11 Best Heatmap Tools for 2026 (Free & Paid)

Selection Criteria

How did we select and score these heatmap tools?

We tested 18 heatmap tools across client sites ranging from 5,000 to 500,000 monthly visitors. The 11 tools on this list were selected based on four criteria: heatmap accuracy (do the heatmaps reflect real user behavior or statistical interpolation?), performance impact (does the tool slow down your site?), data retention (how long are recordings kept?), and value for money. Heatmaps show you where users click, scroll, and hover on your pages. But the real value isn’t the heatmap itself. It’s what you do with the data. A Contentsquare study found that 75% of website elements receive zero clicks, meaning most of your page design effort is wasted on sections users ignore. Good heatmap data tells you what to test. Combine it with an A/B testing tool to act on those insights.

A heatmap is a visual representation of user interaction data on a webpage, using color gradients (red = high activity, blue = low activity) to show where users click, scroll, move their cursor, and focus their attention.

Comparison

How do the best heatmap tools compare on price and features?

Pricing verified as of March 2026. All prices are monthly unless noted. Confirm current pricing on each vendor’s website before purchasing.

Tool	Starting Price	Free Tier	Heatmap Types	Session Recording
Microsoft Clarity	Free (unlimited)	Yes (full product)	Click, scroll	Yes (unlimited)
Hotjar	$0 (free) / $39/mo (Observe)	Yes (limited)	Click, scroll, move	Yes
Mouseflow	$31/mo (Starter)	Yes (limited)	Click, scroll, move, attention, geo	Yes
Lucky Orange	$39/mo	Free trial	Click, scroll, move (dynamic)	Yes (real-time)
Crazy Egg	$29/mo (annual only)	30-day trial	Click, scroll, confetti, overlay	Yes
FullStory	Custom pricing	Free trial	Click, scroll (auto-captured)	Yes (retroactive)
Contentsquare	Custom pricing	No	Zone-based, revenue heatmaps	Yes
Smartlook	$39/mo	Yes (limited)	Click, scroll, move	Yes
Plerdy	$32/mo	Yes (100 heatmaps/day)	Click, scroll, sequence	Yes
Heatmap.com	Custom pricing	Free trial	Revenue-attributed click, scroll	No
PostHog	Pay-per-event	Yes (generous)	Click (toolbar-based)	Yes

Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity: The best free heatmap tool (and it’s not close)

Microsoft Clarity is completely free with no traffic caps, no session limits, and no paywalled features. It provides click heatmaps, scroll heatmaps, and unlimited session recordings for any website regardless of size. Clarity also offers “rage click” and “dead click” detection, which automatically flags areas where users click repeatedly out of frustration or click on non-clickable elements. It integrates natively with Google Analytics 4. Pricing: Free. No paid tiers. No usage limits. Microsoft monetizes through its broader analytics stack, not through Clarity directly (Microsoft, 2026). Best for: Every website should have Clarity installed as a baseline. Small businesses, startups, bloggers, and teams with zero CRO budget should use Clarity as their primary heatmap tool. It’s also an excellent secondary tool for enterprise teams already using Hotjar or Contentsquare. Limitations: No movement heatmaps (only click and scroll). No A/B testing. No surveys or feedback tools. Data processing can lag 1-2 hours behind real-time. The filtering and segmentation are basic compared to paid tools. No revenue attribution.

Hotjar

Hotjar: The industry default for UX insights

Hotjar (now part of Contentsquare since 2023) is the most widely recognized heatmap tool in the market. It combines click, scroll, and movement heatmaps with session recordings, on-site surveys, and feedback widgets. The heatmap interface is intuitive: paste a URL, Hotjar generates a visual overlay showing exactly where users click, how far they scroll, and where they hover. Over 1 million websites use Hotjar. Pricing: Free plan includes unlimited heatmaps and up to 200,000 sessions per month. The Observe product (session recordings with filters and segments) starts at $39/month. The Ask product (surveys and feedback) starts at $59/month. Bundle pricing gives 20% off. Hotjar Engage (user interviews) starts at EUR 350/month. All plans include unlimited team seats (Hotjar, 2026). Best for: Product and UX teams that need heatmaps plus surveys plus session recordings in one tool. Marketing teams that want a visual editor for survey creation. Mid-market companies (10,000-500,000 monthly visitors) that need more than Clarity but don’t need enterprise analytics. Limitations: Pro and Enterprise pricing isn’t publicly listed, making budget planning difficult. Moving from Growth to Pro is a significant cost jump. The survey and Engage products add up quickly. Hotjar doesn’t offer revenue attribution or zone-based analytics like Contentsquare (its parent company).

