Best Free Heatmap Tools in 2026: What Each Free Plan Really Gives You
Short answer: on 20 Oct 2026, Microsoft Clarity has room for a site with 1,500 sessions a day (45,000 a month, our assumption, called S1 below) at no cost, and states the highest cap in this table: up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day. Hotjar is now Contentsquare, whose free plan for new users allows 200,000 sessions a month, with replays on 5% of them. FullStory stops at 30,000 sessions a month, and Mouseflow's 500 cover 1.1% of S1, so holding all 45,000 there takes Premium at $319 a month billed annually.
Nine free plans compared on session caps in each vendor's own unit, recordings, data retention and the first paid step, with figures read on vendor pages on 20 Oct 2026.
A free heatmap plan is rarely free in the unit you count traffic in. Clarity caps sessions per project per day, Contentsquare caps sessions per month, Plerdy caps heatmap page views per day, PostHog caps recordings and heatmap pages, and Crazy Egg caps sessions per day, so the word free hides how much of your traffic each one sees. This guide runs nine plans through one scenario, S1: a marketing site or small store on one domain with 1,500 sessions a day, which is 45,000 over a 30-day month (our assumption, not a measured average). For each plan we give the cap in the vendor's own unit and the share of S1 it can capture, and the division is our arithmetic. Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 16 heatmap tools, and 75% of the heatmap tools on Toolradar are free, freemium or open source, but each one is free in a different unit.
Methodology: Toolradar's heatmaps category lists 16 tools. We checked the vendor page of each one that has a reachable site, plus PostHog, LogRocket, Smartlook and OpenReplay from outside the category, and nine publish a free plan that includes heatmaps; those nine are ranked here. Toolradar's own category text lists FullStory, Plerdy and Crazy Egg as paid only and Lucky Orange, Clicky and Howuku as free, but the vendor pages read on 20 Oct 2026 say otherwise, and this guide follows them. Paid steps are billed yearly unless a row says otherwise. The order follows S1: first the share of its sessions a free plan can feed into heatmaps, then the share it can record, and a plan that states no session cap for heatmaps (PostHog, Plerdy) sorts on the cap it does state. Left out: Lucky Orange, Heatmap.com and LogRocket (free trial only), Clicky (its free plan has no heatmaps), OpenReplay (open source, no published hosting cost), Expoze (predicts attention on uploaded images and video), Howuku (now a blog archive), Auryc and Appsee (no reachable vendor site) and Smartlook (ended new paid sales). Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, whose page tells new users to sign up for Contentsquare Free, so that plan carries the Hotjar entry.
For a ranking that is not limited to free plans, see best heatmap tools, and for recordings on their own see best session recording tools.
Top Picks
Picked by editorial review, informed by G2 and Capterra review volume and rating and by media mentions, the signals behind our category rankings. How we rate
No paid plan, and the highest stated cap in this table: up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day.
Starting price
Free, no paid plan
4.6 (113 reviews)
Best for
Sites up to 100,000 sessions a day that want heatmaps and recordings without a monthly cap to manage.
Free plan feeds heatmaps from 500K sessions a month but records 2,500 to 5,000, as its page gives both figures.
Starting price
Free; Micro $39/mo billed monthly
4.0 (56 reviews)
Best for
Small sites that want heatmap data on all sessions plus a few thousand recordings, across up to three websites.
Hotjar's free plan, 35 sessions a day, is closed to new accounts; Contentsquare Free allows 200,000 sessions a month.
Starting price
Free; Growth $39/mo billed yearly
3.8 (948 reviews)
Best for
Sites that want heatmaps and funnels on every session, with replays sampled.
