Microsoft Clarity vs Hotjar (Contentsquare): 2026 Comparison

Short answer

Many shops run both for a while: Clarity for volume of recordings, Contentsquare Free for surveys. That works, but it adds a second script. More on speed below.

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What changed in 2025–2026

Three changes make most older comparisons out of date:

1. October 31, 2025: Clarity starts enforcing consent in Europe. Visits from the EEA, UK and Switzerland need a valid consent signal. Clarity's consent mode is on by default for those regions, and the default state is "denied" until your banner says otherwise (Microsoft Learn).
2. 2026: Hotjar folds into Contentsquare. hotjar.com redirects to contentsquare.com, new Hotjar accounts are closed, and pricing is now Contentsquare's (Contentsquare). Contentsquare had announced the acquisition of Hotjar back in September 2021 (press release). Existing Hotjar accounts still work, but Contentsquare may move them to its own product with notice, after which Hotjar data is read-only for 90 days and then deleted (Hotjar service schedule; details in the FAQ below).
3. AI everywhere. Clarity has Copilot features such as heatmap insights and chat (Clarity FAQ). Contentsquare Growth includes Sense AI chat and replay and heatmap summaries, and even Free includes an MCP connection for AI assistants (Contentsquare pricing).

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Price

All Contentsquare figures are from contentsquare.com/pricing, checked November 5, 2026.

Example: a shop with 60,000 sessions a month that wants heatmaps, replays and surveys on Contentsquare Growth pays $279 + $99 = $378 a month on monthly billing. On annual billing it's about $223 + $79 = $302 a month, and Contentsquare offers an extra 10% off the cheaper plan when you take two Growth plans. On Clarity the same shop pays $0 but has no surveys.

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Heatmaps

Both tools offer the heatmaps most shops need: click, scroll and an attention or area view, split by device.

Clarity

• Click and scroll heatmaps and area maps, with rage clicks (repeated clicks in one spot) and dead clicks (clicks with no response) (Clarity FAQ).
• One heatmap covers up to 100,000 page views.
• Heatmap insights from Copilot summarize what a heatmap shows. Microsoft warns that generative AI can't do math reliably, so check numbers yourself.

Contentsquare

• Heatmaps on Free; zone-based heatmaps (which show how each zone of a page performs) on Growth.
• "Page groups" aren't on Free (Contentsquare pricing). On a shop, page groups let you see all product pages as one heatmap, which is often what you want.
• Impact quantification on Growth estimates how much a behavior or issue affects conversion.

For shops: the most useful heatmap question is "do people who click this element buy more?" Neither free plan answers that directly. Contentsquare's impact quantification (Growth) gets closest. We explain how to read shop heatmaps in how to analyze heatmaps.

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Recordings and retention

This is where the two differ most.

Sources: Clarity data retention, Contentsquare pricing.

What this means:

• If you want to filter for, say, "mobile visitors who rage-clicked on the cart," Clarity gives you the most recordings to choose from.
• If you study a problem once a month, either works. Favorite the recordings you need in Clarity so they survive past 30 days.
• If you need to show a client a recording from three months ago, neither free plan helps.

A tip that applies to both: don't watch recordings at random. Start with a question and a filter. See how to analyze session recordings.

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Surveys and feedback

Clarity has no surveys. If you want to ask visitors "What stopped you from buying today?", you need another tool.

Contentsquare includes basic surveys on Free (100 responses a month, 3 surveys). Voice of Customer Growth adds branding, embedded surveys, advanced targeting and AI analysis of answers, from $79/month billed annually for 500 responses (Contentsquare pricing).

For many shops this is the deciding factor. Recordings show what people do; surveys tell you why. If you'd pair Clarity with a separate survey tool anyway, compare that combined cost with Contentsquare.

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AI features

Sources: Clarity FAQ, Contentsquare pricing.

AI summaries save time when you have hundreds of recordings. They don't replace looking. Use them to decide which recordings to watch, not to skip watching.

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Privacy and consent in the EU

This section matters most if a large share of your visitors are in Europe. This is not legal advice; check with your privacy advisor.

Microsoft Clarity

• Consent is enforced for EEA, UK and Swiss visitors since October 31, 2025. Clarity does not place cookies in those regions without valid consent, and deletes its cookies if consent is denied (Microsoft Learn).
• What you lose without consent: Clarity still collects cookieless data, but a visit to page A and then page B counts as two separate sessions, and "full session replays and user journey continuity are unavailable" (Clarity FAQ).
• How to pass consent: with a supported consent platform, Clarity's consent API, or Google Consent Mode. Microsoft's Google Consent Mode page says Clarity "automatically interprets and honors" GCM signals (Microsoft Learn). Note: one answer in the Clarity FAQ still says GCM support is "coming soon," so test your setup.
• Advertising: if ad_storage is granted, Clarity shares data with Microsoft Ads. If denied, it doesn't (Microsoft Learn).
• Where data goes: Microsoft Azure. EU customers contract with Microsoft Ireland, which uses standard contractual clauses (SCCs) for transfers to Microsoft in the US. The FAQ says "Microsoft/Clarity has access to the data" (Clarity FAQ).
• Deleting one person's data: the FAQ says you need to delete the entire project.

