Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Hotjar

Hotjar

Overview

What is Hotjar?

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…

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Hotjar has proven to be extremely valuable in a variety of use cases. Users have found success in utilizing Hotjar to solicit feedback …
Continue reading

10/10 recommend Hotjar

10 out of 10
July 08, 2022
Incentivized
We currently use Hotjar to gather survey information on our acne line for Aloette.com. We are trying to understand who has and hasn't used …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

Hotjar Observe - Plus

$39

Cloud
per month 100 daily sessions

Hotjar Ask - Plus

$59

Cloud
per month 250 monthly responses

Hotjar Ask - Business

$79

Cloud
per month Starting from 500 monthly responses

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.hotjar.com/compare-our-plans

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Return to navigation

Product Details

Hotjar Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Mixpanel, Crazy Egg, and Lucky Orange are common alternatives for Hotjar.

Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.7.

The most common users of Hotjar are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(331)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Hotjar has proven to be extremely valuable in a variety of use cases. Users have found success in utilizing Hotjar to solicit feedback from clients through polls and surveys, allowing them to gain a comprehensive understanding of how design changes affect content consumption. Additionally, marketing services teams have relied on Hotjar's analytics and user behavior insights to review site performance for clients and provide high-level audits during the sales process. The continual user feedback collected by Hotjar has brought immense value to product design and engineering teams, empowering them to make data-driven decisions that improve the overall user experience. Similarly, agencies have leveraged Hotjar's heatmaps and session recordings to track and analyze user behavior on client websites, uncovering valuable insights for optimization initiatives. Growth specialists have also found great value in using Hotjar to analyze user behavior during critical engagements like browsing, lead generation, and checkout. This provides them with invaluable insights into landing page effectiveness and helps identify any technical glitches that may be impacting conversion rates. Furthermore, digital analytics and optimization departments have utilized Hotjar to glean insights for optimization or debugging purposes, enabling them to understand how people react to design or functionality changes in order to drive improvements. Marketing teams have found detailed reports generated by Hotjar particularly useful in identifying user struggles and interactions with different elements on their websites. CRO teams have also benefited from using Hotjar as a way to educate clients about areas of opportunity on their websites. Overall, Hotjar has become an essential tool for tracking visitor behavior, understanding user patterns, identifying areas of improvement, and optimizing website usability and user journeys. Whether it's through heatmaps, scroll maps, video playback, session recordings, or surveys, Hotjar provides users with the data they need to make informed decisions based on real user opinions and behaviors.

Valuable customer insights: Users have found Hotjar to be a valuable tool for gaining quick customer insights. Multiple reviewers mentioned that it provides important data for improving their own software, and some users felt that the product offers a practical way to reveal the online behavior and voice of users.

Effective heat mapping: Hotjar's heat mapping feature was praised by multiple reviewers for its accuracy in representing website traffic and providing accessible data. Some users particularly highlighted its ability to quantify the success of page copy rewrites and identify areas where visitors engage with the content. The visual representations provided by Hotjar's heatmaps were also seen as helpful in understanding user interactions and optimizing website layout.

Useful session recordings: Reviewers have found Hotjar's user session recording feature to be highly useful. Some users described it as a real-life view of users navigating through the website funnel, allowing them to retrace the user journey and identify potential stumbling blocks. The recording features provided by Hotjar were also mentioned as valuable in understanding user behavior, addressing usability issues, and enhancing the overall user experience.

Confusing and Clunky User Interface: Multiple users have expressed frustration with the user interface of Hotjar, describing it as confusing and clunky. They have mentioned that it requires too many clicks to navigate, making it time-consuming and inconvenient to use.

Difficulties in Troubleshooting and Lack of Customer Support: Some users have mentioned difficulties in troubleshooting issues with Hotjar, citing the lack of a direct line for customer support. This absence of immediate assistance can be frustrating for users who encounter problems.

Limited Plan Tiers and Restrictions: Users have found the limited plan tiers of Hotjar to be restrictive, particularly in terms of the number of recordings available. This limitation hinders users who need to gather sufficient data for analysis.

Users of Hotjar have made several recommendations based on their experiences with the product. The three most common recommendations are:

  1. Start with the free version: Many users recommend starting with the free version of Hotjar to track visitor activity on website pages. This allows businesses, especially small businesses or new startups, to gather valuable data on user actions and understand customer behavior and interaction on their website.

  2. Use it as part of a larger data strategy: Hotjar is often recommended as a tool that provides great insights and should be used in conjunction with other software tracking tools for result comparison. Users suggest integrating Hotjar into a larger data strategy and utilizing its features to track user actions and improve marketing plans.

  3. Try before you buy: Several users suggest using the trial version of Hotjar to understand its value and determine if it meets their business and marketing needs. They advise spending more time in Hotjar to improve understanding of users and overall marketing strategy before considering the paid plans.