| Tool | Starting price | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Clarity | Free, no paid plan | 4.6 113 reviews | Sites up to 100,000 sessions a day that want heatmaps and recordings without a monthly cap to manage. |
| Inspectlet | Free; Micro $39/mo billed monthly | 4.0 56 reviews | Small sites that want heatmap data on all sessions plus a few thousand recordings, across up to three websites. |
| Hotjar (now Contentsquare) | Free; Growth $39/mo billed yearly | 3.8 948 reviews | Sites that want heatmaps and funnels on every session, with replays sampled. |
| FullStory | Free; paid plans quote-only | 4.5 1,119 reviews | Small teams on business email addresses that need 12 months of replay history up to 30,000 sessions a month. |
| Crazy Egg | Free; Starter $29/mo billed yearly | 4.3 214 reviews | Sites at or under 1,000 sessions a day that want free heatmaps plus web analytics and surveys. |
| PostHog | Free; $0.0050/recording after 5,000 | 4.5 1,054 reviews | Product teams that also want analytics, flags and experiments, and can limit heatmaps to three pages. |
| Plerdy | Free; Startup $21/mo billed yearly | 4.7 317 reviews | Small sites with one or two key pages to watch, and an option to buy extra heatmap limits. |
| FullSession | Free; Growth $49/mo billed monthly | n/a | Very small sites under 1,000 sessions a month that want heatmaps and replay on one domain. |
| Mouseflow | Free; Essential $25/mo billed yearly | 4.6 813 reviews | Sites under 500 sessions a month that want heatmaps, recordings and one funnel at no cost. |
Microsoft Clarity
No paid plan, and the highest stated cap in this table: up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day.
- 4.8 on Capterra (57 reviews)
- 4.5 on G2 (55 reviews)
- 4.0 on SourceForge (1 reviews)
- Starting price
- Free, no paid plan
- Free plan
- Free to use
- Rating
- 4.6 (113 reviews)
Best for: Sites up to 100,000 sessions a day that want heatmaps and recordings without a monthly cap to manage.
- Pro: Microsoft's FAQ calls Clarity a free service forever, with no limit on the number of sites
- Pro: S1's 1,500 sessions a day is 1.5% of that recording cap, set per project
- Pro: Heatmap data is kept up to 9 months, against 30 days for recordings
- Con: The FAQ says Clarity tracks all sessions, but recordings might not be available for all of them
- Con: Recordings last 30 days; only favorites and a random sample last up to 9 months
Microsoft Clarity offers an exceptionally generous pricing model, being entirely free.
Watch out
Potential for data storage limits (unspecified).
Inspectlet
Free plan feeds heatmaps from 500K sessions a month but records 2,500 to 5,000, as its page gives both figures.
- Starting price
- Free; Micro $39/mo billed monthly
- Free plan
- No
- Rating
- 4.0 (56 reviews)
Best for: Small sites that want heatmap data on all sessions plus a few thousand recordings, across up to three websites.
- Pro: Free covers up to 3 websites with session replay, heatmaps and A/B testing, no card and no time limit
- Pro: The 500K monthly sessions for heatmaps are 11.1 times S1's 45,000
- Pro: Growth records 50,000 sessions a month, above S1's 45,000, for $149 billed monthly
- Con: The FAQ says 2,500 recorded sessions a month while the plan card and table say 5,000 session replays
- Con: Recording 2,500 sessions is 5.6% of S1, and 5,000 is 11.1%
Watch out
Custom services add-ons
Hotjar (now Contentsquare)
Hotjar's free plan, 35 sessions a day, is closed to new accounts; Contentsquare Free allows 200,000 sessions a month.
- 4.6 on Capterra (545 reviews)
- 4.3 on G2 (345 reviews)
- 2.4 on Trustpilot (52 reviews)
- Starting price
- Free; Growth $39/mo billed yearly
- Free plan
- Yes
- Rating
- 3.8 (948 reviews)
Best for: Sites that want heatmaps and funnels on every session, with replays sampled.
- Pro: Free covers 4.4 times S1's 45,000 monthly sessions, with a 100% analytics collection rate
- Pro: Free includes replays, heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring and basic surveys with 100 responses a month
- Pro: New accounts start a 15-day Growth trial with no card, then continue on the free plan
- Con: Replays are sampled at 5% of sessions, 10,000 at most, which is 2,250 of S1's 45,000
- Con: Free keeps data 1 month, allows 1 project that cannot be extended, and has no zone-based heatmaps
Hotjar (now Contentsquare) offers solid heatmaps and recordings but pricing got complicated after the merger.
Watch out
Three separate products (Observe, Ask, Engage) each billed independently
- Starting price
- Free; paid plans quote-only
- Free plan
- No
- Rating
- 4.5 (1,119 reviews)
Best for: Small teams on business email addresses that need 12 months of replay history up to 30,000 sessions a month.