Mouseflow

Mouseflow: Most heatmap types in a single tool

Mouseflow offers six heatmap types: click maps, scroll maps, movement maps, attention maps, live heatmaps (real-time visualization), and geo maps (geographic click distribution). That’s more heatmap variety than any other tool on this list. It also includes session replays, conversion funnels, form analytics, and user feedback campaigns. Pricing: Starter plan at $31/month includes 5,000 recordings/month. Growth at $109/month includes 15,000 recordings. Business at $219/month includes 50,000 recordings. Pro at $399/month includes 150,000 recordings. Enterprise is custom-priced. A free plan with 500 recordings/month is available (Mouseflow, 2026). Best for: CRO specialists and UX researchers who need granular behavioral data across multiple heatmap dimensions. Ecommerce sites that want form analytics alongside heatmaps. Teams that value geographic segmentation of user behavior. Limitations: The interface is more complex than Hotjar’s. Six heatmap types can overwhelm teams new to behavioral analytics. The free plan’s 500 recordings/month is too limited for production use. Geo maps and attention maps are less useful for most sites than click and scroll data.

Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange: Best real-time heatmap and visitor tracking

Lucky Orange differentiates itself with real-time capabilities. You can watch visitors browse your site live, see dynamic heatmaps update in real-time, and initiate live chat based on what you observe. The heatmaps are “dynamic,” meaning they capture interactions on elements that change position (dropdown menus, expanding sections, carousels) rather than just static page coordinates. Pricing: Starts at $39/month for small sites. Plans scale based on pageviews and features. A free trial is available (Lucky Orange, 2026). Best for: Ecommerce stores and SaaS products that want to combine behavioral analytics with live visitor monitoring and chat. Customer support teams that want to see what a user is doing while helping them. Small businesses that want heatmaps, recordings, and live chat in one tool. Limitations: The “watch users live” feature is useful but can become a time sink. Real-time monitoring doesn’t scale. The analytics depth isn’t as strong as Mouseflow or Hotjar. Dynamic heatmaps are harder to compare across time periods than static heatmaps.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg: Pioneer with unique confetti and overlay reports

Crazy Egg was one of the first heatmap tools, co-founded by Neil Patel and Hiten Shah in 2006. Its unique “Confetti” report breaks down clicks by referral source, search term, and other attributes, letting you see not just where people click but where people from Google versus people from Facebook click. The “Overlay” report shows click counts on each element as numbers rather than color gradients, which is useful for precise analysis. Pricing: Starter plan at $29/month (billed annually only) includes 5,000 tracked pageviews and 50 recordings. Plus at $99/month covers 150,000 pageviews and 1,000 recordings. Enterprise at $599/month covers 1 million pageviews and 10,000 recordings. A 30-day free trial is available. No month-to-month option (Crazy Egg, 2026). Best for: Marketing teams that run traffic from multiple sources and want to understand how different audience segments interact with the same page. PPC teams that want to compare Google Ads traffic behavior versus organic traffic behavior on landing pages. Limitations: Annual billing only. No month-to-month plans. The interface feels dated compared to Hotjar and Mouseflow. The Starter plan’s 50 recordings/month is unusable for most sites. No free tier. The Confetti feature is unique but requires significant traffic volume to produce meaningful segment-level insights.

Fullstory

FullStory: Best for retroactive analysis of any user interaction

FullStory takes a different approach to heatmaps: it captures every user interaction automatically and lets you retroactively create heatmaps, session replays, and event analyses without setting up tracking in advance. Its “autocapture” technology records all clicks, page views, form fills, and rage clicks from the moment you install the script. You can build heatmaps for any page, any time period, and any user segment after the fact. Pricing: Custom pricing based on monthly tracked users. Two paid plans: Growth and Enterprise. Contact sales for a quote. Expect mid-four to five figures annually for mid-traffic sites (FullStory, 2026). Best for: Product teams at SaaS companies that want to retroactively investigate user behavior without pre-planning what to track. Enterprise companies that need full session replay with search and segmentation capabilities. Engineering teams troubleshooting bugs through session replay. Limitations: Opaque pricing. The autocapture approach generates large data volumes that can be expensive at scale. Overkill for small sites that just need basic click and scroll heatmaps. The platform is complex enough to require dedicated training.

Contentsquare

Contentsquare: Enterprise-grade with revenue attribution

Contentsquare (which acquired Hotjar in 2023) is the enterprise tier of behavioral analytics. Its standout feature is zone-based heatmaps that measure not just clicks but revenue attribution per page zone. You can see which sections of a page drive the most revenue, not just the most clicks. The platform also includes journey analysis, frustration scoring, and impact quantification that ties UX issues to dollar amounts. Pricing: Custom pricing based on pageviews. Expect enterprise-level budgets: $50,000-$200,000+/year. Contact sales for a quote (Contentsquare, 2026). Best for: Enterprise ecommerce brands (50M+ annual revenue) that need to tie page behavior directly to revenue impact. Companies with dedicated analytics teams that can use revenue-attributed heatmaps to prioritize optimization work. Limitations: Enterprise pricing eliminates SMBs entirely. The platform is complex and requires training. If you just need to see where people click, Contentsquare is using a cannon to swat a fly. The overlap with Hotjar (which Contentsquare owns) creates confusion about which product to use.