Overall, users find Hotjar to be an easy-to-use and fully functional tool for understanding website visitors and their behavior. While some caution is advised in drawing unbiased conclusions from the data if there aren't many visits, Hotjar is considered a valuable tool for gathering website analytics and customer feedback.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 81)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 12, 2022

Hotjar Review

Rachel Harrison | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have moved jobs, so that is why I am now using Hotjar. I think that Decibel Insight has more functionality than what Hotjar does, as it allows you to be able to automatically view pages and heatmaps, rather than needing to wait for the data to gather.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Compared to Sprig and Usabilla, Hotjar has robust functionality. Again, as stated earlier, the ability to summarize rage clicks, trigger recordings for a/b experiments, and run intercept surveys on mobile is very useful. Hotjar is also noticeably more intuitive to use than Usabilla, with a cleaner interface and navigation.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The fact that it has a trial period in which you can fully try each feature of the platform. The fact that is very intuitive for us to understand each feedback given by the users and to interpret how they move and what they observe on the pages we need to test.
Alex Richards | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
For us, Hotjar was really simple to implement and the user interface is really easy to use and get accustomed to. Some of the other products we evaluated didn't have as rich features and were way overpriced which made us choose Hotjar. Also, Hotjar allows you to capture user feedback without any additional code being added. You can also add attributes to Hotjar - things like "trialist", "customer" etc to further refine your data.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
There was not something specific negative that we noticed in the other products, hotjar came in the discussion through a referral from one of our colleagues, was covering all the tickboxes that we had set and decided to move forwards with it
Leandro Chaves | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Whatever software does, Hotjar does better. Integration and setup are really fast and you can have data to analyze in a few minutes. Also, the support team is very dedicated and there's a lot of documentation and examples you can follow.
Mohamed Saied | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Hotjar can easily integrate with plenty of analytics and CRO tools. It fits in my tools stack well. It's super easy to set up and also I also like the highlights features on the user recordings as it saves me a lot of time and makes it smoother to share important insights with my team.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have not used any other services and only used Hotjar so I cannot say how this service compares to others in their vertical. I have used Survey Monkey and I have found that their survey templates do not match that of Hotjar's. I also think that the reporting/tracking is more straightforward than that of Survey Monkey. I have recommended Hotjar to many other professionals in my network.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Hotjar was significantly cheaper for us, and they’ve been brilliant at honouring their legacy pricing model which is much cheaper up until recently. We find that Hotjar also offers a wider range of tools that we would otherwise need to pay more for elsewhere like surveys. The ability to add unlimited users is also a massive bonus as insights should not be limited to those that collect the data.
Akhil Gupta | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cmparing with other products in the same vertical, we found the UX UI for Hotjar the best. It is easier to integrate with and has lot many more features as compared to its nearest competitors. We fount the product to be robust and accurate with lot of customizable options to create dashboards and stories which tell user story in a impactful way.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I liked the Hotjar User interface a little more and it seemed a little bit easier to set up. For some users with just the basic needs smart look was overly complicated. whereas in Hotjar everything you need is in one simple easy-to-view dashboard. Also, it offered more free tools/visits and sessions.
July 06, 2022

Hotjar review

Jasper van der Zwaan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I test drove Lucky Orange and decided to keep Hotjar as the UI is easier to use. The competitor had no compelling features vs the ones offered by Hotjar. I also found the standard sound effects in Lucky Orange very overbearing and obnoxious.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Hotjar was relatively more known to the team and they had past experience as well with the tool which made the adoption relatively easier. As such we didn’t find a lot of difference between the two tools when it comes fulfilling our use cases so for us specifically both were good tools to consider.
Markus Kapferer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used different tools but Hotjar combines several functionalities in one tool. So we used and are still using SurveyMonkey for bigger Surveys but it's handy to also have a tool where we can create short single questions surveys. We selected Hotjar because it is a good collection of functionalities that support our CX/CI improvement processes.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Hotjar is the full deal and provides fantastic functionality and options for me to track my users on my website. The other software is good but I personally feel Hotjar is the best for purposes. I know it’s a little pricey, but if you use it right, it will ultimately help you make more money.
Willy Bilaro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Hotjar stacks up on basic feature, ease of use, implementation, and, of course, the cost. Its out-of-the-box solution makes it less painful when implementing bigger solutions like Tealium. While Crazy Egg is pretty much for the smaller scale website, which for that purpose would fit the bill. For a small and medium-size website, Hotjar is a very good tool to start using.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Analytics is a much more robust platform than Hotjar, but works great as a complement to Google Analytics - in other words, it was a matter of choosing both, not either/or. While there are workarounds for them on Google Analytics, heatmaps and screen recordings are much more intuitive on Hotjar.
Carlos Ibarra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Hotjar is better at taking screenshots from landing pages which help us better visualize clicks, scroll and mouse movements. With Hotjar, we can better see what users are doing on our landing pages. This way you'll have a much more accurate picture of how people arrive at clicking through and scrolling to get where they need be!
Camilo Honorato | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The thing is I never used another tool like Hotjar before
All my website analysis I made with Google Products before (Analytics, Tag Manager, Data Studio, etc..)
But Hotjar really helps a lot to understand what my website means to my potential customers and even more, It allows me to watch their journey through our website
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I just find Hotjar to be simpler, cleaner, easier, and more flexible. Lucky Orange was a tool that another client of my had installed and, while it 'worked' and did similar things, I found that Hotjar was simpler. I don't know if there are cost differences between the two (I never paid for Lucky Orange).
Return to navigation