Act-On Software vs. Hotjar

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Act-On
Score 8.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.
$900
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Hotjar
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Hotjar is a conversion rate optimization tool for digital marketers. Features include heatmapping, visual session recording, conversion funnel analytics, form analytics, feedback polls and surveys, and usability testing. The tool is used by digital analysts, UX designers, web developers and product marketers. Hotjar was acquired by Contentsquare September 2021, and is now a Contentsquare brand.
$39
per month 100 daily sessions
Pricing
Act-On SoftwareHotjar
Editions & Modules
Professional
$900
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Enterprise
$2,000
per month ( starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Hotjar Observe - Plus
$39
per month 100 daily sessions
Hotjar Ask - Plus
$59
per month 250 monthly responses
Hotjar Ask - Business
$79
per month Starting from 500 monthly responses
Hotjar Observe - Business
$99
per month Starting from 500 daily sessions
Hotjar Scale - Business
$213
per month Starting from 500 daily sessions
Hotjar Ask - Scale
Contact Sales
per month unlimited volume
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act-OnHotjar
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Professional package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 3 marketing users, 50 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. The Enterprise package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 6 marketing users, 100 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. Annual contract required.Discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Act-On SoftwareHotjar
Considered Both Products
Act-On
Chose Act-On Software
I consider that Act-On [Software] has been extremely useful to strengthen the whole automation mechanism; the support of the reports helps a lot; it is simple and adapts to the objectives.
Hotjar