- Pro: 30,000 sessions a month covers 66.7% of S1 for replays, and for heatmaps per its help center
- Pro: Up to 10 user seats, with 12 months of replay and analytics retention
- Pro: The help center lists Heatmaps on the Free plan, though the FullstoryFree page names only replay and basic analytics
- Con: A business email domain is required; Gmail and Yahoo addresses cannot be used
- Con: Free grants Fullstory ownership rights to anonymized non-personal data, while paid plans keep full data ownership
FullStory's pricing is on the expensive side, especially for smaller businesses.
Watch out
Overage fees for exceeding session limits
- Starting price
- Free; Starter $29/mo billed yearly
- Free plan
- Yes
- Rating
- 4.3 (214 reviews)
Best for: Sites at or under 1,000 sessions a day that want free heatmaps plus web analytics and surveys.
- Pro: Instant Heatmaps track up to 1,000 sessions a day, two thirds of S1's 1,500 a day
- Pro: The free plan adds web analytics, conversion analytics, a live activity feed and website surveys
- Pro: Its page lists unlimited seats and website domains on the free plan, with no card
- Con: No session recordings on the free plan; Starter at $29 a month billed annually includes 50 recordings a month
- Con: S1's 1,500 sessions a day exceed the 1,000-session cap by 500 a day
Crazy Egg's pricing, particularly at the Starter ($29) and Plus ($99) tiers, appears fair for businesses needing basic to moderate website optimization tools.
Watch out
Overage fees for exceeding pageview limits
- Starting price
- Free; $0.0050/recording after 5,000
- Free plan
- Yes
- Rating
- 4.5 (1,054 reviews)
Best for: Product teams that also want analytics, flags and experiments, and can limit heatmaps to three pages.
- Pro: Free tier is 5,000 web recordings and 1 million analytics events a month, with no credit card
- Pro: PostHog's heatmaps page says heatmap data does not contribute to the bill
- Pro: Recording prices fall with volume: $0.0050 each from 5,000 to 15,000, then $0.0035 from 15,000 to 50,000
- Con: Free heatmaps cover up to 3 pages you choose; unlimited pages and toolbar viewing need pay-as-you-go with a card
- Con: 5,000 recordings is a ninth of S1, and recording all 45,000 sessions comes to $155.00 a month by our arithmetic
PostHog's pricing is quite generous, especially with its robust free tier offering 1M events and unlimited seats.
Watch out
Overage fees for events beyond free tier
- Starting price
- Free; Startup $21/mo billed yearly
- Free plan
- No
- Rating
- 4.7 (317 reviews)
Best for: Small sites with one or two key pages to watch, and an option to buy extra heatmap limits.
- Pro: The free plan lists unlimited A/B testing and needs no credit card
- Pro: Extra heatmap limits are sold separately: 1,000 page views a day for $9 a month, 3,000 for $19 a month
- Pro: Startup, for 500 daily heatmap page views and 5,000 video sessions, costs $32 billed monthly
- Con: The heatmap cap is in page views a day, not sessions: at best 6.7% of S1's 1,500 sessions a day
- Con: Free analyzes up to three pages and keeps data for 1 month
This pricing structure is best for users with very specific, limited needs for SEO and UX analysis.
FullSession
Free plan: 1,000 sessions a month with unlimited heatmaps and session replay, 30 days of data, 2 seats and 1 domain.
- 5.0 on G2 (1 reviews)
- Starting price
- Free; Growth $49/mo billed monthly
- Free plan
- Yes
Best for: Very small sites under 1,000 sessions a month that want heatmaps and replay on one domain.
- Pro: The free card lists unlimited heatmaps and session replay within the 1,000-session cap
- Pro: Growth at 50,000 sessions, above S1's 45,000, is $159.20 a month billed annually or $199 billed monthly
- Pro: The page says annual Growth and Professional plans are 20% below monthly
- Con: 1,000 sessions a month is 2.2% of S1, though it covers a ninth of a 300-session-a-day blog
- Con: The card lists basic funnel analysis on Free while the plan table marks Funnels not included
FullSession's pricing offers a generous Free tier with 500 sessions, making it accessible for small projects.
