitors and 10 conversions.

25 credits per test launched, 1 per 1,000 results
Hotjar job: Surveys and feedback

Popups

An NPS survey that scores and stores every 0 to 10 answer, and polls with options and live results, built in the same popup editor.

Runs on your page-load credits
Click and scroll heatmaps: not in Builderify
Session recordings: not in Builderify
JavaScript error tracking: not in Builderify
Start free See User Journey in full
Questions

Hotjar alternatives, before you ask.

Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare. Contentsquare acquired Hotjar in September 2021, and on 1 July 2025 Hotjar Ltd. merged into the Contentsquare Group. New Hotjar accounts can no longer be created, and hotjar.com now redirects to Contentsquare.

The free plan now lives on Contentsquare. Contentsquare Free includes 200,000 sessions and 10,000 session replays a month, heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring and basic surveys with 100 responses a month, for one project. Contentsquare compares that with 35 sessions a day on the old Hotjar free plan.

For heatmaps and session recordings, yes. Microsoft says Clarity is free forever with no paid tier, and it records up to 100,000 sessions per project per day. It does not list surveys or A/B testing, and it keeps recordings for 30 days, with favourites and a sample kept up to 9 months.

No. Builderify does not draw click heatmaps or record sessions, so use Microsoft Clarity or Contentsquare for those. Builderify shows each visitor's journey: where they came from, which pages they opened in what order and whether they reached your goals. It also runs A/B tests and NPS or poll popups on the same script tag.

The Free plan costs nothing for up to 200,000 sessions a month. Growth starts at $49 a month for 7,000 sessions and rises to $739 a month for 200,000 sessions, billed monthly, with 20% off for paying yearly. Surveys are priced separately, from $99 a month for 500 responses.

Sources

Vendor pages, read on 4 October 2026.

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