Smartlook

Smartlook: Best for mobile app heatmaps

Smartlook provides heatmaps and session recordings for both websites and native mobile apps (iOS and Android). Most heatmap tools focus exclusively on web. Smartlook’s mobile SDK captures touch interactions, gestures, and navigation patterns in native apps, generating heatmaps that show where users tap, scroll, and swipe within your app screens. Pricing: Free plan available with limited sessions. Paid plans start at $39/month with a modular pricing structure: you pay for the features you use (recordings, events, funnels, heatmaps) rather than an all-inclusive bundle. Custom plans available for higher volumes (Smartlook, 2026). Best for: Companies with both a website and native mobile apps that want behavioral analytics across both platforms from a single tool. Mobile-first businesses that need heatmaps for their iOS or Android apps. Limitations: The web heatmap capabilities are less advanced than Hotjar or Mouseflow. The modular pricing means costs add up as you activate more features. Mobile app heatmaps require SDK integration, which takes developer time.

Plerdy

Plerdy: Best value for heatmaps plus SEO tools

Plerdy bundles heatmaps with an unusual addition: SEO auditing. Alongside click maps, scroll maps, and session recordings, you get on-page SEO analysis, page speed monitoring, and conversion funnel tracking. The “sequence” heatmap shows the order in which users click elements, not just where they click. This is useful for understanding user flow within a page. Pricing: Free plan with 100 heatmaps per day. Paid plans start at $32/month and include more recordings, heatmap pages, and SEO features (Plerdy, 2026). Best for: Small businesses and solo marketers who want behavioral analytics and SEO monitoring in one tool to reduce the number of subscriptions. Teams running simple CRO analysis on marketing pages. Limitations: The SEO features are basic compared to dedicated SEO tools. The interface is less polished than Hotjar or Mouseflow. The free plan’s 100 heatmaps/day limit is restrictive for active analysis. Sequence heatmaps require high traffic to produce reliable data.

Heatmapcom

Heatmap.com: Revenue-focused heatmaps for ecommerce

Heatmap.com is a newer entrant that focuses specifically on revenue attribution per page element. Instead of showing you where users click, it shows you which page elements generate the most revenue. For ecommerce sites, this means you can see exactly which product images, CTAs, and navigation elements drive purchases and how much revenue each click generates. Pricing: Custom pricing based on site traffic. Free trial available to test the platform (Heatmap.com, 2026). Best for: Ecommerce brands that want to optimize pages based on revenue impact rather than click volume. DTC brands running conversion optimization programs where revenue per click is more valuable than total clicks. Limitations: No session recording (heatmaps only). Requires ecommerce tracking integration for revenue attribution. New to the market with a smaller user base than established tools. The revenue attribution model requires sufficient transaction volume to be statistically valid.

Posthog Heatmaps

PostHog: Heatmaps built into your product analytics stack

PostHog includes a toolbar-based heatmap feature that overlays click data on your live site. It’s not as visually polished as dedicated heatmap tools, but it’s integrated into PostHog’s broader product analytics, feature flags, and A/B testing platform. If you’re already using PostHog for product analytics, the heatmap feature comes included at no extra cost. Pricing: Included in PostHog’s free tier (generous usage limits). Session recording is free for the first 5,000 sessions/month, then pay-per-session. No separate heatmap pricing (PostHog, 2026). Best for: Product teams already using PostHog for analytics who want basic heatmap insights without adding another tool. Developer-first companies that value having all behavioral data in one open-source platform. Limitations: Heatmap visualization is basic (toolbar overlay, not standalone heatmap pages). No scroll maps or movement maps. No heatmap comparison over time. Not suitable as a primary heatmap tool for CRO-focused teams.

Key Patterns

What patterns emerge across all heatmap tools?