Watch out
Potential overage fees for session limits
- Starting price
- Free; Essential $25/mo billed yearly
- Free plan
- Yes
- Rating
- 4.6 (813 reviews)
Best for: Sites under 500 sessions a month that want heatmaps, recordings and one funnel at no cost.
- Pro: Free includes unlimited users, click, scroll and geo heatmaps, session replay and friction detection
- Pro: Essential, for 5,000 sessions, is $25 a month billed annually or $39 billed monthly
- Pro: Paid plans keep data 3, 6 and 12 months, against 1 month on Free
- Con: 500 sessions a month is 1.1% of S1; Advanced at 25,000 falls short of 45,000, and Premium, the first plan with room, shows a Contact sales button
- Con: When the allowance runs out, tracking stops until the next refill unless you request one or upgrade
Mouseflow offers a fair pricing structure, especially with its generous Free tier and competitive Essential plan at $25/month for 5,000 sessions.
Watch out
Overage fees for exceeding session limits
Other Heatmaps tools worth considering
More published tools from our Heatmaps category, ordered by our category ranking. They are not part of the editorial picks above.
What a free heatmap plan is
A free heatmap plan is a no-cost account on a behavior analytics tool that paints clicks and scrolls over your pages, usually with session recordings, inside a cap on sessions, page views, pages or recordings.
The cap is the product. A session is one visitor's visit, a page view is one page loaded, and a recording is a replay of one session, so a plan priced in one unit cannot be read against another without an assumption. Hotjar, the name most searches still use, now sits inside Contentsquare: its own page says new accounts are no longer created on Hotjar and sends new users to Contentsquare Free. Microsoft Clarity is free with no paid tier at all, while Mouseflow and PostHog give a small free allowance and charge once it runs out.
Why the unit decides the winner
The same site is fully covered by one plan and 1.1% covered by another. At S1's 1,500 sessions a day, Clarity and Inspectlet's 500K-session heatmap allowance hold everything, Contentsquare Free holds all of it, FullStory and Crazy Egg hold two thirds, and Mouseflow's 500 sessions hold 1.1%.
A ladder shows where each free plan stops. A blog with 300 sessions a day (9,000 a month) fits inside Clarity, Contentsquare, Inspectlet's heatmaps, FullStory and Crazy Egg, while Mouseflow's 500 sessions cover 5.6% of it. A busy store with 10,000 sessions a day (300,000 a month) still fits Clarity's recording cap and Inspectlet's heatmaps, though one Clarity heatmap stops at 100,000 page views, and Contentsquare's allowance covers two thirds, FullStory and Crazy Egg 10.0%, and Plerdy at best 1.0%. Plans that cap recordings fall faster: PostHog's 5,000 recordings are 55.6% of the blog, a ninth of S1 and 1.7% of the store.
Key Features to Look For
Free session cap in the vendor's own unit (Essential)
Clarity states up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day, Contentsquare 200,000 a month, FullStory 30,000 a month, Crazy Egg 1,000 a day, FullSession 1,000 a month and Mouseflow 500 a month. Plerdy counts heatmap page views (100 a day) and PostHog counts recordings (5,000 a month).
Recordings on the free plan (Essential)
Recording caps are tighter than heatmap caps. Contentsquare replays 5% of sessions, Inspectlet gives 2,500 to 5,000 recordings a month depending on which part of its page you read, PostHog 5,000, and Plerdy stores 500 video sessions in total. Crazy Egg's free plan has no recordings.
Data retention (Important)
Free plans keep data for 1 month on Contentsquare, Inspectlet, Plerdy, Mouseflow and PostHog recordings, 30 days on Crazy Egg, FullSession and Clarity recordings, and 12 months on FullStory. Clarity keeps heatmap data up to 9 months.
Heatmap limits besides sessions (Important)
PostHog collects heatmap data for up to 3 pages you choose on its free plan, and Plerdy lets you analyze up to three pages. Contentsquare Free leaves out zone-based heatmaps, and Mouseflow starts attention, movement and interactive heatmaps at Advanced.
Sites and projects (Important)
Contentsquare Free allows 1 project that cannot be extended, though several domains can share it. PostHog and Mouseflow allow 1 project, Inspectlet 3 websites, FullSession 1 domain, and Clarity states no limit on the number of sites.