Contentsquare

• Where data goes: visitor data for Free and Growth plans is hosted in Ireland (AWS eu-west-1 and Azure North Europe), according to Contentsquare's sub-processor list of June 2026 (Contentsquare sub-processors).
• Consent: like any session-replay tool, it should only run after the visitor agrees. In most EU countries, regulators treat heatmaps and recordings as needing consent. Our GDPR guide for heatmaps and recordings explains why.

In practice: with a 50–70% consent rate, both tools see only part of your visitors. That's not a reason to pick one over the other. It is a reason to set up your banner properly and to read your data with that gap in mind. Step-by-step setup for Clarity is in Clarity and cookie consent in the EU.

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Speed impact

Any script you add costs some loading and processing time. Two public data points:

Execution times come from the third-party-web dataset (file 2026-03-01-entity-scripting.json), which is based on HTTP Archive's Lighthouse runs on mobile with a slowed-down CPU. Averages across very different sites, so treat them as a rough comparison, not a promise for your shop. The Contentsquare tag is not listed separately in that dataset. Our method for the size measurement is in the script weight study.

Practical advice: run one recording tool, not two, once you've decided. Load it after your consent banner, so visitors who decline don't download it at all.

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Which to choose

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When you need something else

Both tools tell you what happens on your pages. Neither, on its free plan, helps you prove a fix works, and neither shows revenue per element. Signs you've outgrown them:

• You keep finding problems but can't tell which fix actually raised sales. You need A/B testing.
• You want to know whether clicking the size guide goes together with more orders. You need click-to-revenue data.
• You're paying for Contentsquare + a survey tool + a testing tool, and juggling three scripts.

Options in that case: a separate testing tool next to Clarity (see VWO alternatives), heatmap.com for revenue per element on larger Shopify stores, or an all-in-one tool.

Varly is the all-in-one tool we build. It combines heatmaps, recordings, surveys, click to revenue (orders, revenue or leads of visitors who clicked an element vs. those who didn't) and A/B tests in one script, hosted in Germany. Like Clarity, it recognizes key clicks such as Add to cart without code and lets you save segments. It's in private beta; the planned price at launch is €99 per website per month ($125 outside Europe), which may still change.

When Varly is not the right choice:

• You need it today. Varly is waitlist-only for now. Clarity and Contentsquare Free are available right away.
• Free is enough. If heatmaps and recordings answer your questions, Clarity costs nothing.
• You have a mobile app. Varly is web-only.
• You need fully interactive heatmaps or live session views. Varly doesn't have them.
• You need US data residency. Varly stores data in the EU only.

For a full list of options, see Hotjar alternatives for ecommerce and Microsoft Clarity alternatives for EU shops. For what a full stack costs, see CRO tool pricing.

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FAQ

Is Microsoft Clarity really free? Yes. Microsoft says Clarity "is a free service forever," with no traffic limits and no paid version (Clarity FAQ).

Can I still use Hotjar? If you already have an account, for now, yes; new Hotjar accounts can't be created. But Contentsquare's Hotjar service terms let it move existing customers to Contentsquare's own product on a date it sets in a notice. Since August 18, 2026 it may already import your visitor data for that. After the switch, Hotjar is read-only for 90 days, collects nothing new, and then remaining data is deleted. You can choose to stay on Hotjar by answering the notice; not activating your new account doesn't count as that choice (Hotjar service schedule, section 2.4). Export anything you want to keep, and check what the switch means for your DPA.

Can I run Clarity and Contentsquare at the same time? Yes. Many shops do this while comparing. Keep it temporary; two recording scripts add weight, and both need consent.

Does Clarity work without cookie consent? Partly. For EEA, UK and Swiss visitors without consent, Clarity collects only cookieless data: page views and basic interactions, but no full replays and no continuous journeys.

Which one is better for GDPR? Neither is "GDPR-compliant" by itself; it depends on your setup. Both need consent before recording. Contentsquare hosts Free and Growth data in Ireland. Clarity data is in Azure under a contract with Microsoft Ireland, with transfers to the US under SCCs.

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Want heatmaps, recordings, surveys and A/B tests in one EU-hosted tool? Varly is in private beta. Join the waitlist.