Best Microsoft Clarity alternatives in 2026

Prices checked October 2026.

Why people look for Microsoft Clarity alternatives

Clarity is free, has no traffic limits and no paid tier (Microsoft Learn). That's hard to beat, so the reasons to look elsewhere are specific. Four of them matter for a store that buys its traffic.

• It doesn't read Meta. Clarity connects to Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, and shows impressions, CTR, CPC, CPA and conversion rate next to the recordings (Clarity blog, Shopify App Store). We found no Meta integration. It can split traffic by UTM source and campaign, but it never sees what a Meta ad cost.
• No dollar figure per problem. Conversion maps show the share of sessions that bought after clicking an area of the page, and only on projects where Clarity detects purchase events (Microsoft Learn). That's a rate. It doesn't tell you what a broken section costs a month, or which ad paid for the people who hit it.
• The MCP is rationed. The Clarity MCP runs on the Data Export API token (GitHub). That API allows 10 requests per project per day, only covers the last 1 to 3 days, takes up to 3 dimensions, and returns at most 1,000 rows with no pagination (Microsoft Learn). An agent can't compare this week with last month, because it only sees 72 hours.
• Replays go after 30 days. Playback data is kept 30 days. Heatmap data and sessions you label or favorite are kept 9 months (Microsoft Learn).

If none of those bother you, stay on Clarity. The rest of this post is for when one of them does.

The 5 best Microsoft Clarity alternatives

1. Anry: for when the ad, not the page, decides the sale

Clarity never sees what a Meta ad cost, and that's the hole Anry fills. It takes each paid click from Meta or Google, follows that visitor through the session and into your orders, and spots where the money drains out: one landing page, one device, one ad pulling in people who were never going to buy. Each of those gets a cost worked out from the orders in your store, so the figure doesn't depend on what the ad platforms say. Spotting and pricing the drains is deterministic code, not a model's judgement. A language model only puts the result into words and drafts a fix, which lands with your own agent ("Ask Anry"). Your store and your ads stay untouched.

Here's a case from our own site. In October we ran a Meta campaign (A$79.84) that sent about 100 visits to our /meta-ads landing page. Anry's heatmap for that page on mobile, 17 to 20 October, is empty: no scroll and no tap recorded. A heatmap tool would show you a blank page and stop there. The useful part is knowing which ad paid for those visits, and Anry keeps that next to the page data.

You ask in Claude, Claude Code or Cursor through a remote, read-only MCP: OAuth 2.1, 16 tools, none of which can change data, settings, campaigns or ads (MCP docs).

• Best for: Shopify, WooCommerce and PrestaShop stores with real Meta spend, since that's the traffic Clarity can't put a cost on. Google ads are covered too.
• Price: unlike Clarity, it's paid: one plan billed month to month with every feature included, and a free trial that needs no card (pricing).
• The catch: no surveys or feedback widgets, and it only judges Meta and Google ads, so Microsoft Ads and TikTok spend aren't covered.

2. PostHog: free replays with product analytics around them

PostHog bundles session replay, heatmaps, product analytics, surveys, feature flags and A/B tests. The free tier covers 1M events and 5,000 recordings a month (PostHog pricing). Its marketing analytics, still an opt-in beta, pulls cost, clicks and impressions from Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Bing and Snapchat ads (PostHog docs). It also has an official MCP that is free to connect (PostHog MCP).

• Best for: stores with a developer who wants replays, events and ad cost in one place and is happy to build the reports.
• Price: free up to 5,000 recordings a month, then from $0.005 per recording, falling to $0.0015 at volume. Replays are kept 1 month on free and 3 months on paid (replay pricing).
• The catch: it's built for software teams, so expect setup work. And the MCP isn't read-only: PostHog says it can "read and write across PostHog's products", including flags and experiments.

3. Contentsquare: where Hotjar went

Hotjar sign-ups are closed and new users go to Contentsquare (Contentsquare). If that's why you're here, the Hotjar alternatives post covers the migration. As a Clarity alternative, Contentsquare adds on-site surveys, journey analysis and zone-based heatmaps from Growth.

• Best for: teams that want replays, heatmaps and surveys from one vendor, with a year of history.
• Price: free up to 200k sessions a month with 1 month of data. Growth costs $39 a month billed yearly ($49 monthly), starts at 7k sessions and keeps 13 months of data (pricing).
• The catch: replays are sampled on the lower plans: 5% of sessions captured on Free (max 10k), 15% on Growth. AI access is capped too: 300 MCP tool calls a month on Free, about the same budget as Clarity's 10 a day. Growth gives 36k a year.

4. Heatmap.com: revenue on every element

Heatmap.com is the closest to "what is this page worth". It puts revenue on clicks and scrolls ("revenue attribution per pixel", in its words), and connects to Facebook, Google, TikTok and X ads. Its help article lists what that connection tracks: sessions per campaign, devices, interactions, paths and conversions if configured (Heatmap.com help). Spend isn't on the list.

