Google Analytics vs Microsoft Clarity
We give Google Analytics a 3.4 GPA and Microsoft Clarity a 3.2, out of 4.0. Google Analytics grades higher on features. They get the same grade on value for money, the free plan, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Google Analytics
Google's free website and app analytics, with a paid 360 tier
Free plan
Microsoft Clarity
Free session recordings and heatmaps from Microsoft, no traffic cap
Free
How we grade them
| 3.4GPAGoogle AnalyticsVery good | 3.2GPAMicrosoft ClarityVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | A$0 for a 10,000-visitor site, or one a hundred times that size: the standard version is free, with reports, explorations, attribution and BigQuery export. Only Analytics 360, quoted by Google's sales team, costs money. | A$0 at any size, so $0 for a 10,000-visitor site too. Recordings, heatmaps, Copilot summaries and the Google Analytics link are all free, for unlimited sites and team members. Graded against Fullstory and Contentsquare, nothing here costs less. |
| Free plan and trial | AFree for sites and apps of any size, with no traffic cap a normal business would reach. The limits that do exist are about history: user- and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months. | AEverything is free: unlimited sites, team members and traffic, always-on recordings, heatmaps and Copilot. There's no paid plan to push you towards. The one real limit is that data is kept for 30 days. |
| Features | BTraffic and acquisition reports, funnel and path explorations, cohorts, data-driven attribution, predicted audiences and BigQuery export. The whole traffic analytics job, graded against Matomo, Plausible and Fathom. It doesn't record visits; that's Clarity's job. | CRecordings, heatmaps, rage and dead click flags, 40+ filters, Copilot summaries and mobile SDKs. It does the recording and heatmap job fully, but that's a smaller job than the suites do, and data is gone after 30 days. |
| Ease of use | B4.6 from 5,249 App Store ratings for its phone app. You can ask questions in plain words, but explorations, events and attribution settings take some learning to get the most from. | BNo rating on record, but there's nothing to set up beyond a tracking code, or a plugin on WordPress, Shopify or Wix. Recordings start straight away and heatmaps build themselves. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb plus iPhone and Android apps, with links to Google Ads, Search Console, BigQuery, Tag Manager, Firebase and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. No desktop app, which keeps it off an A. | BWeb, plus SDKs that record native iOS and Android, React Native and Flutter apps. It connects to Google Analytics, Tag Manager, WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and Squarespace. There's no desktop or phone app to view it in. |
| Best for | free traffic reports for any size of site | free recordings and heatmaps, no traffic cap |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity. How we grade
Where they differ
- Only Google Analytics lists iOS and Android apps.
- Google Analytics also covers reports.
- Microsoft Clarity also covers session replay.
In commonFree planWebAI featuresWeb analytics
At a glance
| Google Analytics | Microsoft Clarity | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | Not published | Free |
| Free plan | The standard Google Analytics is free for sites and apps of any size, with reports, explorations, attribution and BigQuery export. User- and event-level data is kept for at most 14 months. | Everything is free: unlimited sites, team members, heatmaps and traffic, always-on recordings, Copilot summaries and the Google Analytics integration. Data is kept 30 days. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Microsoft | |
| Price read from | marketingplatform.google.com | clarity.microsoft.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Google Analytics
- Small businesses and site owners who want free traffic reports
- Advertisers running Google Ads campaigns
- Teams that want raw event data in BigQuery
Microsoft Clarity
- Small sites and blogs that want recordings and heatmaps at no cost
- High-traffic sites that would pass other tools' session caps
- Google Analytics users who want to watch the sessions behind the numbers
Worth knowing
Google Analytics
- Analytics 360 has no published price; it is quoted through Google's sales team.
- In the free version, user- and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months; 26, 38 and 50 months are 360 only.
- Intraday data freshness, sub-properties, roll-up reporting and higher limits on custom dimensions and audiences are 360 only.
- Google Ads data in reports is limited to a rolling 36 months, and Google signals data is kept no more than 26 months.
Microsoft Clarity
- Recordings and data are kept only 30 days from the time of recording.
- Sites serving the EEA, UK and Switzerland must pass visitors' consent to Clarity; without it, recordings and funnels may be affected.
- Microsoft uses the anonymous behavior data it collects to improve its own products and machine learning models.
- Deleting one user's data means deleting the whole project.
Key features
Google Analytics
- Traffic and acquisition reports
- Shows how people reach a site or app across paid and organic channels, which pages and screens they use, and what happens in real time.
- Explorations
- Free-form analysis, open or closed funnels, path analysis, segment overlap, cohorts and user lifetime value, built by dragging fields onto a canvas.
- Attribution
- Data-driven attribution, conversion path reports and model comparisons show how each marketing channel contributes to conversions.
- Predictions and insights
- Machine learning predicts actions such as purchase or churn to build audiences, flags notable changes automatically, and answers typed questions.
- Google Ads and BigQuery links
- Imports Google Ads, Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360 data, sends audiences and conversions back, and exports raw events to BigQuery.
Microsoft Clarity
- Session recordings
- Always-on recordings of real visits, with highlights of key moments and filters to find sessions where people got stuck.
- Heatmaps
- Click, scroll, area and conversion heatmaps for every page, generated instantly, with comparisons across page versions.
- Rage and dead click insights
- Flags frustrated repeated clicks and clicks that do nothing, and segments sessions with more than 40 filters.
- Copilot summaries and chat
- AI summaries of sessions, groups of sessions and heatmaps, plus a chat that answers questions about your data.
- Mobile app SDKs
- SDKs for native Android and iOS, React Native and Flutter (Cordova and Ionic on Android) bring recordings to mobile apps.
Plans
Google Analytics
Google Analytics$0
Free: reports, explorations, attribution, predictive audiences, Google Ads and Search Console links, and BigQuery export.
Analytics 360Custom
Sold through sales: intraday data within an hour, sub-properties, roll-up reporting, higher limits, up to 50 months of data and SLAs.
Microsoft Clarity
Clarity$0
Free forever with all features: recordings, heatmaps, rage and dead click insights, 40+ filters, Copilot and smart events.