Billing toggle on the first paid step (Important)
Mouseflow, Contentsquare and Plerdy open on the yearly toggle, Crazy Egg bills annually only, and Inspectlet opens on monthly. A yearly figure looks lower than the same plan billed monthly, so compare every price on one toggle.
What to check before you trust a free heatmap plan
-
Convert your traffic into the vendor's unit first. Sessions a day, sessions a month, page views a day and recordings are four different meters.
-
Ask whether recordings share the heatmap cap. Contentsquare replays 5% of sessions and Crazy Egg's free plan has no recordings at all.
-
Read the retention line. A plan that keeps 1 month of data cannot show last quarter's campaign.
-
Look for limits that sit outside the session count, such as PostHog's 3 heatmap pages and Plerdy's three analyzed pages.
Evaluation Checklist
Write down your sessions a day and a month, then compare both with each cap in the vendor's own unit.
Check whether the plan records every session, a sample or none, and how long recordings are kept.
Find the pages, projects or domains the free plan allows before you install it on a second site.
Price the first paid step on the same billing toggle for every tool you shortlist.
Check what happens at the cap: Mouseflow stops tracking, FullStory stops capturing new sessions, Contentsquare stops new heatmap and funnel data.
Pricing Overview
Inspectlet Growth
50,000 session replays a month, 6 months of storage and 10 websites.
$149 a month billed monthly, $127 a month billed annually (15% off, rounded)
PostHog pay-as-you-go
Usage billing on the same free allowance, with heatmaps on unlimited pages and 90 days of recording retention.
$0.0050 per recording from 5,000 to 15,000, then $0.0035 to 50,000
FullSession Growth
Unlimited seats and domains, 4 months of retention, funnels and error reporting.
$159.20 a month billed annually at 50,000 sessions, $199 billed monthly
Mouseflow Premium
100,000 sessions a month, 5 website projects, 10 funnels and 12 months of data retention.
$319 a month billed annually, $399 billed monthly
Contentsquare Growth
3 projects, 13 months of data access, zone-based heatmaps, and replays on 15% of sessions with a 20,000 minimum, so at least 20,000 of S1's 45,000 sessions (44.4%).
From $39 a month billed yearly at 7,000 sessions, $49 billed monthly
Crazy Egg Starter
5,000 tracked pageviews, 5 heatmap reports and 50 recordings a month, after a 30-day free trial.
$29 a month billed annually
Plerdy Startup
500 daily heatmap page views, 5,000 video sessions and 3 months of storage.
$21 a month billed yearly, $32 billed monthly
FullStory paid plans
Business, Advanced and Enterprise add dashboards and higher session limits, with pricing offered through a demo request.
No list price published
Pricing Comparison
| Tool | Free plan cap (vendor's unit) | Share of S1 captured | Kept for, sites, card | Share at 300 a day / 10,000 a day | First printed step that holds S1 | Billing basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day | 100% of heatmap sessions; not every session gets a recording | Recordings 30 days, heatmaps 9 months; unlimited sites | Within the recording cap / within it; one heatmap capped at 100,000 page views | None needed, no paid plan | Free, no billing | |
Inspectlet | 500K sessions a month for heatmaps; 2,500 to 5,000 replays a month | Heatmaps 100%; recordings 5.6% to 11.1% | 1 month; 3 websites; no card | Heatmaps 100% / 100% | Growth, 50,000 replays: $127 a month billed annually | Opens on monthly, $149; annual saves 15% |
200,000 sessions a month; replays on 5% of sessions | Heatmaps 100%; replays 5.0%; old Hotjar Free 2.3% | 1 month; 1 project; no card | Heatmaps 100% / 66.7% | No printed step records every session; Growth 45,000 tier $219 billed monthly, 20,000 replays at least | Yearly toggle by default, 20% off | |
30,000 sessions a month, up to 10 users | 66.7% (heatmaps per help center only) | 12 months; business email; no card | 100% / 10.0% | No price printed; paid plans by demo request | Free plan; paid plans quote-only | |