Five clear patterns from evaluating 11 heatmap tools: 1. Microsoft Clarity has disrupted the free tier permanently. Before Clarity launched, free heatmap tools were limited to demo-level functionality. Now you get unlimited heatmaps and recordings for free. This has forced Hotjar, Mouseflow, and Crazy Egg to justify their paid tiers with advanced features like surveys, form analytics, and deeper segmentation. 2. Session recording is table stakes. Ten of the 11 tools include session recording alongside heatmaps. The market treats heatmaps and recordings as inseparable. If a tool only offers heatmaps without recordings, it’s at a competitive disadvantage. 3. Revenue attribution is the new differentiator. Contentsquare and Heatmap.com lead a shift from “where do users click?” to “which clicks generate revenue?” For ecommerce brands, this is the difference between optimizing for engagement and optimizing for profit. 4. Mobile app heatmaps remain underserved. Only Smartlook and FullStory offer genuine native app heatmaps. Most tools are web-only. As mobile commerce grows (54% of ecommerce traffic in 2024, Statista), this gap will close. 5. Performance impact varies dramatically. Lightweight tools like Clarity add under 20KB to page load. Heavier tools like FullStory and Contentsquare can add 50-100KB+ of JavaScript. For sites where Core Web Vitals matter (every site running Google Ads), test the performance impact before committing.

“Start with Microsoft Clarity. It’s free, it’s fast, and it gives you 80% of the insights you need. Only upgrade to a paid tool when you’ve identified a specific gap: you need surveys (Hotjar), revenue attribution (Contentsquare), or mobile app data (Smartlook). Don’t pay for features you haven’t needed yet.” Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital

How To Choose

How should you choose the right heatmap tool?

Use this decision tree to narrow your options: Budget is $0: Install Microsoft Clarity immediately. It’s free, unlimited, and takes 5 minutes to set up. This should be your default regardless of what else you use. Budget is under $50/month: Crazy Egg ($29/month) or Plerdy ($32/month) for basic heatmaps with session recordings. Mouseflow Starter ($31/month) if you want the most heatmap variety. Budget is $50-$250/month: Hotjar Observe ($39/month) for heatmaps plus surveys and feedback. Lucky Orange ($39/month) if you want real-time visitor monitoring. Smartlook ($39/month) if you need mobile app heatmaps. Budget is $250+/month: VWO Insights (heatmaps plus A/B testing in one platform). Mouseflow Business ($219/month) for maximum heatmap depth. Enterprise budget ($50,000+/year): Contentsquare for revenue-attributed heatmaps and journey analysis. FullStory for retroactive analysis with autocapture. Every site, regardless of budget, should have Clarity running. It’s your baseline. Layer a paid tool on top only when you’ve identified a specific insight gap that Clarity doesn’t fill.

Related Resources

Best A/B Testing Tools

12 A/B testing tools to act on the insights from your heatmaps.

Landing Page Checklist

47-point checklist combining heatmap analysis with conversion best practices.

A/B Testing Ideas

Use heatmap data to prioritize these 33 test ideas by ICE score.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best free heatmap tool?

Microsoft Clarity is the best free heatmap tool in 2026. It provides unlimited click heatmaps, scroll heatmaps, and session recordings with no traffic caps or paywalled features. It also detects rage clicks and dead clicks automatically. Every website should have Clarity installed as a baseline, even if you use a paid tool alongside it.

Do heatmap tools slow down my website?

Most heatmap tools add 15-100KB of JavaScript to your page load. Lightweight tools like Microsoft Clarity add under 20KB and have minimal Core Web Vitals impact. Heavier tools like FullStory and Contentsquare can add 50KB+ and may affect LCP and TBT metrics. Always test your site speed before and after installing a heatmap tool, especially if Core Web Vitals are important for your SEO or ad Quality Scores.

How many visitors do I need for useful heatmap data?

A minimum of 1,000 pageviews on a specific URL produces a usable click heatmap. Scroll heatmaps need at least 500 views to show reliable drop-off patterns. For segment-level heatmaps (e.g., mobile vs. desktop, paid vs. organic), you need 500+ pageviews per segment. Pages with fewer than 300 views will produce noisy, unreliable heatmaps.

Are heatmap tools GDPR compliant?

Most modern heatmap tools offer GDPR-compliant modes. Microsoft Clarity doesn’t collect PII by default. Hotjar provides GDPR settings to suppress sensitive data. Mouseflow, Smartlook, and Plerdy offer data masking for form fields and personal content. However, session recordings can capture personal information visible on screen. You should configure data suppression rules and include heatmap tools in your privacy policy and cookie consent mechanism.

Can I use heatmaps on a single-page application (SPA)?

Yes, but with caveats. SPAs built with React, Vue, or Angular change content without full page reloads, which can confuse heatmap tools that track by URL. Hotjar, FullStory, and Smartlook handle SPAs well through virtual pageview tracking. Microsoft Clarity also supports SPAs. Crazy Egg and some older tools may require manual configuration to track SPA route changes accurately.

Need help turning heatmap data into conversion lifts?

We combine heatmap analysis with A/B testing and user research to find and fix the UX issues that cost you revenue. From tool setup to insight generation to testing execution. Get a CRO Audit Talk to Us

11 Best Heatmap Tools for 2026 (Free and Paid, Compared)

What’s in this guide