5 Cheaper Hotjar Alternatives in 2026 (Free Heatmaps and Session Replay)

Hotjar made heatmaps and session recordings affordable for small businesses: see where visitors click, how far they scroll and where they get stuck. In 2025–2026 Hotjar was folded into Contentsquare, its parent company, and pricing moved with it. Today Contentsquare's Experience Analytics Growth plan costs $39 a month billed yearly ($49 monthly), with Pro and Enterprise on custom quotes, and Voice of Customer surveys start at $79 a month. Legacy Hotjar Business plans started at $80 a month for 500 daily sessions and climbed steeply with traffic. A busy e-commerce site can easily pay several hundred dollars a month for recordings, heatmaps and surveys together.

There is a free tool from Microsoft that covers most of what small and medium sites use Hotjar for, and several others with generous free tiers.

What Hotjar actually costs in 2026

Growth pricing rises as session volume increases. Contentsquare adds AI summaries ("Sense") on Growth and above. The current tiers are listed on Hotjar's official pricing page.

The 5 cheaper alternatives at a glance

How we picked these alternatives

We compared heatmaps, session recordings, funnels, surveys, data retention, privacy controls, self-hosting and the cost at 100,000 monthly sessions. Prices checked 28 October 2026.

1. Microsoft Clarity

Price: Free, with no traffic limits. See Microsoft Clarity's official site for current plans.

Microsoft Clarity is the obvious first stop: heatmaps and session recordings that are completely free with no session caps. Add a script to your site and Clarity records sessions, builds click, scroll and area heatmaps, and flags frustration signals such as rage clicks, dead clicks and quick backs. It integrates with Google Analytics 4, and Copilot can summarise recordings and heatmaps in plain language.

Microsoft Clarity pricing in detail

What you get

• Unlimited session recordings and heatmaps.
• Rage-click, dead-click and excessive-scroll detection.
• Copilot summaries of user behaviour.
• GA4 integration to connect behaviour with analytics.
• Privacy masking of sensitive text by default.

Where it falls short

• No surveys or feedback widgets.
• Limited data retention (recordings are kept for a limited time; favourite them to keep longer).
• Microsoft uses aggregated data to improve its products — review the terms for your privacy policy.

Who it's best for

Almost any website that wants heatmaps and recordings without paying. Skip it if you need surveys or long recording retention.

2. PostHog

Price: Free each month for 5,000 session recordings and 1 million analytics events; usage-based after that. Open source and self-hostable. See PostHog's official pricing page for current plans.

PostHog is an all-in-one product analytics platform for product and engineering teams: session replay, product analytics, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys and a data warehouse. Its free monthly allowance is large, and you only pay for usage beyond it, with transparent per-unit pricing and billing caps. For a SaaS product, it replaces Hotjar and several other tools at once.

PostHog pricing in detail

You can set spending limits per product so bills never surprise you.

What you get

• Session replay with console logs and network requests.
• Product analytics — funnels, retention, paths.
• Feature flags and A/B tests.
• In-app surveys.
• Self-hosting option for full data control.

Where it falls short

• More complex than Hotjar for non-technical marketers.
• Heatmaps are more basic than dedicated tools.
• Usage pricing needs monitoring at high volumes.

Who it's best for

SaaS and product teams who want replay, analytics and experiments in one tool. Skip it if your team is mainly marketers who want simple heatmaps.

3. Mouseflow

Price: Free (500 recordings a month); Starter about $31 a month billed yearly; Growth about $109; higher plans for more sessions. See Mouseflow's official pricing page for current plans.

Mouseflow is a direct Hotjar competitor with heatmaps, session recordings, conversion funnels, form analytics and feedback surveys. Its form analytics show which fields cause people to hesitate or abandon — valuable for lead-generation and checkout forms — and its friction score highlights sessions worth watching.

Mouseflow pricing in detail

What you get

• Click, scroll, movement and attention heatmaps.
• Session recordings with friction scoring.
• Conversion funnels and form analytics.
• Feedback surveys.
• Integrations with analytics and A/B testing tools.

Where it falls short

• Paid tiers scale quickly with traffic.
• Free plan is small.
• Interface is less modern than Hotjar's.

Good to know

Mouseflow can record every session on a sample of pages, or a percentage of all sessions, so you can control usage and stay inside your plan. Its funnel and form reports work best when you define the exact steps — product page, cart, checkout — before collecting data. Mouseflow is GDPR-friendly with EU data storage options, which helps European businesses.