Instant Heatmaps up to 1,000 sessions a day; no recordings | 66.7% (1,000 of 1,500 a day) | 30 days; unlimited domains; no card | 100% / 10.0% | Plus, 150,000 tracked pageviews: $99 a month billed annually | Paid plans billed annually | |
5,000 web recordings a month; heatmaps on up to 3 pages | Recordings 11.1%; heatmaps on 3 pages | Recordings 1 month; 1 project; no card | Recordings 55.6% / 1.7% | Pay-as-you-go: $155.00 a month for 45,000 recordings, card needed | Usage tiers, no plan fee | |
Plerdy | 100 heatmap page views a day on up to 3 pages | At best 6.7% (one page view per session) | 1 month; no card | At best 33.3% / 1.0% | Scale, 1,500 page views a day: $42 a month billed annually | Yearly toggle by default; $64 billed monthly |
1,000 sessions a month; unlimited heatmaps and replay | 2.2% | 30 days; 1 domain; card not stated | 11.1% / 0.3% | Growth, 50,000 web sessions: $159.20 a month billed annually | $199 billed monthly | |
Mouseflow | 500 sessions a month; 1 project; 1 funnel | 1.1% | 1 month; card not stated | 5.6% / 0.2% | Premium, 100,000 sessions: $319 a month billed annually | Yearly toggle by default; $399 billed monthly |
Figures read on vendor pages on 20 Oct 2026: Microsoft Clarity pricing and Clarity FAQ, Inspectlet plans, Contentsquare pricing and Contentsquare for Hotjar users, FullstoryFree, Fullstory plans, Fullstory heatmaps help and FullstoryFree help, Crazy Egg pricing, Crazy Egg Instant Heatmaps and Crazy Egg free, PostHog pricing, PostHog session replay pricing and PostHog heatmaps docs, Plerdy pricing, FullSession pricing and Mouseflow pricing. Trial-only and ended products named in the FAQ: Lucky Orange pricing, Heatmap.com pricing, LogRocket pricing, Clicky pricing, OpenReplay pricing and Smartlook. S1 is 1,500 sessions a day, 45,000 over 30 days; every share is our arithmetic, and a daily cap is compared with sessions a day. Plerdy page views and Crazy Egg tracked pageviews are not sessions, so those shares and steps assume one page view per session. FullSession figures are its web plans; mobile plans are priced separately. Inspectlet's annual figure is the page's 15% discount, rounded to whole dollars. Mouseflow shows the same numbers in euros to visitors in Europe, and Contentsquare bills Europe in euros; dollars are used here.
Mistakes to Avoid
- ×
Comparing 500K heatmap sessions with 5,000 recordings as one number. Inspectlet feeds heatmaps from 500K sessions a month but records 2,500 to 5,000.
- ×
Quoting Hotjar's old 35 sessions a day as current. Contentsquare's own Hotjar page lists 35 sessions a day for Hotjar Free, 2.3% of S1, and puts Contentsquare Free far above that.
- ×
Reading no traffic limits as no limits. Clarity's FAQ says there are no traffic limits, while the same FAQ caps recording at 100,000 sessions per project per day and each heatmap at 100,000 page views.
- ×
Counting page views as sessions. Plerdy's 100 heatmap page views a day equal 100 sessions only if every visit loads one page.
- ×
Skipping a plan step. Mouseflow's Advanced plan holds 25,000 sessions, so S1's 45,000 sessions jump to Premium.
- ×
Reading a yearly price as a monthly one. Mouseflow and Plerdy open on the yearly toggle, so their headline prices assume a year paid up front.
Expert Tips
- →
If you only need heatmaps, weigh the heatmap cap first: Clarity, Contentsquare Free and Inspectlet state heatmap allowances above S1's 45,000 sessions.
- →
On PostHog, pick the three pages that carry revenue, such as pricing, checkout and the top landing page, because it collects heatmap data only for the URLs you list.
- →
- →
- →
Re-read the plan each quarter. Hotjar no longer opens new accounts, and Smartlook ended new paid sales on 31 May 2026.
Red Flags to Watch For
-
A free plan whose limits sit on another page: Crazy Egg's pricing page lists no free-plan cap, and the 1,000-session figure is on its Instant Heatmaps page.
-
Two caps for one plan: Inspectlet's FAQ says 2,500 recorded sessions while its plan card shows 5,000.
-
A trial shown as a plan: Lucky Orange and LogRocket show a free trial of 7 and 14 days beside paid plans.
-
A product on its way out: Smartlook ended new paid sales on 31 May 2026, and Hotjar no longer opens new accounts.