• Best for: larger stores that want each element of the page scored in revenue.
• Price: Launch $199 a month for stores up to $10M in revenue, Growth $349, Scale $699. Up to 32% off with annual prepay, 14-day trial (pricing).
• The catch: MCP and API access are only on Scale, at $699 a month. Priced on your revenue, so it costs the same whether you get 5,000 sessions or 50,000.

5. Mouseflow: friction, forms and funnels

Mouseflow goes deeper than Clarity on form analytics, funnels and friction scoring. Its Google Ads integration filters recordings by the Google click ID, so you only watch paid visits (Mouseflow). It doesn't mention cost data.

• Best for: stores whose problem is a form or a multi-step flow.
• Price: free for 500 sessions a month (1 month of data). Billed yearly: Essential $25 a month (5,000 sessions, 3 months), Advanced $109 (25,000, 6 months), Premium $319 (100,000, 12 months). Billed monthly they're $39, $149 and $399. 14-day trial with no card (pricing).
• The catch: the MCP needs Premium, and it connects with an API key (Mouseflow MCP).

When Microsoft Clarity is still the better choice

• Your budget is zero. Clarity costs nothing at any traffic level, with no sampling. It records up to 100,000 sessions per project a day (Microsoft Learn), a cap only very large stores will reach.
• You want a big raw replay archive. No paid tool here gives you that many replays for free. Favorite the sessions you want to keep: those last 9 months, the rest go after 30 days.
• Your paid traffic is Google or Microsoft Ads. Clarity's own integrations put CPC and CPA next to the recordings for free.
• Your traffic is mostly organic. If you don't buy clicks, the ad gap doesn't matter.

Whatever you pick, there's little reason to remove Clarity. It doesn't cost anything to keep it running next to a paid tool.

How to choose

• Most spend on Meta: Anry, because Clarity never sees that spend or the orders it did or didn't bring. Anry's replays show what those visitors did.
• A developer on the team and a product to instrument: PostHog. The free tier is generous and the ad cost data is there if you build on it.
• Coming from Hotjar: Contentsquare, if surveys matter to you. Still weighing the two head to head: Hotjar vs Microsoft Clarity.
• Coming from Smartlook: it shuts down in 2027. Our Smartlook alternatives include tools for app teams.
• Over $10M a year and want revenue on the page: Heatmap.com.
• Leaks in forms or checkout steps: Mouseflow.
• You want your agent to do the digging: compare the AI budgets. Clarity allows 10 requests a day over 3 days of data. Contentsquare allows 300 calls a month on Free. Mouseflow and Heatmap.com keep the MCP for their top plans. Anry's 16 read-only tools are on every plan. More on how these servers work in what is an MCP server.

Where Anry fits

Clarity shows what visitors do, and Anry's replays and generated heatmaps show that too. What Anry adds is which ad paid for each visit and what the drop-off cost you in orders, then it passes the fix to your agent. Clarity is free, so some stores keep it running anyway. If you don't run Meta or Google ads, or your problem is a page you can fix by watching ten recordings, Clarity is enough. If traffic arrives but doesn't buy, start with the checks in this guide.

Frequently asked questions

Is Microsoft Clarity really free?

Yes. Microsoft says it's free forever, with no traffic limits and no paid upgrade. The limits that exist are technical: up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project a day, 100,000 page views per heatmap, and replays kept 30 days.

What are the limits of the Microsoft Clarity MCP server?

It uses the Data Export API, which allows 10 requests per project per day. Each request covers the last 1 to 3 days, takes up to 3 dimensions, and returns at most 1,000 rows without pagination. Recordings and heatmaps stay in the Clarity dashboard.

Does Microsoft Clarity work with Meta ads?

Not directly. Clarity integrates with Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. It can group sessions by UTM source and campaign, so you can filter Meta visits, but it doesn't see what the Meta ad cost.

What's the cheapest Microsoft Clarity alternative?

PostHog, Contentsquare and Mouseflow all have free plans: 5,000 recordings, 200k sessions (with sampled replays) and 500 sessions a month respectively. The cheapest paid entry is Mouseflow Essential at $25 a month billed yearly.

How long does Clarity keep recordings?

30 days. Heatmap data, and any session you label or favorite, is kept for 9 months. After that it's deleted and can't be recovered.

Is Microsoft Clarity worth it in 2026?

Yes, as the free base layer for any store. Add a paid tool only for a specific gap: Meta ad data, a dollar figure per leak, surveys, or more room for your AI agent.

Sources

• Clarity FAQ, data retention, Data Export API, conversion maps, Microsoft Learn, checked October 2026
• Clarity MCP server, GitHub, and MCP launch post, Clarity blog
• Clarity Google Ads integration, Clarity blog, and Microsoft Clarity on the Shopify App Store
• PostHog pricing, session replay pricing, marketing analytics and MCP, checked October 2026
• Contentsquare pricing and Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, checked October 2026
• Heatmap.com pricing and ad integrations, checked October 2026
• Mouseflow pricing, Google Ads integration and MCP server, checked October 2026
• Anry pricing and MCP docs