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Act-On SoftwareHotjar
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.8
113 Ratings
0% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor8.1112 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic content8.192 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.292 Ratings00 Ratings
Landing pages8.1108 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing8.195 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization7.2103 Ratings00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.1112 Ratings00 Ratings
List management8.1111 Ratings00 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences7.187 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.1
113 Ratings
5% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation8.1104 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.1104 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management8.1102 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks8.195 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.5
77 Ratings
2% below category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Calendaring6.88 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing8.176 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.1
71 Ratings
8% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns8.169 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration8.163 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.1
114 Ratings
8% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Dashboards8.1109 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports8.1112 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports8.184 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.9
107 Ratings
4% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
API8.167 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals8.171 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability8.189 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com8.165 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM8.136 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM7.129 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Act-On SoftwareHotjar
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.5 out of 10
Smartlook
Smartlook
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Act-On SoftwareHotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(219 ratings)
8.7
(101 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(112 ratings)
5.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(32 ratings)
9.7
(6 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(39 ratings)
9.6
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.3
(16 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(22 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Act-On SoftwareHotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
Act-On
Act-On simplifies the creation of landing pages, web forms, email campaigns, and other types of marketing automation. Designing a customer journey using the workflow builder (a nurturing flow) is possible. It is used in various ways and in a variety of contexts. Tactical's knowledgeable support team helped us unlock Act-On's potential for complex integrations and marketing campaigns. In some areas, it would be beneficial to improve functionality.
Read full review
Contentsquare
Hotjar is good for a first pass at understanding user sentiment or locating potential usability issues. There are features such as "rage clicked" which shows recordings or instances when a user rage clicked or had an issue with your site. Hotjar has also been helpful to launch intercept surveys on mobile, desktop, and app, which not all competitor software allow. Hotjar recordings are fun to watch. "Watching Hotjar like Netflix" is a favorite pastime at work.
Read full review
Pros
Act-On
  • Establishes a simple but very decisive way of how to perform specialized marketing work.
  • It includes the monitoring of advertising networks or account management on digital platforms and social networks.
  • The support is solid; it takes all the suggestions and doubts I have regarding the software.
Read full review
Contentsquare
  • Heat mapping is great on Hotjar. It is a good place to start when you are looking at the UX & CRO on your website. You can see the % of people clicking on elements on a page, how far they scroll, and mouse movements.
  • Hotjar is great for session recordings. These record the mouse movements, clicks, pages and scrolls of a user in video format. You can watch these to investigate what works well on a site and identify potential roadblocks and bugs.
  • Hotjar is great as it ensures that users details are anonymous; for instance, if you are watching a session recording, you cannot see what a user types in a form field, as Hotjar blanks this out.
  • Hotjar has a poll function, so you can have polls on your website.
Read full review
Cons
Act-On
  • The designer tools, especially for emails, were often difficult to use. The formatting of the text would be all over the place and change / refuse to change at random. Moving boxes around was shifty and sometimes nearly impossible. It just wasn't customizeable enough. No "undo" functionality either.
  • The only way to collect information expansively over time (there's a term Act-On uses for it, I can't recall) where it adds questions to the form each time a user fills it out, is if the person were to fill out the same form multiple times. I know this does happen for some websites/resources, but as a company that wanted to collect new information each time someone filled out any form, regardless of the resource or the URL, that was simply not an option, and that doesn't really make a lot of sense. I know it's not really possible to track someone but if they filled out the first part of the form and then it added new questions to answer, and then they submitted and got through the gating, that would actually be helpful.
  • There was no "trash can" of sorts in case you deleted something by mistake. This could be so stress-inducing if it was a major project. My coworker did this once, contacted Act-On, they couldn't even recover it.
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Contentsquare
  • Hotjar is primarily used for web-based experiences. Not that easy to use on mobile apps.
  • I'd love to see Hotjar integrated with Google Analytics for an even deeper view.
  • Hotjar is primarily used by smaller organizations...pricing can get steep quickly for larger organizations.
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Likelihood to Renew
Act-On
It's my single biggest asset in my current role. With limited resources, its enabled Anachron to punch well above our weight marketing wise and although we're still at the beginning of our journey I know the system can scale with us
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Contentsquare
Even though the heat maps and user recordings were useful, our website was significantly slowed down after we installed Hotjar, so much so, that it took over a minute for our blog to load. The data that we gathered was not worth the length that it took our website to load.
Read full review
Usability
Act-On
It's good, but not quite brilliant. Some parts of the interface are still a bit outdated. The product has been evolving very fast, though, and I believe in a few months it will be up there with the best of them, interface wise as well.
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Contentsquare
So easy and simple to use! Straightforward anyone in the team is able to easily go in and set up anything in Hotjar. The UI is really simple. Whenever you give feedback to Hotjar they continously take on board the feedback and improve the tool.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Act-On
I have always found them quick to respond to my query by web inquiry. In those instances when I call, I have always reached help quickly. They are conscientious and skilled in discussing my concern and finding a solution to my problem. Other tech organizations should use Act-On as a model for top-notch customer service.
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Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Performance
Act-On
Great for the most part. Sometimes there are little lags, but that's likely because I'm requesting to see a lot of data at one time.
Read full review
Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Act-On
Since we start using Act-on for ourselves and our clients, we have been supported very well. Often we need to integrate with legacy systems and we find the support team on our side during the whole endeavor. Always asking if they can help us further, always willing to do a better job. The support of Act-On is one of the main differentiators
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Contentsquare
Hotjar is a SaaS-based company, and as such has a good support service. Users can quickly submit support tickets through Hotjar's online portal. Enterprise customers get access to additional support members and have SLAs to support their larger, more complex needs. Overall, Hotjar is extremely reliable and I've never had to reach out to customer support.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Act-On
Dan D. was great. He took the time to understand how I needed the program to run, and was very flexible to our special CRM setup.
Read full review
Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Act-On
Act-On had a lot of resources, and their staff was great at answering any questions I had to make sure we got started on the right foot. Looking back, I would have preferred some additional training sessions since we didn't have any previous experience with Marketing Automation and best practices.
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Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Act-On
What impressed me most is that Act-On showed full committment in making our implementation successful, even when it required additional support from their team. This gave me a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings. Most other software software vendors are not anywhere close to being this responsive and effective
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Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Act-On
Act-On is easier to use than Marketo, but not as visually appealing and user-friendly as HubSpot. It's much better than Pardot, as Pardot feel clunky every step of the way. SharpSpring is comparable because of its price point but surpasses Act-On in its tools and intuitive interface. We selected Act-On because of the pricing model and thought all things would be close to parity with other options. It depends on the team you have. If you have developers and a marketing team that knows some html/css, you can get by with Act-On.
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Contentsquare
HotJar was selected for a few reasons:
  • Video Capture - HotJars video capture of user sessions is nothing short of amazing. It is so useful (not to mention cool) to see, in real time, how users interact with our software. It makes our jobs so much easier and more enjoyable to get this type of d
  • User Surveys - The ease and flexibility of surveys we can make available on our website are an awesome tool to get additional data.
  • Simple implementation - Adding a very small amount of code to our website gives us the ability to use all of HotJars features without having to touch our code again.
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Scalability
Act-On
Before I feel like I need more features, the Act-On customer service reps are contacting me telling about new features as part of my account.
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Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Act-On
  • With the Automated Series, we were able to put in place campaigns that generated revenue that took no time to continue running once set up. This was a positive feature allowing employees to work on another project while the campaign ran on their own.
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Contentsquare
  • We have fixed many issues, for example, checkout usability problems with the video recording feature. You can catch bugs and get an overall idea of how a particular page is working.
  • Polls have helped us pair intent with the video sessions, so we can understand better why certain users answered different things. You get greedy and try to ask everything but that won't work. Keep it simple and it will give you small but important insights.
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ScreenShots

Act-On Screenshots

Screenshot of List Segmentation - Segmentation using behavioral, demographic and/or firmographic dataScreenshot of the Quickstart PageScreenshot of Landing Page Composer - landing pages are designed with a drag and drop function