-
A card that disagrees with its plan table: FullSession's Free card lists basic funnel analysis while the table marks Funnels not included.
The Bottom Line
Start with Microsoft Clarity for a site like S1: it states the highest cap in this table and has no paid plan to outgrow. Choose Contentsquare Free, Hotjar's successor, when you want funnels, error monitoring and MCP access on a free allowance well above S1, Inspectlet for heatmaps on all of S1 with a few thousand recordings, and Crazy Egg or FullStory when two thirds of S1 is enough. PostHog, Plerdy, FullSession and Mouseflow capture a ninth of S1 or less in the unit each states, so treat them as an entry to a paid plan. Re-read the caps every quarter, because free limits move.
Cite this: Toolradar, "Best Free Heatmap Tools in 2026", Oct 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free heatmap tool in 2026?
Among the nine plans in this guide, Microsoft Clarity has the highest stated cap: up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day, against S1's 1,500 a day (45,000 a month). Contentsquare Free holds all of S1's heatmap sessions but replays 5% of them, and Inspectlet feeds heatmaps from 500K sessions a month. The order follows the share of S1 each free plan can capture. Checked 20 Oct 2026.
Is Hotjar still free?
New users get Contentsquare Free, not Hotjar. Contentsquare's Hotjar page says it is no longer possible to create a new account on Hotjar, and it lists Hotjar's free plan at 35 sessions a day, which is 2.3% of S1. Contentsquare Free allows 200,000 sessions a month, 1 project, 1 month of data and replays on 5% of sessions. Checked 20 Oct 2026.
Microsoft Clarity vs Hotjar: which free plan is bigger?
Clarity's FAQ states recording of up to 100,000 sessions per project per day, which is up to 3,000,000 over 30 days, far above Contentsquare Free's monthly allowance. Clarity keeps recordings 30 days and heatmaps up to 9 months, while Contentsquare Free keeps data 1 month but adds funnels, error monitoring and basic surveys. See the Hotjar vs Microsoft Clarity comparison and the Hotjar alternatives.
Is Mouseflow free?
Yes, in a small way. Mouseflow's free plan allows 500 sessions a month on 1 website project with 1 funnel, 1 month of data, click, scroll and geo heatmaps and session replay. Essential adds 5,000 sessions, and holding S1's 45,000 sessions needs Premium at 100,000 sessions a month. Checked 20 Oct 2026.
Is there a free heatmap tool for WordPress?
At least three vendors say so on their pages. Clarity's FAQ says its heatmaps show on a WordPress site once the tracking code is installed, Crazy Egg lists a WordPress integration for its free Instant Heatmaps, and Plerdy lists WordPress among its quick-setup options. Each keeps its own cap: Clarity a very high daily recording limit, Crazy Egg 1,000 sessions a day, Plerdy 100 heatmap page views a day.
Which popular heatmap tools are left out, and why?
Lucky Orange shows a 7-day free trial, and Heatmap.com and LogRocket a 14-day trial, each beside paid plans with no free plan on its pricing page. Clicky's free plan has no heatmaps, which need Pro Plus or higher. Smartlook ended new paid sales on 31 May 2026 and plans to decommission its platform on 30 September 2027, though its page says accounts whose paid plan ends keep a Smartlook Free plan until then. OpenReplay's open-source edition is free, but you host it yourself and the vendor publishes no self-hosting cost, though its managed Dedicated instance starts at $199 a month. Checked 20 Oct 2026.
How much does it cost to go past a free plan at 1,500 sessions a day?
On each tool's own cap, the printed steps are Crazy Egg Plus at $99 a month billed annually for 150,000 tracked pageviews, Inspectlet Growth for 50,000 replays and FullSession Growth for 50,000 sessions, and Plerdy Scale at $42 billed yearly for 1,500 heatmap page views a day. PostHog comes to $155.00 on usage rates, and FullStory prints no price. The units differ, so these are not a ranking.
Cite this page: Toolradar, "Best Free Heatmap Tools in 2026: What Each Free Plan Really Gives You", updated October 2026, https://toolradar.com/guides/best-free-heatmap-tools
Related Guides
Ready to Choose?
Compare features, read reviews, and find the right tool.
Some offers on this page may be paid placements or contain affiliate links.