What Is Hotjar? Now Contentsquare, Free to 200k Sessions

The short answer: if you went looking for Hotjar's pricing page, you are not lost: hotjar.com now redirects to Contentsquare, no new Hotjar account can be created, and the free plan you get instead holds 200k sessions a month with one month of data access, where Hotjar's free plan captured 35 sessions a day (Hotjar on Contentsquare, Contentsquare pricing, checked on 5 November 2026). Existing accounts still log in as before.

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Before you decide where your heatmaps live:

1. Price the sessions you have, not the headline. Growth starts at $49 a month on monthly billing and shows $39 with the yearly toggle, which the page says saves 20% (49 x 0.8 = 39.2), from 7k monthly sessions, and climbs with the session tier you select (pricing page, checked on 5 November 2026).
2. With an existing Hotjar account, read the notification email first. Accounts are moving in phases from 26 August: 30 days with both platforms, then a switch to Contentsquare Growth unless the Account Owner opts out, with historical heatmap and recording data left in a read-only Hotjar account for 12 months (migration FAQ).
3. Expect the session count to rise. Hotjar sampled to a daily cap; Contentsquare counts 100% of sessions up to the plan limit, and replays have a separate allowance, 5% of sessions on Free and 15% on Growth (migration FAQ, pricing table).

What Hotjar does, and what it is becoming

Heatmaps and session recordings on one side, surveys and feedback widgets on the other. The Events API sends hj('event', 'name') when something happens on your page, and the event then filters recordings and heatmaps or triggers a survey (Events API reference). Above the plan's daily session limit Hotjar samples evenly across the day, and coverage is that limit over potential traffic, so 500 sessions a day on a 1,000-session site shows 50% (sampling article). Integrations include Google Analytics, HubSpot, Slack, Jira and Zapier; nothing is documented for Looker Studio or Power BI (integrations article).

Hotjar Ltd merged into the Contentsquare Group on 1 July 2025, four years after the 2021 acquisition, and invoices now come from a Contentsquare entity (billing and legal changes).

Who it suits, and who it does not

A marketing lead at a site under 200k sessions a month who wants replays, heatmaps, funnels and a few surveys without a contract: that is Contentsquare's Free plan now, with a 15-day Growth trial and no card (pricing FAQ). A Hotjar team that relies on Zapier, webhooks or event-based targeting should read the migration FAQ inside its 30 days: those do not carry over to Contentsquare Growth, while URL targeting and suppression settings do (migration FAQ).

What it costs now

Hotjar's own prices are no longer published. On Contentsquare's pricing page, checked on 5 November 2026: Free is $0 with 200k monthly sessions, one project and one month of data; Growth is $49 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly, from 7k sessions, with 13 months of data; Pro and Enterprise are quoted on request. Voice of Customer, the surveys product, is free to 100 responses a month and from $79 a month on Growth. European customers pay in euros. A migrating customer's price may change, the FAQ says, with the figure sent by email before the switch.

The free plan is generous with sessions and tight with time: 200k a month, but one month of data access and replays of 5% of sessions, so the first time you want this month's heatmap beside last month's, the tier that holds the comparison is Growth with its 13 months (pricing table).

Hotjar's Refer & Earn leaderboard and its agency Partner Program, paying 15% to 25% recurring, still sit in the help centre (partner program article).

How it compares

Microsoft Clarity. Clarity is free with no limits on traffic, per its homepage; the question is whether you want Microsoft holding the data.

Fullstory. FullstoryFree captures 30,000 sessions a month with a year of retention, and paid plans are quoted on request (FullstoryFree article). Choose it for funnels on defined events with a developer beside you.

Lucky Orange. Build is $32 a month paid annually for 3,500 sessions (Lucky Orange pricing, checked on 5 November 2026): a small site that wants a bill under $40.

Plerdy. Startup is $21 a month billed annually, with 500 video sessions on the free plan (Plerdy pricing, checked on 5 November 2026), for SEO checks and heatmaps under one login.

Getting started

With an existing account, how to use Hotjar finds where a signup form loses people with one event, a recordings filter and a Zapier sheet.

FAQ

Does Hotjar slow a site down or hurt SEO?

Hotjar's article says the script loads asynchronously from a CDN, that its own test added about 0.3 seconds to full page completion, and that delaying the load until the visitor interacts is the remedy if a PageSpeed score matters (site speed article).

Where is Hotjar data stored, and what about GDPR?

In Ireland, on AWS eu-west-1, with no end-user IP addresses stored at rest (data safety article), and Hotjar is your data processor under its DPA (processing personal data); consent for the script is your call with counsel.

How do I delete a Hotjar account?

The Account Owner deletes it from the My Details page, immediately and for good, so download heatmaps and survey responses first (delete account article). A migrated account should not be deleted: the FAQ says that stops tracking in Contentsquare too (migration FAQ).