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
Optimal
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Optimal Workshop, a company in New Zealand, offers their suite of user research tools on a subscription basis, including the Treejack information architecture tool, OptimalSort card sorting test, Chalkmark first-click testing, and other tools.
$2,388
per year
Usabilla (discontinued)
Score 5.6 out of 10
N/A
Usabilla was a web and app survey tool, developed by the Amsterdam company of the same name, and acquired by SurveyMonkey in March of 2019. The product is no longer available.
$49
per month
Pricing
Hotjar
Optimal
Usabilla (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
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
Starter
$2388
per year
Enterprise
Custom
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Hotjar
Optimal
Usabilla (discontinued)
Free Trial
Yes
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Discount available for annual pricing.
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Hotjar
Optimal
Usabilla (discontinued)
Considered Multiple Products
Hotjar
Verified User
Manager
Chose Hotjar
Usabilla is a much more feature-rich tool, however, this comes at a cost of much-increased price as well as deployment and usage complexity. For a low-cost solution to quickly and easily collect user feedback, HotJar is very easy to recommend
Optimal Workshop was the best tool that provided just what we needed and not anything more. The price point was also perfect for us as it provided room to try it out and then jump into a bigger package.
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.
Optimal Workshop is great for UX testing for those with a budget to do so. This may be a little on the expensive side for smaller businesses, but definitely not anything crazy expensive. The insights that you get out of these tests are invaluable and can be the difference between launching a site and succeeding/failing.
If we could select 0/10 we would... We would not recommend anyone using this product as it excludes a very important user group, disabled users. If you use this product you will be failing ADA and WCAG 2.1 (EU Directive for public sector websites and mobile apps). In my opinion, you will be vulnerable to lawsuits.
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.
Tree Testing - it is a very simple and easy to use system, that provides the data needed from a tree test
Card sorting - provides a system for users to participate in navigation menu layouts. We looked into several options, but this seemed very intuitive for users.
The recruitment panelists are not professional, nor do they take the tasks seriously. You are going to get a lot of bad data.
They are HQ'd outside the US and must have a small team because the customer service is the absolute WORST I've experienced in their industry.
They pride themselves on documentation, but when they fail to document something they blame the customer for the mistake.
There are way too many limitations with the tool after you launch, limited integrations, and poor survey questionnaire options. The tool itself is far too basic for most sites, especially B2B.
Styling and positioning of the 'Feedback' button could be improved with more options provided. Right now it seems very basic.
Triggered surveys and popups would also benefit for more styling and control over how the survey is presented to users. Sometimes it can be hard to match your brand to the out-of-box options available. I've seen more flexible versions of this in other providers.
Notifications of negative feedback (delivered via email) could be improved. We like to try and take immediate action and the notifications haven't always made this possible. I'd also like to see more notification options added to triggered campaigns and surveys.
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.
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.
I would rate Optimal Workshop's overall usability 9 out of 10 due to several key factors. Firstly, the platform has a user-friendly interface makes navigation straightforward, even for first-time users. The tools and features are well-organized, ensuring users can quickly find what they need without unnecessary complexity. Secondly, the platform is highly intuitive, meaning users can easily understand how to perform tasks without extensive guidance. This is supported by clear and concise instructions throughout the application, reducing the learning curve significantly.
Additionally, the learnability of Optimal Workshop is exceptional. New users can become proficient in a short amount of time, thanks to its well-thought-out design and helpful onboarding materials. Even more advanced features are presented in a way that feels approachable and manageable. Finally, the platform supports a seamless workflow, allowing users to focus on their research or tasks rather than struggling with the software. These qualities collectively make Optimal Workshop a reliable and efficient tool for many projects, justifying its high usability rating.
The interface to configure the questionary is quite easy to use. It helps to give autonomy to marketing teams. Once the initial setup is made (integrating a basic javascript code on your website), you can easily deploy any questionary on any page of your website. Usabilla is a very flexible tool overall.
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.
We’ve never had to use much of their support services since the platform is very easy to use, we have however needed to transfer ownership between team members due to people leaving or other circumstances. Under those situations, the support offered to us has been been very quick and efficient and we never had to nudge them much to get the job done.
If we could select 0/10 we would... If Usabilla were to fix their accessibility issues we would consider keeping our subscription to them, but as it stands this does not seem possible as Usabilla does not seem interested in making the platform accessible.
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.
For the price as it is very convenient for first-time beginners, its intuitiveness both for the one who is designing the activities and for those who have to interact with them. The fact that it collects and gathers the data into insights of the overall responses collected by all users.
I have Hotjar, Sprig, and Usabilla in my workplace. Usabilla unfortunately has the most limited feature set of the 3 options. The difficulty of administering a Usabilla survey on mobile is a big blocker for my projects. Sprig and Hotjar both allow mobile and allow video recordings (either of a user's screen or a user's webcam for impromptu interviews).
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.
