Contentsquare vs Microsoft Clarity
We give Contentsquare a 2.8 GPA and Microsoft Clarity a 3.2, out of 4.0. Contentsquare grades higher on features. Microsoft Clarity grades higher on value for money, the free plan and ease of use. They get the same grade on platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Contentsquare
Heatmaps, session replays and surveys, formerly sold as Hotjar
Microsoft Clarity
Free session recordings and heatmaps from Microsoft, no traffic cap
How we grade them
| 2.8GPAContentsquareGood | 3.2GPAMicrosoft ClarityVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | B$0: the free plan covers up to 200k sessions, so a 10,000-visitor site fits, but it records only 5% of visits. Recording more starts with Growth at $39 a month billed yearly for just 7k sessions, fewer than this site has. Graded against Clarity, which records everything free, that's a B. | 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 | BFree forever up to 200k sessions, with heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring and basic surveys, so one person can live on it. The limits: 5% of sessions recorded, up to 10k, 1 project and 1 month of data. | 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 | BHeatmaps, attention maps, replays, funnels, journeys, error and Core Web Vitals monitoring, surveys and Sense AI summaries. That's the whole experience analytics job, though Free and Growth record only a share of visits and APIs need Pro. | 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 | CNo rating on record. A snippet starts the heatmaps and replays, but Hotjar now sits inside Contentsquare's bigger platform, new users sign up there, and journeys, projects and surveys take some learning. | 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 only, with no desktop or phone app. It connects to Google Analytics, Jira, HubSpot, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Unbounce, Optimizely and AB Tasty, and AI assistants can plug in through MCP on every plan. | 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 | heatmaps and replays of a marketing 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: Contentsquare and Microsoft Clarity. How we grade
Price against what you get
Contentsquare starts at $39 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Microsoft Clarity has no paid plan and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and Microsoft Clarity starts $39 a month lower. Of the other website and product analytics tools on the chart, none scores higher than Contentsquare for less, and none scores higher than Microsoft Clarity for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Contentsquare starts at $39 per month for up to 7k sessions, billed yearly ($49 billed monthly). Microsoft Clarity is free.
- Contentsquare also covers surveys.
At a glance
| Contentsquare | Microsoft Clarity | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | $39 per month for up to 7k sessions, billed yearly ($49 billed monthly) | Free |
| Free plan | Free forever: up to 200k sessions a month with replays of 5% of them (max 10k), heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring, basic surveys, 1 project and 1 month of data. | 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 | ||
| Made by | Contentsquare | Microsoft |
| Price read from | contentsquare.com | clarity.microsoft.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Contentsquare
- Marketers and designers who want to see how visitors use a page
- Former Hotjar users moving to the Contentsquare plans
- Small sites that fit in the free 200k-session allowance
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
Contentsquare
- New Hotjar accounts can no longer be created; new users sign up for Contentsquare, and existing Hotjar users log in there.
- Free and Growth record only a share of sessions (5% up to 10k, and 15%); recording every session needs Pro or Enterprise.
- Surveys beyond 100 responses a month are a separate Voice of Customer plan starting at $79 a month.
- APIs, alerts, form analysis and Adobe Analytics integration need Pro or Enterprise, priced through sales.
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
Contentsquare
- Heatmaps and attention maps
- Shows where visitors click, hover and scroll, with attention maps for engagement; zone heatmaps and side-by-side comparisons start on Growth.
- Session replays
- Replays of real visits to spot struggles and errors. Free records 5% of sessions and Growth 15%; Pro and Enterprise can record all of them.
- Funnels and journeys
- Funnels on every plan show where people drop off; Growth links funnels to replays and adds journey analysis and impact estimates.
- Error and performance monitoring
- Catches JavaScript errors and shows Core Web Vitals and how slow pages affect behavior, included on the free plan.
- Sense AI
- AI summaries of heatmaps and replays and a chat for questions about your data on Growth and up; every plan can connect AI assistants through MCP.
- Surveys and feedback
- Feedback widgets and surveys tied to replays, sold as Voice of Customer: 100 responses a month free, more from $79 a month.
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
Contentsquare
Free$0
Up to 200k monthly sessions, 5% recorded, 1 month of data, 1 project, 7 integrations and an MCP connection for AI assistants.
Growth$39
per month for up to 7k sessions, billed yearly ($49 billed monthly)
13 months of data, 3 projects, zone heatmaps, journeys, Sense AI chat; 15% of sessions recorded. $409 a month at 100k sessions, billed monthly.
ProCustom
Sold through sales: up to 6 projects, up to 100% of sessions recorded, APIs, alerts, form analysis, revenue attribution.
EnterpriseCustom
Sold through sales: unlimited projects, real-time error troubleshooting, synthetic monitoring, A/B testing analysis, SLAs.
Microsoft Clarity
Clarity$0
Free forever with all features: recordings, heatmaps, rage and dead click insights, 40+ filters, Copilot and smart events.
Ways to pay less
Contentsquare
- Annual discount
Save 20% with yearly billing
Paying yearly saves 20%: Growth at 7k sessions is $39 a month instead of $49.
Microsoft Clarity
No public discounts listed.