Who it's best for

Marketers and conversion specialists who care about form performance. Skip it if you have high traffic and a tight budget — use Clarity.

4. Smartlook

Price: Free (3,000 sessions a month); Pro from about €39–55 a month; Enterprise custom. See Smartlook's official pricing page for current plans.

Smartlook, owned by Cisco, records sessions on websites and native mobile apps (iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter and others). It combines replay with events, funnels, heatmaps and crash reports, which makes it a good fit for teams that need to understand behaviour across web and app.

Smartlook pricing in detail

What you get

• Session recordings for web and mobile apps.
• Heatmaps on websites.
• Events and funnels.
• Crash reports for mobile apps.
• Integrations with analytics and support tools.

Where it falls short

• Short data retention on lower plans.
• Fewer survey features.
• Pricing in euros for many plans.

Good to know

Smartlook's mobile SDKs record app sessions with privacy masking for sensitive fields, which is essential for banking or health apps. Events can be defined retroactively from recordings, so you do not need to plan every event in advance. It integrates with tools such as Mixpanel, Amplitude and Intercom, linking recordings to user profiles.

Who it's best for

Teams with a mobile app who need recordings across web and app. Skip it if you only have a website.

5. OpenReplay

Price: Open source and free to self-host; managed cloud plans available. See OpenReplay's official pricing page for current plans.

OpenReplay is an open-source session replay platform that you can run on your own servers. It records sessions with DevTools-level detail — console logs, network calls, performance — and adds co-browsing for live support. Because data never leaves your infrastructure, it suits companies with strict privacy or compliance requirements.

OpenReplay pricing in detail

What you get

• Session replay with DevTools data.
• Co-browsing for live support.
• Privacy controls and data stays on your servers.
• Product analytics basics.
• Open-source code.

Where it falls short

• You host and maintain it.
• Heatmaps and surveys are limited.
• Requires engineering time.

Good to know

OpenReplay can be deployed on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure or any Kubernetes cluster, and its documentation includes one-click installers for common clouds. Because recordings include network requests and console logs, it is particularly useful for debugging customer-reported issues. Plan storage carefully: recordings consume space quickly, so set retention periods from the start.

Who it's best for

Developers and regulated businesses that must keep recordings on their own infrastructure. Skip it if you have no engineering capacity.

What 100,000 monthly sessions cost

Most teams do not need to record every session. Sampling 10–20% of sessions gives plenty of insight at a fraction of the cost.

How to switch without losing your work

1. Export the insights you rely on — screenshots of key heatmaps, survey results as CSV.
2. Install the new tool alongside Hotjar for two weeks to compare.
3. Recreate surveys and feedback widgets in the new tool or a form tool.
4. Update your privacy policy and cookie banner to list the new tool.
5. Remove the Hotjar script to keep your site fast.

Which one should you choose?

• You want heatmaps and recordings for free: Microsoft Clarity.
• You run a SaaS product and want analytics too: PostHog.
• You optimise forms and conversions: Mouseflow.
• You need web and mobile app recordings: Smartlook.
• You must keep data on your own servers: OpenReplay.

Hidden costs and gotchas

• Session-based pricing. Costs rise with traffic — set sampling rates before a big campaign.
• Data retention. Free plans keep recordings for a short time. Save important sessions.
• Privacy and consent. Session recording needs a clear privacy notice and, in the EU, usually consent.
• Page speed. Every tracking script adds weight. Remove tools you no longer use.
• Survey costs. Contentsquare now sells surveys separately from experience analytics.

Our verdict

Microsoft Clarity is the best Hotjar alternative for most websites — unlimited heatmaps and recordings for free. PostHog is best for SaaS teams, Mouseflow for form and conversion work, Smartlook for mobile apps, and OpenReplay for companies that must self-host.

More cheaper alternatives: see our breakdowns of the cheaper options to Semrush, Wix and Klaviyo.

Related reading: What Is a Heatmap, and What Does It Actually Tell You?, What Is Conversion Rate Optimization? and What Analytics Should You Actually Track?.

Planning a switch, or not sure which tool fits the way your team works? Book a free call and we will look at your stack with you.

Prices are US list prices in USD unless marked, checked on 27 October 2026. "Annual" means the per-month price when billed yearly. Vendors change pricing often, so confirm on the vendor's site before buying. Product names and logos are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here for identification only.

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