Hotjar vs Smartlook
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentSmartlook compared with Hotjar
Hotjar is the better choice for a marketing team on a website, with stronger survey and feedback tooling and a well-known free tier. Smartlook is the better choice the moment a native mobile app is in scope, since Hotjar does not record apps at all. On web alone the two are close, with Hotjar ahead on qualitative research and Smartlook ahead on retroactive events and funnels.
Choose Hotjar if
Small and mid-sized marketing, product, and ecommerce teams that need to see why a page underperforms without hiring a specialist: fast to install, free to start, and strong at turning observed behavior into an argument for a specific fix.
Choose Smartlook if
Product and growth teams with a mobile app, or with both a web and app surface, that want continuous recording, retroactive events, and funnels without paying enterprise experience analytics prices.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Hotjar | Smartlook |
|---|---|---|
| Category | CRO | CRO |
| Starting price | Free (35 daily sessions on Observe Basic); paid Observe plans from roughly $32 per month billed annually (free plan available) | Free for around 3,000 monthly sessions; paid plans from roughly $55 per month (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Per-product subscription (Observe, Ask, and Engage are bought separately) with tiers priced by captured daily sessions and monthly survey responses. Each product has a free plan; paid tiers step up allowance and unlock filtering, longer data retention, and advanced features. Annual billing carries a discount. | Subscription priced by monthly recorded sessions, with a free tier and paid plans adding volume, retention, and advanced features. Web and mobile capture are covered by the same session-based model. |
| Free plan | Basic tiers on Observe (about 35 daily sessions), Ask (about 20 survey responses per month), and Engage (limited interviews) | Around 3,000 monthly sessions with recordings, heatmaps, and events on a short retention window |
| Free trial | Free plan on each product, plus a paid-plan trial | Free plan plus trial access to paid features |
| Best for | Small and mid-sized marketing, product, and ecommerce teams that need to see why a page underperforms without hiring a specialist: fast to install, free to start, and strong at turning observed behavior into an argument for a specific fix. | Product and growth teams with a mobile app, or with both a web and app surface, that want continuous recording, retroactive events, and funnels without paying enterprise experience analytics prices. |
| Setup time | Under an hour for the tracking script, whether pasted into a template, deployed via Google Tag Manager, or enabled through a Shopify or WordPress integration. Useful heatmaps appear once enough traffic accumulates, typically within a day or two. | Web installation is under an hour. Mobile SDK integration takes longer, since it requires an app release cycle, and masking sensitive views should be configured before that build ships. |
| Learning curve | Low for the basics. The skill that takes longer is discipline: watching filtered recordings against a specific question rather than browsing them, and writing survey questions that do not lead the respondent. | Low. The no-code event picker is the main concept to learn, and funnels follow naturally from it. Teams accustomed to event-based analytics adapt quickly. |
| Platforms | Web (JavaScript snippet), Google Tag Manager, Shopify, WordPress, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, Magento, Mobile web | Web (JavaScript), iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, Unity and game engines |
| Compliance | GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 | GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2, ISO 27001 |
| Founded | 2014 | 2016 |
| Headquarters | St Julian's, Malta | Brno, Czech Republic |
| Ownership | Acquired by Contentsquare (2021) | Acquired by Cisco (2023) |
Strengths and limitations
Hotjar
Strengths
- The fastest path from installing a script to a concrete, evidenced conclusion about why a page underperforms.
- A free plan good enough to answer a real question, which is why Hotjar is often the first analytics tool a small site installs after Google Analytics.
- Combines observation and direct feedback in one product, so the what and the why do not live in separate vendors.
- Filtering on recordings turns replay from a time sink into a targeted triage workflow.
Limitations
- No A/B testing, so proving a fix worked requires a second tool.
- Session-based pricing punishes traffic growth and samples rather than capturing everything on lower tiers.
- Three separately priced products create a bill that is larger than the headline number suggests.
- Another client-side script is a measurable page-weight and Core Web Vitals cost on performance-sensitive sites.
Smartlook
Strengths
- Genuine first-class support for native mobile app recording, including gestures, screen flows, and crashes.
- Always-on capture rather than sampling, so the session you need is usually available.
- Retroactive no-code events mean analysis is never blocked by a missing tag.
- Funnels link directly to the recordings behind each drop-off, closing the quantitative and qualitative loop.
Limitations
- No A/B testing or personalization, so validation of fixes needs another tool.
- Web-only teams get less differentiated value than the mobile story suggests.
- Retention on lower tiers is short enough to constrain historical investigation.
- Roadmap independence is a fair question following acquisition by a large parent company.
Pricing compared
Hotjar
Per-product subscription (Observe, Ask, and Engage are bought separately) with tiers priced by captured daily sessions and monthly survey responses. Each product has a free plan; paid tiers step up allowance and unlock filtering, longer data retention, and advanced features. Annual billing carries a discount.
- Basic$0
- PlusFrom about $32
- BusinessFrom about $80
Hotjar's free plan is one of the genuinely useful ones in go-to-market software, and for a site under a few thousand visits a day the Plus tier costs less than an hour of the consultant you would otherwise ask. The economics get less comfortable as traffic grows, since the daily session meter is the pricing axis and buying two or three of the three products multiplies the line items. Judged against what it replaces, guessing, or a specialist retainer, it remains one of the highest-return small purchases on this list, provided you accept that experimentation is a separate tool and a separate budget.
Smartlook
Subscription priced by monthly recorded sessions, with a free tier and paid plans adding volume, retention, and advanced features. Web and mobile capture are covered by the same session-based model.
- Free$0
- ProFrom about $55
- EnterpriseQuoted
Smartlook's pitch is coverage per dollar: continuous recording rather than sampling, mobile and web on one meter, and retroactive events so nothing has to be tagged in advance. For an app-first company that would otherwise buy a mobile analytics tool and a web replay tool separately, the consolidation is worth real money. For a content site with no app, cheaper or free alternatives cover the same ground, and the mobile strength that justifies the price goes unused.
Editorial verdict on each
Hotjar
Hotjar made behavioral analytics ordinary, and that remains its strongest recommendation: a script tag, a free plan, and within a day a specific, evidenced answer to why a page is failing. The combination of passive observation and direct questioning in one product is still rare, and the sharing workflow is built for the real job, convincing other people to change something. The pressure on it is obvious, since Microsoft Clarity gives away the observation half without a session cap, and the three-product split means a full deployment costs more than the advertised entry price. Buy it for the qualitative research, keep expectations modest on quantitative depth, and pair it with a testing tool before claiming any fix worked.
Read the full Hotjar profileSmartlook
Smartlook is the sensible choice for teams whose product spans both a website and a native app, because it treats the app as a real recording surface instead of a checkbox and puts both on one session meter. Always-on capture with retroactive event definition removes the most frustrating limitation of event-based analytics, and the funnel-to-recording link is exactly the workflow that turns a drop-off percentage into a fix. The gaps are predictable: no experimentation, lighter product analytics depth than dedicated tools, and retention windows on cheaper tiers that limit historical work. Web-only teams on a budget should test free alternatives first; app-first teams will find the price fair.
Read the full Smartlook profileHotjar profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Smartlook last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.